The music video Flawless, by Beyonce contains powerful symbolism and meaning. Music is a very effective way to reach emotions and send a message or make a statement. Beyonce is a strong advocate for female empowerment and uses her music and videos to impact her audience’s points of view. Flawless epitomizes Beyonce’s brilliance in using her art to speak her truth.  

The video goes from slow motion to real time to fast forward. It all happens at during appropriate and particular lyrics or moments in time. At the beginning, the video is all in slow motion, when Beyonce is trying to get across the message that women are much more than just who they are in relation to men. The message seems more emphasized by the slow motion. This technique is showing how serious she wants her message to come across. The brawl scenes are also in slow motion. The audience really gets to see what is happening during the brawls. They aren’t really violent, but are actually about being power hungry. 

Each time one of the women seems to be more powerful than one of the men, the men try to jump high or be more physical toward the women. This technique creates a sense of intimidation. It is made clear in scenes in which Beyonce shows how confident she is, when it is in real time and there is only one fast motion part throughout the video, toward the end. This leads up to the end, when Beyonce says, “I woke up like this.. flawless.” Beyonce is not trying to say women are better than men, just amazing in their own right. This part is in fast motion, because it is merely waking up and being the best you can be. 

Women are sexualized all of the time because of their appearance. In this video neither the men or the women are wearing much clothing. Beyonce is wearing buttless shorts, and the rest of the women are wearing either revealing shirts or pants. It seem Beyonce is expressing that women (and men) shouldn’t be judged on how they look or dress, but rather who they are in life. The men in the video are not wearing shirts, and women have every right to show skin as well. Beyonce is making such a strong statement, just through the clothes she is wearing. No one should be sexualized, men or women. Everyone is flawless. 

The setting of the music video Flawless is particularly significant. Beyonce uses darkness, and a black and white style throughout the whole video to emphasize and elevate the importance of the contrast she is presenting between male and female power. Black and white are total opposites, and Beyonce uses this extreme difference to her advantage. She is pointing out the contradiction between men and women and their experiences; how women can be looked down upon and men frequently have more power. The color black, seemingly representing men,  is dark and powerful, and it signifies toughness. White has a light, pretty, clean, pure connotation, and seems to represent women. By blurring the two together, Beyonce may be trying to show that all people should be equal, no matter their gender. 

Fire, another powerful symbol also has a huge role in the video Flawless. Fire only appears in the video after Beyonce says, “we are not just his wife.” Fire represents rebellion and destruction, and that is what women want to do when they are held down and their power is diminished. Beyonce seems to say that people should break down the walls between genders and just be true to who they are. During one scene, there is one beam of light that hits the woman and not the men in the video, at time (1:20) it is most apparent. The whole video is in the dark, but when that light is hitting someone, it is when that person is exhibiting power or strength. 

 The scene of the action in Flawless takes place in a warehouse that seems to be run down and neglected to express the harshness and powerlessness of the female plight. An abandoned warehouse is a place that once had purpose and is now just an empty vessel with no identity. Women are still looked at as objects, even today. Beyonce is trying to express how women were put on this earth for a reason other than to please men. A warehouse has the capacity to be filled with love and meaning. Just like women are. Woman aren't just pretty objects, but are deserving of equality with men. The warehouse seems to convey a rugged vibe, and that shows how tough woman are. The bare walls could also seem to imply a fresh beginning that all women deserve. 

The video starts out with real footage of a music performance contest that Beyonce participated in. In the beginning, the announcer introduces and welcomes the contestants pleasantly. At the end, the results of the contest are shown, and Beyonce’s group lost to a group of male singers. The fact she showed the results at the end of the video represents a strong message that this group of girl singers never really had a chance to win the show. Men win everything and have the power. That contest was back when Beyonce was a child, and she illustrates that even with so much time passing, nothing has changed. The results would have been the same if it were today or 20 years ago. 

Throughout the whole video Beyonce is supporting women and their role as more than just wives; people with lives beyond relationships with men. Marriage is not a woman’s purpose or identity. Beyonce mentions multiple times that men are threatened by women and she thinks that’s how it should be. Women are becoming more and more confident, and not scared of what men think. Females are FLAWLESS both externally and internally!  
