Black Is King

WARNING: lengthy post

I felt so many emotions watching this, I took notes. I thought the negative comments were from non-black conservative trolls until I decided to watch it for myself. I was excited. At first. Then I felt embarrassed. It was as if Beyonce became indignant because The Lion King received mixed reviews that she decided to take matters into her own hands, only to deliver another "Carmen" or "Obsessed" aka an effort that no one really wants to see again. Ever. When it comes to movie-making SPECIFICALLY, this one makes no sense. Some of the music videos do not correlate with the spoken word. It loosely follows The Lion King and branches off into a poetry-laced jungle haunted with mysticism. The rosy words are overly self-indulgent to the point it made me feel like melted ice cream. There were many lines about how black skin is made from the stars and how our fluffy hair is strands of wisdom, blah blah blah. It was alot of beautiful gibberish that is meant to uplift insecure women of color. In the process, the movie neglects many things. For one thing, what about light skinned women? The song "brown-skinned Girls" excludes women who are biracial (black+white) or multiracial/black like Beyonce, who prides herself in not only being black but Creole. When it comes to the "BLACK" part of Black is King...are we only talking about brown skinned to deep-brown-skinned africans and african americans?

The other thing is, this film does not represent Blackness well at all. In many scenes, there's a lot of stunting going on, flashing riches, sass and beauty.

That's not blackness. Even more heart-breaking, the part that REALLY mattered, the part about taking care of your family and working hard, is mentioned briefly by some unknown speaker. Once that's over, it's back to rolling hips and dramatic outfits... Which brings me to my next point...

Beyonce's power is her beauty. She should model often because she is incredibly beautiful, however have you noticed the only reason why people love the film is because it is aesthetically beautiful? That's about it. When it comes to choreography or story-telling etc, Black is King lacks majorly. It kind of became a fest of rolling hips and sultry gazes and synchronized flowy movements but that's nothing original nor inspiring. To be fair, it was an honest effort and better than anything I could ever do. And what was up with the whole River Baby/Moses situation?

The dangerous parts about this movie are the spiritual or religious and supremacist beliefs that seem to be promoted throughout. Speakers whisper words such as "I am the creator of all things" and exalt blackness to a royal and even celestial level. "I know I am a god," "Blackness should be equated with glory." Why though? Black is beautiful indeed, but no amount of "research" could ever make me feel above others (white servant included--seen in the music segment "Mood.") or that I am a god myself--complete with a "mother Mary" like painting of myself (major side-eye...). That is dangerous ideology. Royalty is not determined by skin color, Divinity is beyond humanity, and racism does not always or usually stem from jealousy or intimidation. This just screams "REVENGE!!!" I am not empowered by this movie, I feel like apologizing for this movie. I will give another warning, though, and that is to beware: Jesus isn't white, but black isn't god either....

Now I'm closing. Watch this movie and be wowed by the outfits and beauty. That should be celebrated. But when it comes to great story telling, black excellence, black royalty, black heroism, black love, overcoming tribalism, racism,war...

Just watch Black Panther, bruh...

Its just one giant musci video, and not the good kind. the one that just has a few shots of the characters singing, and some eyecandy in between. and the music doesnt drive a distinct narrative, so the it all feels directionless. it tries to mask itself with the lion king, but fails dreadfully. it just uses snipets of the movie in between songs, and tries to the the songs after each snippet. but the songs end up not driving the story further, thus each snippit with each song comes off as disjointed.

2/10: just listen to the music, you dont need these visuals

You can always tell when a project touches on race or politics when you see lots of both 1/10 or 10/10 reviews, it's better than 1 but way short of a 10. It dragged on, visually impressive but thats just not enough

I come from a country where we actually do have a thing such as a king and a queen, where royalty is viewed as something extremely special and representing of *our* culture and history. For that reason, and what the title of this 1 hour and half long "artsy" music video implies (that a race in and of itself can be linked to something superior), I am indeed offended by this choice. I think it's disrespectful to the meaning of my culture and several others, and a hypocritical nonsensical message, and as you've noticed by now, adds nothing but division after there are so many of us from every race supporting the whole Black Lives Matter movement with passion, and will strive to continue to do so. To remove all the humanity and make it about being supreme and "royal" is beyond me.

Of course, I think it's great to strengthen the bonds and the history and the culture and roots of people of color, especially with someone high profile like Beyoncé doing it thereby having everybody seeing it. But this is simply not it. There is nothing educational, barely anything artistic except for extremely glamourous shots and vibing music that ends up just being the background, as does the actual Lion King aspect which fades out quickly.

To the ones who keep defending Black Is King by saying that it's *Beyonce*, the "film" has no ill intentions, and we all don't have a right to feel offended or disrespected here (funny how that goes), you don't even have to watch the movie to get it. Just go straight to the trailer and they literally have the *only* noticeably white (male) in the whole thing stand as a servant in the background to a table full of fancy-dressed women of colour having a party. People have tried to furiously defend this but, quit beating around the bush. It's obvious that it's not there by coincidence, it's obvious that it's supposed to be some reversed sh* of what black people went through back when they were forced to be slaves and back when they weren't allowed bigger roles in films and tv and had to represent something like that there. But with its message in today's society, 2020 folks, reversed racism (well, racism), *really*? It's not alright. Not for the movement, not for the people, not for the cultures.

I actually happen to be a big fan of Beyoncé's music and art style (well, the previous), having loved and supported her since I was a kid when I first heard her, so to see her put out something like this... I can't even describe what I feel but it's such a letdown she would go this route.

She could've saved it all focussing on the beauty of the actual African culture and the roots and what it looks like in different places in Africa today, all the different people there, and cut that nonsense offensive title, maybe boost up her music so it doesn't feel like background as much and boost up the Lion King story, and it would've been so good. But that didn't happen.

It's like she finally took all the praise about her being a goddess with beauty and music out-of-this-world to her head and dropped it in one "film" and decided to promote it as African culture supporting all the people of color out there, giving their race a title of royalty and add in a few vain messages about strength and beauty and empowerment and that's it.

Beyoncé's status does not make her free from criticism, and this time she messed up. She deserves to know that and acknowledge she's really forced this whole movement two steps backwards in terms of adding to the discussion, and a lot of supporters of her and of the movement and in different cultures feel offended by what she put out. Please don't just hold her to another standard and let all the people offended by this slide by while you are trying to tell us none of what we think and feel is legit to this situation. We don't move forward by moving backwards.

EDIT/note: After making this review and gaining the huge likes/dislikes, someone has gone out of their way to dislike *all* my other reviews (50+). I know that for a fact since there are so many of them and several of them are just years old with previously 0 votes or some that has seen no votes for a while and are about lesser known pieces, etc.. To see this is unbelievable. I've also come across threads on Twitter dedicated to hanging out reviewers on this site, where you can actually see the usernames, speaking hateful about what is initially someone's bare experience and opinions on this film and what's surrounding it, and suggesting ways to downvote and change the rating etc. Is this the level of mob mentality and hatefulness we have gone to? As a reviewer on this site, too, I have no way of speaking back either to claim respect or do anything about it. Had to share this since it has gotten way too personal, not just for me, and you should never get consequences like this for speaking up your view and experience. I respect every single dislike and every single like on this review but I have to ask for you to be fair. That's all. Wishing good out there, and please ignore this segment while determining whether to like/dislike the actual review I have here. Thank you.

85 minutes of the most visually arresting, mind-blowingly opulent and strikingly powerful visuals ever put to film. It's truly that good.