Popular Music and Society

ISSN: 0300-7766 (Print) 1740-1712 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpms20

Empowered or Objectified? Personal Narrative and

Audiovisual Aesthetics in Beyoncé’s Partition

Kai Arne Hansen

To cite this article: Kai Arne Hansen (2015): Empowered or Objectified? Personal Narrative
and Audiovisual Aesthetics in Beyoncé’s Partition, Popular Music and Society, DOI:
10.1080/03007766.2015.1104906

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2015.1104906

Published online: 27 Nov 2015.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 87

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rpms20

Download by: [Middlesex University] Date: 23 December 2015, At: 13:20

 Popular Music and Society, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2015.1104906

Empowered or Objectified? Personal Narrative and

Audiovisual Aesthetics in Beyoncé’s Partition
Kai Arne Hansen

ABSTRACT
This article examines the feminist argument that Beyoncé presents
through her personal narrative in relation to the audiovisual aesthetics
of the music video Partition (2013), which arguably objectifies the
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

female in accordance with normalized perceptions of gender and

sexuality. The video is characterized by striptease aesthetics and
hyperembodied display, firmly grounded within the tradition of
contemporary pop videos that stylize the body both visually and
sonically through gloss and excess. Situated within the field of popular
musicology, I approach my study through a model of audiovisual
analysis. With a primary focus on the strategies of production that
fetishize the body through manipulation, I provide a close reading
of this video by elucidating gender politics within a mainstream pop
context. I conclude that the performative power of Beyoncé’s erotic
display is contingent upon both the dissemination of her persona in
terms of agency and the fetishizing aspects of audiovisual production.

Introduction

I see a part of Beyoncé that is, in fact, anti-feminist.…That is a terrorist. (bell hooks)
In late June 2014, Forbes released its annual list of the 100 most powerful celebrities in
the world and placed Beyoncé at the top, as the most powerful among her contemporaries.
This list came out roughly a month after renowned feminist and social activist bell hooks
labeled Beyoncé anti-feminist during a panel debate at New York’s New School, registering
her concern over the artist’s visual imagery and its impact on young girls.1 Reflecting how
Beyoncé actually measures up as an enduring icon at this point in time, we are prompted
by the juxtaposition of these two events to consider the complex negotiations entailed in
framing identity within a mainstream pop context, where notions of agency and the politics
of desire are intrinsic to the ways in which audiences experience and evaluate pop artists. It
is from this perspective that I set out to theorize the eroticized body within a musicological
critique.
This article primarily discusses gender politics, and I take up the ways in which Beyoncé’s
dissemination of agency promotes an engagement with feminism and gender equality as
part of her self-representation. Like hooks, I see a discrepancy between Beyoncé’s

CONTACT  Kai Arne Hansen  k.a.hansen@imv.uio.no 

© 2015 Taylor & Francis
 2    K. A. Hansen

self-presentation as a feminist and her employment of audiovisual aesthetics that objec-

tify the female pop artist according to normative expectations of gender and sexuality.
Prompted to consider the strategies of music video production that fetishize and stylize
her body audiovisually, I employ a model of audiovisual analysis to investigate Beyoncé’s
representation in the music video Partition (2013) alongside the simultaneously released
YouTube mini-documentary Self-Titled.
Seeking to illuminate how Beyoncé navigates and negotiates articulations of gendered
identity and sexuality performatively, I map audiovisual aesthetics against the technolo-
gies of pop texts,2 which contribute to staging the gendered body through processes of
production. I identify Beyoncé’s perceived capacity for independent action and free choice
as vital to fueling her erotic display, which should be considered in relation to how her
self-presentation across a variety of platforms exhibits her as a modern-day feminist and
present the notion that she is entirely in control of her music, image, and career. Initially,
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

then, I address the ways in which this notion is supported by the personal narratives that
encompass and synchronize Beyoncé’s personal and professional lives.

Personal Narrative
With no prior promotion or announcement, BEYONCÉ was released on 13 December 2013.
Marketed as a “visual album,” it consists of 14 songs with 17 accompanying videos. The
unconventional release of the album can be viewed in relation to the representational strate-
gies that market pop artists in terms of agency (in the sense that Beyoncé’s perceived agency
and artistic autonomy are highlighted by her decision to break with industry conventions),
and I enter my discussion of agency and pop representation through a conceptualization
of personal narrative. My approach in this regard draws upon the musicological studies of
Stan Hawkins and John Richardson, who relate the personal narrative to ways in which
negotiations between the past and the present impact the construction of identity (607). I
share their theoretical premise that, by presenting certain aspects of personal biographies
as significant while bypassing others, pop artists guide audiences in making sense of past
events, while also providing points of reference that will inform interpretations of future
actions (607). From this perspective, personal narratives form the backdrop for any pop
performance, and this concerns how we read pop texts in accordance with our own per-
ceptions of and attitudes toward the artist.
Given that personal narratives are performative,3 they “pertain not only to what we
tell but to how we tell and act” (Hawkins and Richardson 607, emphasis in original), and
their ubiquity over a variety of platforms (pop videos, songs, interviews, documentary
material, photographs) contributes to bridging the gap between the artist as a real person
and the characters he/she plays in songs or videos. This contention resonates with Philip
Auslander’s exploration of the ways in which aspects of identity are disseminated through
performance, where he draws on Simon Frith (Performing Rites) to describe three levels of
personification: person (the performer as human being), persona (the performer as social
being), and character (the characters that performers play in accordance with the lyrics
of a song) (Auslander 305). Auslander asserts that “the audience generally infers what
performers are like as real people from their performance persona and the characters they
portray” (306). I would further emphasize that artists’ personae are partly constituted by
 Popular Music and Society   3

the personal narratives that meticulously manage the presentation of particular aspects of
identity and biography across platforms.
In the case of Beyoncé, notions of her private self operate as integral to a representational
strategy that crafts her persona through a continuous (re-)negotiation of the supposed
synchronization of the artist’s private and public lives. Beyoncé’s self-presentation revolves
around the notion of her being in control of her artistic output. This is firmly grounded in a
personal narrative that is revealed through documentary material.4 Beyoncé’s self-directed
and self-produced documentary Life Is But a Dream (2013), marketed as “a film by Beyoncé,”
was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the weeks prior to the arrival of BEYONCÉ. This
documentary plays like a visual autobiography, consisting of professional footage as well as
videos from Beyoncé’s laptop camera, with Beyoncé herself narrating this glimpse into her
private life. Picking up where Life Is But a Dream left off, BEYONCÉ offers another example
of the commodification of the artist as a private self, accentuated by slivers of biography that
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

are revealed throughout her songs and videos: images from Beyoncé’s childhood and youth
are employed in several videos, lyrics reference her family and personal life experiences,
and both her husband and daughter appear in visuals of videos and are featured in songs.
Coinciding with the release of the visual album, part 1 of the YouTube mini-documentary
Self-Titled appeared on Beyoncé’s official YouTube channel. This five-part mini-documentary
offers a behind-the-scenes look at the processes leading up to the release of the album and
features Beyoncé and several other contributors reflecting on these processes. The narratives
presented in Life Is But a Dream and Self-Titled provide a framework for perceiving Beyoncé
as responsible for key artistic decisions,5 and contribute to highlighting the notion of her
ascent to the role of auteur.6 In the opening narrative of part 1 of Self-Titled, Beyoncé muses
over the reasons for wanting to make a visual album:
I see music. It’s more than just what I hear. When I’m connected to something, I immediately
see a visual, or a series of images that are tied to a feeling or an emotion, a memory from my
childhood, thoughts about life, my dreams, or my fantasies. And they’re all connected to the
music. And I think it’s one of the reasons why I wanted to do a visual album. I wanted people
to hear the songs with the story that’s in my head, ’cause it’s what makes it mine. That vision
in my brain is what I wanted people to experience [for] the first time.
Quite aptly, the above account describes Beyoncé’s concerted effort to share with audiences
“the vision in her brain,” powering the idea of her as visionary auteur and building upon
an almost mythic account of how she can see music. This seeing of music is presented as
inextricably connected to Beyoncé’s biography, and she ties the images she sees to childhood
memories or personal thoughts and dreams. The biographical trajectories of pop artists are
frequently employed as aspects of representational strategies, a point that is exemplified by
the way in which BEYONCÉ is littered with references to biographical material that high-
lights her maturation as a pop artist. Over the course of its five parts, Self-Titled paints a
picture of Beyoncé as auteur through both her own and others’ descriptions of the project,
and Beyoncé’s reflections in particular construct a binary relationship with her early days
as a performer and how she sees herself now.
Hawkins and Richardson identify a similar biographical trajectory from teen star to
would-be auteur in Britney Spears, tracing her genealogy back to Madonna (608). As a
representational strategy, pop artists’ attributes of agency are related to identification and
negotiation, in the sense that audiences’ tastes, values, and preferences change over time,
which makes it necessary for the pop artist to “undergo visible and audible transformations
 4    K. A. Hansen

in order to fend off disaffection and optimize the demographic profile of her fan base”
(Hawkins and Richardson 608). In part 5 of Self-Titled, “Honesty,” Beyoncé notes that she
used to feel stifled by a sense of responsibility toward her fans, whereas she now feels that,
“at this point, I have earned the right to be me and to express any and every side of myself.”
I would argue that such a filtering in of biographical content over a variety of platforms is
part and parcel of managing the glimpses of a private self that, in its presentation, comes
across as creative, passionate, and authoritative. Thus, the personal narrative presented
through the mini-documentary successfully conveys the synchronization of her personal
and professional lives, strategically exposing how the former feeds into the latter.
Mapping BEYONCÉ against Self-Titled, I identify an overarching narrative that engages
with gender equality and female empowerment as part of Beyoncé’s persona both on and
off stage. This narrative ties into earlier performances by the artist7 and further resonates
with her personal engagement with gender equality, as exemplified in a 2013 interview with
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

British Vogue in which Beyoncé describes herself as a modern-day feminist (see Ellison).
Similarly, in January 2014, Beyoncé wrote an essay for the Shriver Report titled “Gender
Equality Is a Myth!” where she argues that gender equality “isn’t a reality yet” (Knowles).
Her engagement with feminism is demonstrated in BEYONCÉ by several songs and videos.8
Beyoncé’s alignment with notions of female empowerment and self-construction as
autonomous must be seen as largely successful: the idolizing tendencies of her fans and
the media alike have become a cultural phenomenon in their own right, to the extent that
they have been parodied in comedy shows.9 This alignment also merits critical reflection.
Beyoncé’s personal narrative impinges upon Partition in several ways, not least in provid-
ing a backdrop for the ways in which the gendered body is staged and eroticized through
the fetishization of music and visuals. Aiming to excavate what is at stake in juxtaposing
notions of female empowerment with pop video aesthetics that objectify the female pop
star and pander to the gazes10 of a mainstream audience, the following close reading of the
Partition video interrogates audiovisual aesthetics, vocality, and bodily display in relation
to gender politics.

Partition (2013), Audiovisual Aesthetics, and Excess

“Partition” is written by Beyoncé Knowles, Terius Nash, Justin Timberlake, Timbaland,
J-roc, Dwayne Weir, Charisse Hill, and Mike Dean. The audio track consists of two parts,
“Yoncé” and “Partition,” each of which was afforded a separate video. For the purposes
of this article, I intend to focus on the second part of the audio track, which more or less
correlates with the Partition video.11
Stylistically, the song is grounded in a raunchy hip-hop/pop hybrid. It features a standard
formal structure consisting of an introduction, verse 1, chorus 1, verse 2, chorus 2, bridge,
and chorus 3, though the form is somewhat blurred by the repetition of central musical
themes, sparse harmonic development, and the way in which certain themes overlap and
extend across parts. The main instrumental motif is introduced immediately by the bassline
that kicks off the song, grounded firmly in the tonic E minor. The introduction, verses, and
bridge all revolve around the motif of the bassline, and the same can be said of the second
part of the choruses. The melody of the bassline is doubled in the verses by vocals and layers
of synthesizers, and the syncopated rhythmic motif of the bassline drives the song forward
throughout, only briefly suspended in some parts of the second and third choruses.
 Popular Music and Society   5

Having worked with Beyoncé on several occasions, perhaps most prominently on the
video for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” (2008), director Jake Nava collaborated on
BEYONCÉ on three videos, including Partition. The initial frames of this video portray an
extravagant countryside estate, as the camera moves through the hallways of a mansion to
settle upon Beyoncé seated at the breakfast table. This comprises the stage for what, based
on the visuals, appears to be a daydream scenario, in which Beyoncé’s character indulges
in an alluring fantasy involving a multitude of gendered and sexualized displays. In this
sense the video clearly positions itself within a longstanding tradition of pop videos that
forfeit a strong narrative for a fragmented display of sexy imagery, where the showcasing
of the star is central to the pop video appeal. This relates to the pleasure aspects of video
viewing, and how pop artists are commonly regarded in terms of desire and identification.
On this matter, Hawkins builds on the work of media scholar John Fiske to discuss,
musicologically, fantasy as a crucial ingredient of enjoyment in pop music. Hawkins links
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

production techniques and technological modes of expression with the erotics of gendered
performance to locate in Madonna’s songs and videos a “narcissistic masquerading which
exhibits a performativity that is both excessive and oppositional” (“On Performativity”
180–81). While female representations in mainstream pop are generally held to accom-
modate heteronormative modes of desire, I concur with Hawkins when he emphasizes
that pop representations can be simultaneously obedient and transgressive in relation to
normative expectations of gender and sexuality. This, as Fiske also maintains in Reading
the Popular, is actually about the conflict between different meanings of femininity that
generates pleasure and “opens up gaps in patriarchal hegemony for resistant feminine read-
ings” (118). Thus, the performative aspects of pop representations entail that the star can be
showcased according to a multitude of signifiers that relate to notions of gendered identity
and sexuality in a wide variety of ways.
One of the features that characterizes Partition visually is the manner in which the cam-
era shifts restlessly among a multitude of versions of the desirable pop star, with the main
emphasis falling on the gestures and mannerisms of the body that establish the female pop
star as an object of desire. On this point, Hawkins argues that “the analysis of performance
in music videos relies on recognizing the visual representation of gender as part and parcel
of entertainment, because in the majority of pop music videos the body-on-display is about
flamboyant virtuosity, which normalizes notions of beauty” (“Aesthetics” 466). Focusing on
issues of aesthetics and pleasure, he also notes that “locking into the music during a music
video, the very sight of an artist performing affords a new rendition of the audio recording,
the emphasis falling on the mannerisms of the body” (467). Such an understanding of the
reciprocity of the music-image relationship in pop videos is useful for a consideration of
how Beyoncé’s gendered display is facilitated through audiovisuality, and I take this as my
point of departure to examine the disciplining implications of the audiovisual staging of
the gendered body.
As with the majority of pop videos, the staging of the gendered body in Partition is readily
identifiable in the visuals. Saturated images follow the movements and curves of Beyoncé’s
body as the cameras shift restlessly among multiple iterations of the singer, all of which
are framed in a space that comes across as distinctly sexualized through the ways in which
gestures, sounds, lyrics, costumes, and props are employed to constitute the audiovisual text.
In the first verse, the female protagonist is described in the lyrics as having sex in the back
of a limousine, which is presented in the video through a series of fragmented close-ups.
 6    K. A. Hansen

These close-ups employ effects such as blurring and rapid camera movements that tease out
tantalizing gestures, revealing Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s embrace through stolen glimpses. Carol
Vernallis has commented on the possible effects of close-ups in pop videos, suggesting that
they place the performer in a kind of temporal isolation, as the viewer is invited to commit
him/her to memory. Vernallis further notes that the moments of stability that close-ups
provide become high points in the video—peaks of pleasure that the viewer can only hope
to grasp before they are gone (48). In Partition, such temporal isolation is empowered by
the visual narrative’s framing within fantasy, where the pleasure of the close-ups is grounded
in the sexualized gestures and movements they depict. Arguably, these close-ups are made
further enticing by the thump of the syncopated bass drum, which is introduced at the same
time that the visuals cut to the interior of the limousine.
A key point to stress here is that the power of musical meaning lies in its propensity to
stimulate these fantasies and fuel these pleasures. Throughout the video, bodies move, hands
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

stroke, and lips kiss, all framed by the seductive glissandos and slurs of the vocals. Hips
thrust and legs kick in sync with the snare and the downbeat, a flurry of caressing hands
strike a chord with a chaotic vocal sample, and sexually charged lyrics are emphasized by
background samples in sync with camera movements and editing. Sexualized visual display,
rooted in a fragmented, fantasy-driven daydream scenario, finds its corollary in the drive
of the syncopated beat and the bass-driven electronic sound, as busy samples and grainy
synthesizers fade in and out of the mix. The effect of this is to direct our attention to the
movements and gestures of the body, guided by our responses to the synchronization of
image and music.
I would suggest that the seductive strategies of Partition are grounded firmly in a por-
trayal of femininity and female sexuality that plays on exaggeration and stereotypes in a
way that is not uncommon among contemporary pop videos. After all, most pop videos are
intended to showcase the artist and the song at any cost, and they do so, more often than
not, through a spectacularization of gendered identity and sexuality.12 The technologies
that govern pop texts play a prominent role in this: part of the feeling of excess in Partition
stems from the extensive use of effects and the cross-editing of the multitude of sexualized
versions of Beyoncé.
Parts of the video rely on a cinematic fetishization of the female body not unlike that
seen in certain musical numbers choreographed or directed by Busby Berkeley, whose use of
showgirls as props became a hallmark of 1930s Hollywood films and musicals. Commenting
on Berkeley’s Footlight Parade (1933), Harry Benshoff and Sean Griffin identify several
cinematic techniques through which women are objectified: they are costumed in the same
way, making them difficult to individualize; they are at times represented only as individual
body parts; certain uses of choreography and camera techniques present women as kalei-
doscopic geometrical patterns, reducing them to cogs in some machine (248–52). Benshoff
and Griffin see Berkeley’s influence on cinema as relevant to this day and point to music
video as a medium within which the objectification and fetishization of the female body
endures (252).
Indeed, Partition exemplifies those techniques described by Benshoff and Griffin. During
the second verse, Beyoncé’s back-up dancers are represented primarily through a flurry
of anonymous arms that stroke and caress the singer, the intensity of the scene amplified
musically by a chaotic vocal sample. Other visuals include seven pairs of anonymous female
legs on a theatre stage, the dancers shown from the waist down with their legs in the air in
 Popular Music and Society   7

what might be described as the Busby Berkeley V-spread.13 The camera zooms out to present
a wide shot as the legs, partly incorporated into the background scenery by virtue of the
excessive lighting effects, perform a simple, repetitive choreography that immediately recalls
Benshoff and Griffin’s description of “cogs in a machine.” The visual lavishness finds its equal
in the music: by virtue of multi-tracking, the use of studio effects, and excessive instrumen-
tation, the fragmented, objectified female bodies are mimicked by a sonic aestheticization
that relies on repetition, digital augmentation, and a cacophony of tracks. Ultimately, the
main emphasis of the video falls on the eroticized body as constituted through excess.
While certainly part of the appeal of pop videos, the effects of excess are not without their
disconcerting implications. As noted by Leslie Meier in the article “In Excess? Body Genres,
‘Bad’ Music, and the Judgment of Audiences,” pop artists who play with gender and explicit
sexual content have been the primary sources of distaste and the target of censorship among
social conservatives, and Meier attributes this to the way in which these excesses are made
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

uncomfortable when they are bound up with Western cultural expectations tied to gender
(241–43). The perceived threat of popular music, it seems, is to be found not primarily in
its musical qualities but in the lyrics and visuals that are linked to particular performers,
and Meier points to the fact that there has been a push to censor provocative imagery in
music videos (244). Though I would suggest that music and sound also play a major role
in powering the sexualized display in pop videos, audiences’ and critics’ tendency to dwell
on visual imagery is significant.
Reactions to Partition have been divided regarding its sexual excesses, and Meier’s obser-
vations on how distaste is generally directed towards visual imagery holds true for the
negative reactions that I have uncovered online. Some viewers appear to bemoan the gap
between their expectations regarding Beyoncé as a role model—expectations presumably
rooted in the personal narrative that depicts her in terms of agency and female empower-
ment—and her sexualized visual representation in Partition. Friction between Beyoncé’s
self-presentation as a feminist and the video’s sexualized visual fetishization and objecti-
fication is exacerbated by the autobiographical qualities of the lyrics, where lines like “I
don’t need you seeing Yoncé on her knees” situate Beyoncé within the narrative of the song.
Granted, there are many positive comments online as well, and they tend to focus on
freedom of choice and female empowerment through sexual display, an angle that resonates
with the feminist argument presented by Beyoncé herself. The plurality of reactions to the
video points to the perpetual renegotiation of identity within a pop context, and it is the
fetishized aspects of pop performance that most effectively expose these negotiations in
relation to gender politics, identity formation, and social and cultural expectations. The
fetishization of both image and sound, I would contend, underpins the playfulness that is
also historically characteristic of pop videos, and the technologies that structure the body
sonically are crucial to this relation. Seeking to illuminate the friction between Beyoncé’s
self-identification as a feminist and the objectifying aesthetics of the Partition video, I am
prompted to investigate matters of audiovisual production as contributing to the fetishiza-
tion of pop performance.

Vocality and Hyperembodiment

Instruments and samples are added to and subtracted from the verses of “Partition” as part
of a strategy to compensate for the lack of harmonic progression, whereby the unfaltering
 8    K. A. Hansen

presence of the voice claims attention. Interrogating the ways in which the production
techniques that go into situating a voice in the mix contribute to presenting the voice as
representative of the body, I highlight the semiotic relevance of the manipulation of the
voice. Concerned with the sonic staging of the gendered body, I consider the deliberate ways
in which the singer manipulates her voice physically through vocal strategies alongside
aspects of manipulation through sound production. This approach aligns me, to a certain
extent, with Freya Jarman, who in Queer Voices: Technologies, Vocalities, and the Musical
Flaw considers both external (recording and production processes, effects, mixing) and
internal (the biotechnological processes crucial to the physical production of the voice)
technologies in her investigations into the voice’s queer potential (21–22). Like Jarman, I
am primarily concerned with technology and manipulation in terms of their sonic audibility
rather than their discursive presence (21).14
The first vocal phrase of the song is characterized by a delay that accentuates the sensuality
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

of Beyoncé’s feminine, languorous voice. Its seductive qualities are further emphasized by a
slow upward glissando on the word “please,” eventually settling on the fifth and establishing a
strong dominant–tonic relationship, and the airiness of Beyoncé’s vocal delivery. The second
vocal phrase imitates the first but without a delay, and its crispness seems to heighten the
intimacy by giving an impression of increased proximity with regard to the placement of
Beyoncé’s voice in the mix. In turn, the impression of increased intimacy is strengthened
by the bass falling an octave for the rest of the verse. The vocal phrasing in the verses is
predominantly speech-like, and is aligned with conventionalized aesthetics of female pop
voices where the framework of vocal strategies that are employed by contemporary female
pop artists more often than not stages the body technologically through glossy sound and
highly processed effects.
In his analysis of a similar strategy by Rihanna in her hit “Umbrella,” Hawkins sug-
gests that the “speech-like phrasing of the plaintive melodic hook gives her voice authority
(“Aesthetics” 472). In Beyoncé’s case, such an authority of vocal delivery readily recalls the
agency and authority afforded by her personal narrative. Interestingly, the phrases of the
chorus are noticeably smoother and more melodic, and the choruses thus come across as
almost suspended in time, slowing the song by slipping free of the driving, syncopated
beat and by pacing the vocals to accommodate rests. These brief pauses are in turn filled
by the echoes of a wet delay, which work together with the extensive panning and layering
of multiple vocal tracks in different octaves to denote excess and emphasize the voice’s
omnipresence.
All of this foregrounds hyperembodiment, a concept I apply to problematize the way in
which digitized bodies are strictly controlled via processes of editing and manipulation: the
representations of pop artists are fetishized digitally in relation to the contemporary body
beautiful, and typically far surpass that which is attainable by the natural body in terms
of physical perfection. In his theorization of the virtual body, Steve Dixon asserts that in
digital performance the fundamental goal of most performers is eradicating the distinction
between mind and body, in the sense that performance artists explore and enact their holistic
autonomies and interiorities, and not simply their corporeality (215). The fragmentation of
the body in digital performance, then, acts as another representation of the always already
physical body, which Dixon explains by drawing attention to how performers’ actions in
recording images for their virtual body manifestations always “constitute fully embodied
actions of body and mind” (215). Drawing on Dixon to theorize the sonic manipulation
 Popular Music and Society   9

of the body, Hawkins asserts that hyperembodied display “implies an obsession with the
look that is governed by the technologies of musical production as much as the decisions
that go into directing the video” (“Aesthetics” 481). In accordance with Hawkins’s premise,
I identify hyperembodiment as one of the current trends of gendered representation in pop
videos, where it is, perhaps, most recognizable in airbrushed images but is equally relevant
with regard to those processes of sound production that stylize the body sonically.
Seeking to problematize hyperembodiment in terms of how music production contrib-
utes to the eroticization and sexualization of sound, I now turn to the stylistic coding of the
voice. The vocal tracks of “Partition” are characterized by a highly compressed sound and
accentuated by digital processing, abundant reverb and delay effects, and extensive layering,
and this extensive vocal manipulation could be seen to complement the fragmentation and
objectification of the female body through the visuals. The speech-like and repetitive vocal
phrases of the verses are structured around the tonic center, with Beyoncé’s enticing glis-
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

sandos, slurred words, and flirtatious moans almost seamlessly bridging the gap between
the singing voice and “involuntary” noises. This strategy accentuates the eroticization of
the female body producing these sounds and informs a pop aesthetic that, through the spe-
cificities of stylistic coding, has much in common with the sonic aesthetics of mainstream
pornography: conventionalized vocal gestures of expressed female pleasure resonate in
Beyoncé′s vocal performance in “Partition.” Part of this resonance derives from the way in
which Beyoncé’s sighs and moans are fetishized through amplification and compression,
increasing their volume to a point where they penetrate even the densest sections in the
mix.15 In effect, what we are provided with is a sonic parallel to the visual signification of
Beyoncé’s hyperembodiment and hypersexuality through multiple versions of the objec-
tified female, all invariably committed to the projection of the body-on-display through
glossy, airbrushed images that are powered by the electronic sound and the studio-enhanced
omnipresence of Beyoncé’s voice.
After all, the manipulation of the voice can hardly be separated from the sonic staging
of the body when it comes to the erotics of hyperembodiment. The use of compression,
delay, and track layering impacts our experience of the vocals as raised above the rest of the
mix, in turn contributing to the intimacy of the vocal performance. Further, I would argue
that processes of production relate to how the artist’s identity is disseminated through the
recording—that the pop voice is staged as representative not only of the body but also of
the person who makes the sounds. The bodies that we encounter in sound recordings or
pop videos are always stylized and coded in relation to gender categories, and we hear these
voices as representative of individuals who relate to these categories in numerous ways.
Furthermore, the sonically staged bodies of pop artists are experienced as constituent parts
of the artist’s identity, and the signifying voice is read accordingly.16
“Partition” clearly illustrates the ways in which the overarching narrative that synchro-
nizes various aspects of Beyoncé’s personal and public lives can be supported by the autobio-
graphical tone of the lyrics. This relation is further emphasized by the artist’s recollection in
Self-Titled that the song grew out of her personal experiences. The technologically fetishized
body with which we are presented in the video, then, is inhabited by the simultaneously
private and performing pop artist, and the ubiquity of her star persona blurs the boundaries
between the two.
The technological fetishization of the body signifies a showcasing of the female pop
star through an ideal of femininity that is most likely otherwise unattainable, and arguably
 10    K. A. Hansen

this process contributes to the normalization of physical perfection as the ideal category
of female beauty. Thus, Beyoncé’s hyperembodied representation in Partition—where the
body is stylized audiovisually to accommodate, and never to exceed or challenge, nor-
mative expectations of female pop stars and their ability to be looked at—can be accused
of reinforcing the standards of beauty that marginalize the absolute majority of women.
Interrogating the representational strategies that objectify the female in accordance with
normalized perceptions of gender and sexuality is most interesting in terms of the feminist
argument that Beyoncé herself presents, which defends the performance strategies that
sensationalize gendered identity and female sexuality as rooted in the idea of empowerment
through sexual display.

Juxtaposing Female Empowerment and Objectification

Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

Having identified a commitment to issues regarding gender equality and female empow-
erment as integral to the synchronization of Beyoncé’s private and professional lives, I will
next turn to these issues within “Partition,” where the politics of desire are intrinsic to the
gendered staging of the body. I begin with the bridge, where a monologue spoken in French17
takes up female sexual desire in relation to empowerment (see Table 1), in order to map
Beyoncé’s engagement with issues of gender equality and female empowerment against
the politics of gendered identity and sexuality entailed in her audiovisual representation.
At the start of the bridge, the listener’s attention is held by a male voice yelling “hello,”
which is immediately answered by a soft female voice speaking in French. The lyrics
announce that “men think that feminists hate sex, but it’s an exciting and natural activity
that women love.” The sensuality and intimacy of the voice is again enhanced by an EQ’ed
airiness combined with a lingering delay effect. These qualities are further fetishized through
the use of compression and amplification to lift the softly spoken voice above the mix, and
through the spatial placement of the voice at the center of the mix.
The monologue in the bridge section asserts that men and women are equally motivated
by an interest in sex, resisting the gender binarism derived from conventionalized notions
of male and female sexuality as active and passive, respectively. The monologue’s overt
rejection of this heterosexual matrix is framed by a pop video that nevertheless indulges in
a staging of the pleasure of looking through a pop aesthetic that adheres to conventional-
ized notions of femininity. Of special note, then, is the way in which Beyoncé’s perceived
engagement with female empowerment is put in a dialogic relationship with the visuals
showing her performing sexy pole-dance routines while framed by variations on striptease
and nightclub tropes.
Pole dancing’s increasing popularity as both an erotic performance and a form of exer-
cise for women is identified by Samantha Holland and Feona Attwood who suggest that
the shift in how pole dancing and striptease aesthetics are commonly viewed should be
understood as part of the broader sexualization of mainstream culture (167–68). They
connect it to the way in which contemporary erotic dancing clubs are being remarketed as
sophisticated gentlemen’s clubs and to striptease’s increasing penetration into mainstream
culture, a development that gives rise, in turn, to the shift in the representation of strippers
from exploited victims to independent agents of seduction (166). These societal tendencies
are also evident in pop music, where a host of mainstream pop artists have released videos
that play on notions of the stripper as a conduit for female sexuality.18

Table 1. Structure, Musical Events, and Visuals in Partition.
Part Music and Sound Production
Pre-song Ambient noises
00:00–00:25 The sound of a clock counts the music in
Introduction The main bass line of the song is introduced in
00:26–00:44 the upper bass register, accompanied only by
a highly processed finger-snap sample on the
downbeat
Verse 1 The bass line drops an octave as the first verse
00:45–01:20 begins. The beat picks up on the rhythmic motif
of the bass line, countering the laidback bass-
and mid-centered mix with a strong percussive
drive. Highly compressed vocals stand out in
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015
the mix. Phrase endings are slurred sensually,
and when Beyoncé sings the word "fuck" she
cuts it short, which is accentuated by a slow
moan in the background
Chorus 1 The beat and backing tracks are filtered out in
01:21–01:45 the background, almost all treble disappears
from the backing tracks, and ambient muffled
synths carpet the mix. The vocals are pulled fur-
ther to the front and overwhelm the main hook
with reverb and delay. The lead vocal consists of
several tracks in different octaves, quite heavily
panned. The beat and bass line return going
into the second verse, and the last vocal phrase
echoes through a highly processed stereo effect
Verse 2 Similar to verse 1. Additional vocal samples cre-
01:46–02:22 ate a chaotic background in the first part of this
verse. The busy sample is replaced by a smooth
synth that follows the bass line. When Beyoncé
refers to her "ass" in the lyrics, this word is
emphasized by a sweeping synth sample. The
background synth moves up an octave for the
last part of the verse, heightening a sense of
urgency
Chorus 2 Similar to first chorus. An ascending, percussive
02:23–02:53 synth line comes together with a strong snare
to drive the song forward
Rhythmic focus shifts from the motif of the
syncopated bass line to an emphasis on flat
quarter notes
Bridge The beat is stripped down, leaving the finger
02:54–03:13 snap. The bass line is presented within a new
rhythmic motif. Halfway through, the beat and
bass line are reintroduced, joined by a synth
that supports the bass line. The main focus of
the bridge is a monologue spoken softly in
French, which roughly translates as follows:
“Do you like sex? Sex, I mean physical activity,
coitus. You like it? Are you not interested in sex?
Men think that feminists hate sex, but it’s an
exciting and natural activity that women love.”
Popular Music and Society   11
Visual Narrative and Editing
Images of an extravagant estate, followed by a
scene involving Beyoncé seated at a breakfast
table. We face her from behind the newspaper of
the person sitting across from her (supposedly her
husband?)
Beyoncé, failing to engage her companion, appears
to drift off into fantasy. The camera roams the
curves of another version of her, as she poses in
extravagantly glittering lingerie
Shots alternate between the lingerie-clad Beyoncé
and yet another version of her that gets into the
back of a limo, where fragmented close-ups trail
the movement of hands stroking her thighs and
chest. The camera slips in and out of focus, empha-
sizing the sensuality of the close-ups. Jay-Z is briefly
revealed in the back of the limo with Beyoncé
The visuals strike a chord with the background
moan, as Beyoncé closes her eyes, arches her neck,
and opens her mouth
Two new versions of Beyoncé reveal themselves.
The camera zooms slowly over Beyoncé as she
performs alluring displays, gesturing in accordance
with a stereotypical coding of eroticized feminine
body language
Mid-shots and close-ups focus on facial expres-
sions and body movements. At the very end of the
chorus, the camera reveals a male onlooker
Versions of Beyoncé engage in a display of sex-
ualized gestures, where a flurry of arms caresses
Beyoncé’s body, synced with the music to play into
the turmoil of the chaotic sample. Mid-shots and
close-ups continue to follow the movements of the
hands, with an occasional blurring effect to evoke
increased thrill
Beyoncé sports a skin-revealing, burlesque- or
cabaret-referencing costume. Wide-shots show a
procession of flaunting legs in front of an empty
theatre
Wide-shots frame Beyoncé between the poles of a
strip club’s stage, flanked by two scantily clad danc-
ers on each side. Rapid movements are synchro-
nized with the downbeat, guiding our attention
towards the gestures of the body. Mid-shots glide
slowly, navigating bright flashes that disrupt the
dimness of the room to reveal the curves and
movements of the dancers
Beyoncé employs a new stage to perform in silhou-
ette against a purple-glowing backlight, the curves
of her body emphasized by the stark contrast.
Jay-Z is glimpsed behind a cloud of cigar smoke.
Close-ups show Beyoncè staring longingly into
the camera, body writhing slowly within the space
afforded by the music
(Continued)
 12    K. A. Hansen

Table 1. (Continued). 
Part Music and Sound Production
Chorus 3 Similar to chorus 2. Variations on the bass line
03:14–03:48 and beat. The chorus ends in a repetition of the
main bass line, doubled by a percussive synth
voicing, with the echo of the vocals decaying
in stereo
We snap out of the fantasy as the music stops,
replaced by the sound of the clock that counted
the music in
Visual Narrative and Editing
Yet another stage frames Beyoncé behind the bars
of a prop cage, her animalistic, sexualized perfor-
mance being emphasized by the video projection
of a leopard skin pattern that envelops both the
stage and the artist. Jay-Z continues to look on
through a veil of smoke. Close-ups show the artist
from behind, straddling the bars of the cage.
Additional images sneak peeks of the couple in the
back of a limo, before we snap out of the fantasy
and return, sans music, to the breakfast table where
it all began

Partition was filmed in part at the Crazy Horse nightclub in Paris. Among the elements
that comprise the striptease aesthetic are the costumes and props. But here I want to focus
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

instead on how the body is staged through audiovisual production. As the bridge section of
the song starts, the cameras fix on Beyoncé silhouetted against a glowing purple backdrop,
her actual features lost to the shadows of the dark silhouette—she is thereby anonymized19
(read: objectified) and our focus is directed toward the curves and movements of her body
in response to the music. Aestheticized via a repertoire of stylistic cues and gestures that
highlight normalized notions of femininity, Beyoncé’s physical display forms part of an eroti-
cization of the pop performance that is heightened by sync points where the movements of
her hips and chest correlate with musical events: the slow arching of her back accompanies
a lingering bass note, and a chest thrust while lying on her back works in tandem with the
snap of the snare.
In “Liberation,” part 4 of Self-Titled, Beyoncé describes how she wants to show off her
body by performing a sexy show for her husband, raising the issue of nudity and legitima-
tion. She describes the idea of the song as emanating from memories of the early days of
her relationship with Jay-Z. She also recalls bringing him to the Crazy Horse nightclub in
Paris on the night they got engaged and reveals that the Partition video reflects her ambition
to re-enact the sexy show they attended that night. In Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy, Ruth
Barcan cites the stylized and fetishized imagery of celebrities as contributing to an ideal of
physical perfection through glamorized nudity, which in turn encourages audiences to par-
take in identity work that relates to body display and notions of self-esteem and affirmation.
These practices are usually connected to moments of identity transformation, such as going
through a divorce or childbirth, when identity or body image becomes self-conscious or
precarious in some way (249). It is along these lines that Beyoncé notes in Self-Titled that
she specifically wanted to show off her body in front of the camera, having worked hard
to get back into shape after giving birth, and she notes that the empowering aspect of this
act is something she wanted to express through the music and disseminate to women who
might be in a similar situation.
As a performance strategy, the striptease aesthetic of Partition is fueled by the idea of
empowerment through sexual display, a sentiment that resonates with the lyrics of the spo-
ken monologue. What was once seen as the exploitation of women is now being repackaged
as a victory for feminism through certain notions of sexual liberation and freedom of choice,
and Barcan relates this development to the glamorization of female celebrity nudity as a sign
of liberation (242). She also observes that there is still a residue of moral disapproval of female
 Popular Music and Society   13

nudity, and suggests that this emerges most strongly when the naked body is used as an
asset in wage labor such as stripping, nude modeling, or culturally denigrated image forms
such as pornography (242–43). From this perspective, a given pop performance’s claim that
women might gain power through its sexual display is contingent on the performance’s sep-
aration of itself from associations with sex work and exploitation. Dwelling on how such a
challenge might be navigated, Holland and Attwood argue that the “association of celebrity
with sexual display appears to override the connotations of an undervalued object which
anonymous naked performers carry because the women on display are ‘somebodies’ rather
than ‘nobodies’” (167). This, of course, is the heart of the matter: the privileged positions
of pop artists offer them, through their carefully constructed personae, the flexibility to
navigate or circumvent moral disapproval.
With Beyoncé, the agency afforded her through personal narrative facilitates her flexi-
bility as a performer in this regard. In their studies, Hawkins and Richardson have noted
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

that a lack of perceived agency at one point had quite the opposite effect for Britney Spears,
when fans rejected her on the basis of an aesthetic and behavior they found acceptable in
other artists (607). I would argue that Beyoncé’s “privileged position,” then, relies on the
artist persona and personal narrative to frame her performances with notions of agency
and artistic vision. Such a privileged position also relates to the mobility offered by the
technologies of audiovisuality that govern Partition, where it is the fetishization of images
and sound that brings the performative aspects of her representation to the forefront.
The audiovisual staging of the gendered body in Partition showcases the pop star in a
manner that seems in line with the conventionalized aesthetics of contemporary pop videos.
Beyoncé’s sexuality is expressed primarily through the way in which she panders to the gazes
of a mainstream audience especially in terms of normative expectations of the female pop
star’s ability to be looked at; arguably, this places her at odds with her self-proclamation as
a feminist. The problematic aspects of Beyoncé’s audiovisual representation relate to what
happens when fetishized celebrity representations of sexuality are read as constituting nor-
malcy within an increasingly sexualized Western culture. Maybe it is these troublesome
prospects of such a scenario that bell hooks envisions when referring to Beyoncé as a
“terrorist,” acknowledging the potential power afforded pop artists in impacting our own
constructions of identity.

Final Thoughts
Friction arises in the intersections of differing strategies of representation. Responding to the
key questions raised in this article has involved me interrogating the negotiations between
female empowerment and objectification that take place in pop videos. These negotiations
are constantly evolving, blurring boundaries, and making visible the cultural and social
circumstances that impinge on both the construction of these representations and our
responses to them. More often than not, representations in pop videos are held to reinforce
normative categories of gender and sexuality, and I have argued that Beyoncé’s audiovisual
representation in Partition generally adheres to normalized notions of beauty and further
accommodates normative expectations of the objectified female pop star through the video’s
aesthetics.
That the power of the erotic display in Partition is contingent on the reciprocal relation-
ship between music and visuals is a point I want to emphasize again, and the technological
 14    K. A. Hansen

structuring of the body through audiovisuality is at the heart of this power. It is as if pop
videos allow complete control over the artist’s representation, for the technologies of the
pop text are able to attend to even the tiniest detail. I have explored how the audiovisual
staging of Beyoncé’s gendered and sexualized body is tied up with processes of editing and
manipulation, her airbrushed look emphasized by the restless movements of the camera,
and the multitude of body-roaming close-ups. Examining Beyoncé’s representation against
an increasingly sexualized Western culture that verges on pornographic imagery as part
of our everyday lives, I have noted that certain aspects of the aesthetic coding of Partition
have a lot in common with glossy iterations of mainstream pornography. This has to do
with the fetishizing processes of production that are deeply rooted in the representational
strategies of contemporary female pop artists, where the performative dimensions of pop
representations are made visible through exaggeration and hyperbole (Hawkins, “Aesthetics”
476). While the problematic aspects of such fetishized representations are evident, these
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

representations also imply a playfulness that arguably helps distinguish pop performances
from the sometimes bleak origins of the aesthetics they employ. This playfulness is also part
of constituting pop performance as potentially subversive.
The spectacle of the audiovisual performance, then, is crucial to the viability of Beyoncé’s
reassertion of herself as an object of desire in the Partition video, and it contributes to con-
stituting the pleasure of viewing the artist in terms of desire. The juxtaposition of Beyoncé’s
perceived engagement with feminism and the video’s excessively sexualized audiovisual
aesthetics opens up a space in which the viewer can explore the negotiations taking place at
the intersections where different aspects of identity meet. These processes are tied up with
Beyoncé’s perceived engagement with female empowerment and gender equality as part of
her self-representation, and they inform our interpretations of the performance strategies
that present erotic display as empowering. Ultimately, it is the fetishized gendered body,
then, that has the ability to participate in overt identity negotiation while tantalizing and
entertaining us. Pop music’s playfulness carries with it entertainment value, after all, and at
the core of the pop performance is something enticing, foreboding, and yet fun.

Notes
 1. Video clip available at http://livestream.com/thenewschool/slave.
 2. In employing the term “pop text,” which encompasses all the constituents of the pop music
experience, I align myself with Hawkins’s application and theorization of textual analysis
(Settling 3-8, 23-25). Intrinsic to the “pop text,” then, are sound recordings, live performances,
public appearances, and music videos. My primary concern is with how pop artists’
personal narratives inform our readings of them. Like Hawkins, I advocate the relevance of
interdisciplinary inquiry into questions of gendered identity, representation, and aesthetics
in a mainstream pop music context.
 3. My approach to performativity is grounded in a Butlerian understanding of gender as
constructed within a binary framework, where the acts and gestures that constitute gendered
identity are performative “in the sense that the essence or identity that they otherwise purport
to express are fabrications manufactured and sustained through corporeal signs and other
discursive means” (Butler 185). This is a notion that extends its relevance into categories such
as sexuality and ethnicity.
 4. The tendency to foreground particular aspects of an artist’s identity through documentary and
“behind-the-scenes” material has long prevailed in pop music. A notable example from the
early days of MTV is Michael Jackson’s The Making of Thriller (1983), which at one point was
regarded as the world’s best-selling home-video release. Similar strategies of disseminating
 Popular Music and Society   15

subjectivity and agency through documentary material have been employed by a long list
of pop artists, including Justin Bieber, Madonna, Katy Perry, Britney Spears, and Robbie
Williams.
 5. The 11-minute documentary YouTube clip Yours and Mine (2014), released as a short film
to celebrate the one-year anniversary of BEYONCÉ, again extends this trend and is similar
in scope and content to her earlier documentary material.
 6. The idea of the auteur is closely linked to notions of agency. Most notably, the auteur is
discussed in film criticism, where the term describes how a director can have his vision
reflected through a film and become identifiable as its principal author. In a study that explores
the structures that inform how we experience audiovisual texts, musicologist John Richardson
suggests that the notion of the auteur can encourage audiences to pay attention to the extra-
filmic, shifting the focus toward structures of meaning that extend beyond an individual
work (63).
 7. See “Run the World (Girls)” (2011) and “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” (2008).
 8. See, for example, “Flawless,” which samples acclaimed writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s
2013 TEDTalk “We Should All Be Feminists,” and “Pretty Hurts,” the lyrics and video of which
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

raise concerns regarding the demands and expectations that are placed upon participants
in beauty pageants.
 9. See the Saturday Night Live sketch “The Beygency,” in which host Andrew Garfield admits
that he’s “not a huge fan of that one ‘Drunk in Love’ song.” Garfield is then hunted down by a
government agency that erases his identity and incarcerates him for speaking against Beyoncé.
10. In a post-Mulveyan sense, spectatorship is more relevantly theorized as a plurality of gazes.
For well-crafted approaches to the multifaceted gaze in the context of popular music, see
Fast (186–87) and Hawkins (Settling 17). Though the scope of this article does not allow
for a detailed discussion about the gaze, the notion of spectatorship will be implied in my
examination of how audiovisual aesthetics and the technological staging of the body in
Partition accommodate the gazes of a mainstream audience in accordance with normative
expectations of the female pop star’s ability to be looked at.
11. There are a few small differences between the audio-track and the video, most prominently
in the song opening, in that the video extends the introduction from two bars to seven bars.
Also, the audio-track starts with samples of flashing cameras and the sound of an electric car
window, while these are not present in the video.
12. Such processes are also inextricably tied to ethnicity. While a detailed discussion of ethnicity
lies beyond the scope of this article, previous studies on Beyoncé have dealt with this aspect
in detail. See Robin James, who, through a reading of Beyoncé’s 2007 BET performance,
takes up afro-futurism and interpretations of the post-human to argue that the black female
robo-diva “deconstructs the good girl/bad girl and nature/technology hierarchies that white
patriarchy has used to discount and devalue the voices and accomplishments of black female
artists” (419). While I certainly acknowledge the importance of James’s work, I would be more
interested in Beyoncé’s ethnic flexibility, in the sense that highly processed and manipulated
images render her features almost generic and perhaps allow her, to a certain extent, to bypass
stereotypical discourses surrounding black women and sexuality. See also Andrea Elisabeth
Shaw for a strong contribution to the debates concerning gendered and racial embodiment.
13. See Linda Mizejewski’s Divine Decadence (191), in which she draws lines between Berkeley
and the fetishization of female sexuality in John Masteroff ’s Cabaret (1966).
14. In this regard, I am also partly influenced by Serge Lacasse, whose work on phonographic
staging aims to account for how sonic manipulation alters the ways in which we perceive
recorded sound (“Persona” 2). See also Lacasse’s doctoral dissertation on vocal staging (“Listen
to my Voice”).
15. This is what Lacasse refers to as lower performance intensity with higher dynamic level
(“Persona” 2).
16. The bodily aspects of the voice are identified most famously by Roland Barthes in the essay
“The Grain of the Voice,” a work that has prompted numerous responses from a long list
of scholars across many disciplines. Building on Barthes, and taking up the genderedness
 16    K. A. Hansen

of the voice, Jarman launches a detailed investigation to which the grain of the voice is
intrinsic, and pushes beyond the gendered logic of pitch (or the pitched logic of gender) to
problematize voice categories as “naturalized rather than natural” (19). It is such a perspective
on the performative functions of the voice that informs my understanding of the voice as
representative of the body.
17. According to the sampling credits of BEYONCÈ, the monologue in the bridge section is an
interpolation of the French-dubbed version of the film The Big Lebowski (1998).
18. Notable examples include Britney Spears, Gimme More (2007); Kelly Rowland, Work (2008);
Toni Braxton, With Hands Tied (2010); Shakira, Rabiosa (2011); Rihanna, Pour it Up (2013);
and, of course, Beyoncé, Partition (2013).
19. In the bridge, Beyoncé’s anonymization is also supported by the absence of her voice, as the
monologue is spoken by an unidentified female voice.

Notes on Contributor
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

Kai Arne Hansen is a PhD research fellow at the Department of Musicology, University of
Oslo, under the supervision of professor Stan Hawkins. His current research focuses on
matters of gender and audiovisuality in mainstream pop.

Works Cited
Auslander, Philip. “Musical Persona: The Physical Performance of Popular Music.” The Ashgate
Research Companion to Popular Musicology. Ed. Derek B. Scott. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 2009.
303–16. Print.
Barcan, Ruth. Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy. Oxford: Berg, 2004. Print.
Barthes, Roland. Image—Music—Text. London: Fontana, 1977. Print.
Benshoff, Harry M., and Sean Griffin. America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality
at the Movies. 2nd ed.. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Print.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1999. Print.
Dixon, Steve. Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theater, Dance, Performance Art, and
Installation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. Print.
Ellison, Jo. 2013. “Mrs. Carter Uncut.” British Vogue. 4 Apr. 2013. Web. 27 Jan. 2014. Print.
Fast, Susan. In the Houses of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music. New York: Oxford
UP, 2001. Print.
Fiske, John. Reading the Popular. London: Routledge, 1989. Print.
Frith, Simon. Performing Rites: Evaluating Popular Music. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996. Print.
Hawkins, Stan. “Aesthetics and Hyperembodiment in Pop Videos: Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella.’” The Oxford
Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics. Ed. John Richardson, Claudia Gorbman, and Carol
Vernallis. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013. 466–82. Print.
–––. “On Performativity and Production in Madonna’s ‘Music.’” Music, Space and Place: Popular
Music and Cultural Identity. Ed. Sheila Whiteley, Andy Bennett, and Stan Hawkins. Farnham,
Surrey: Ashgate, 2004. Print.
–––. Settling the Pop Score: Pop Texts and Identity Politics. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 2002. Print.
Hawkins, Stan, and John Richardson. “Remodeling Britney Spears: Matters of Intoxication and
Mediation.” Popular Music and Society 30.5 (2007): 605–09. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
Holland, Samantha, and Feona Attwood. “Keeping Fit in Six-Inch Heels: The Mainstreaming of Pole
Dancing.” Mainstreaming Sex: The Sexualization of Western Culture. Ed. Feona Attwood. London:
I. B. Tauris, 2009. 165–82. Print.
James, Robin. “Robo-Diva R&B: Aesthetics, Politics, and Black Female Robots in Contemporary
Popular Music.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 20.4 (2008): 402–23. Web. 25 May 2014.
Jarman, Freya. Queer Voices: Technologies, Vocalities, and the Musical Flaw. Basingstoke, Hants:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Print.
 Popular Music and Society   17

Knowles, Beyoncé. “Gender Equality Is a Myth!” The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back
from the Brink. Ed. Olivia Morgan and Karen Shelton. 2014. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
Lacasse, Serge. “‘Listen to My Voice’: The Evocative Power of Vocal Staging in Recorded Rock Music and
Other Forms of Expression.” PhD diss., U of Liverpool, 2000. Print.
–––. “Persona, Emotions, and Technology: The Phonographic Staging of the Popular Music Voice.”
CHARM Symposium 2: Towards a Musicology of Production. Art of Record Production Conference.
London. 17–18 Sept. 2005. Web. 9 Sept. 2015. Print.
Meier, Leslie M. “In Excess? Body Genres, ‘Bad’ Music, and the Judgment of Audiences.” Journal of
Popular Music Studies 20.3 (2008): 240–60. Web. 6 Aug. 2014.
Mizejewski, Linda. Divine Decadence: Fascism, Female Spectacle, and the Makings of Sally Bowles.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1992. Print.
Richardson, John. An Eye for Music: Popular Music and the Audiovisual Surreal. Oxford: Oxford UP,
2012. Print.
Shaw, Andrea Elisabeth. The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women’s Unruly Political Bodies.
Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. Print.
Vernallis, Carol. Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics and Cultural Context. New York: Columbia
Downloaded by [Middlesex University] at 13:20 23 December 2015

UP, 2004. Print.