Beyoncé’s "Homecoming" and the power of Black women filmmakers

Given that Beyoncé is one of the most multitalented entertainers of this century, it was perhaps only a matter of time before “filmmaker” would be added to her long list of achievements. In Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé (Netflix), Beyoncé was able to exercise creative control as writer, director, and executive producer to create a film that beautifully weaves together the various aspects of her multi-dimensional life and resists the unidimensional roles and expectations that are often placed on Black women in the media.

Beyoncé’s highly acclaimed Netflix concert film centers on her performance at the 2018 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, in which she was the first Black woman headliner. In Homecoming, Beyoncé makes it clear that her goal is to resist the dominant cultural expectations about what it means to headline this hugely popular, if controversial, music festival. She explains: “When I decided to do Coachella, instead of me pulling out my flower crown, it was more important that I brought our culture to Coachella.” Many reviews of the film understandably center on the ways that Beyoncé’s film highlights the cultural significance of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

However, I contend that her focus on HBCUs is just one (admittedly important) piece of the larger puzzle of the film’s narrative. Although Beyoncé drew inspiration from HBCUs for her Coachella performance, when she had the opportunity to make a film about that performance and tell her story in a more comprehensive way, she brought herself and more specifically, her identity as a Black woman, to the narrative.

The choice to place Black womanhood at the center of Homecoming is a powerful form of social resistance. As I argue in my book Contemporary Black Women Filmmakers and the Art of Resistance, Black women filmmakers resist dominant ideologies by drawing from their personal experiences in order to create new symbolic meanings of Black womanhood. Using a Black feminist lens, I detail the ways that contemporary Black women filmmakers “use film as a creative form of expression to reconstruct meaning and disrupt the unidimensional images that attempt to control their experiences and opportunities.” To apply the words of bell hooks, they resist their objectification by “identifying themselves as subjects, by defining their reality, shaping their new identity, naming their history, telling their story.” 

While one writer describes Homecoming as being “as much a celebration of African American scholarly history as it is a concert film,” it is clear that the film is a celebration of African American women scholars, as well as artists and activists — Toni Morrison, Nina Simone, Alice Walker, Marian Wright Edelman, Audre Lorde, and Maya Angelou, to be specific. “Why am I so insistent upon giving out to them that Blackness?” we hear a voiceover of Nina Simone ask. “To me we are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world. Black people. My job is to somehow make them curious enough, or persuade them by hook or crook to get more aware of themselves. … This is what compels me to compel them.” By including this statement, Beyoncé pays homage to Simone as a Black woman singer, songwriter, and activist who paved the way for other Black women like her, and Beyoncé draws a parallel with her own desire to resist that which gets in the way of recognizing the beauty of Blackness. 

“As a Black woman, I used to feel like the world wanted me to stay in my little box,” says Beyoncé in a voiceover. Homecoming may have stemmed from a concert performance, but true to the Black feminist perspective, the film is an act of self-definition for Beyoncé. The multi-dimensionality of her identity is what drives the narrative of the film — and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter is much more than a powerful performer. Her roles as mother and wife are central to the film, and she makes no attempt to downplay the value she places on each of these roles (as indicated by her choice to use her full married name, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, in the credits). Importantly, she highlights, in the film, the challenges that come with “trying to figure out how to balance being the mother of a six-year-old and twins that need me and giving myself creatively, and physically.”

The images that we see of Beyoncé in early rehearsal footage contrast sharply with the polished performance and the form-fitting cut-off shorts the audience sees on her during the Coachella concert. In rehearsal footage, we see Beyoncé wearing baggy sweatpants and T-shirts as she expresses concern that she does not feel like herself after giving birth to her twins and worry that she may never reach her pre-pregnancy level of strength and endurance. We hear her describing the rehearsal process as one that included taking breaks to breastfeed her newborn babies and moments when her mind was focused on her children, rather than on rehearsals. We see images of her daughter and husband watching her rehearse, as reminders that they are a valuable part of how she defines herself. By the end of a chronological montage of rehearsals, we hear that she has gone through a process of re-self-definition: “I feel like I’m just a new woman, in a new chapter of my life, and I’m not even trying to be who I was. It’s just so beautiful that children do that to you.” By insisting on showing the complexity of her identity as an entertainer, mother, and wife, her film illustrates how she is resisting the “little box” in which others have tried to place her and other Black women.

Homecoming represents Beyoncé’s most compelling opportunity to do what many Black feminists have done before her — to tell her story from her point of view. To share what matters to her. And through it all, to highlight the beauty of Blackness. What comes across in the film, beyond her unparalleled talent and work ethic, is her love of Blackness — from the opening credits to the scenes of the Coachella performance and the footage of her family and rehearsals. In a voiceover Beyoncé praises the group of young Black women (and men) that performed with her at Coachella: “The things that these young people can do…It’s just not right. It’s just so much damn swag. It’s just gorgeous and it makes me proud.” In addition to being a critical and artistic achievement, Beyoncé’s film resists dominant ideologies — instead of conforming to narrow cultural expectations of Black womanhood, her film represents everything that makes her proud to be a Black woman.