Beyonce’s public persona is a fascinating and complex one because it is constantly at war with itself, but is good at hiding it. Her primary image is of a kind of hyper-femininity (perfect appearance, focused on men, sexually available without being slutty) that is utterly accepting of gender roles: “If I Were a Boy,” “Check on It,” and the ultimate, “Cater 2 U.” This is seemingly tempered by songs that trumpet girl power, like “Bootylicious” and “Single Ladies.” But even these just reinforce stereotypes (women dance for men, men should marry ladies). It’s especially odd for a woman like Beyonce who exudes such power and is so extraordinarily successful, rich beyond most men’s wildest dreams. She would wear the pants in almost any relationship. But sometimes this facade breaks, and those tend to be her most fascinating songs. It started with “Survivor” and “Independent Woman” (“Always 50/50 in relationships”), but really broke free with her solo stuff: “Ring the Alarm,” “Get Me Bodied,” and now “Why Don’t You Love Me?” In these songs, some inner force seems to be trying to break through the perfect external sheen, something that wants out of the hyper-femininity and wants to swagger in a different way.
The video seizes on the chorus and blows it up into an image: “Why don’t you love me when I make me so damn easy to love?” How does she make it so damn easy to love? Well, she is the perfect wifey, a point the video makes by distancing itself from B’s current image and placing it in the context of pre-feminism. She cooks (not well, of course—women can’t do anything), she cleans, she is helpless but dressed to please. She has made herself the perfect woman and it is still not enough. Why won’t you love her? She has made her deal with the devil, fulfilled all the stupid expectations you want, and it still won’t work. Want more do men want? What more can they ask?
These elements of Beyonce are more interesting to me than other female artists’ more outrageous images, because it embodies a real dilemma. Pop is lovely, but B’s oversize persona lets her exemplify these banal problems in oversize ways that become broadly accessible, even if we’re not talking about them much. I like questioning of gender roles, but I also like vigorous thrashing-about within gender roles, performing a struggle that you ultimately lose—like most of us do.
