
Beyoncé is known for often using her stature and influence to speak about her stance on social issues. In her music video “Formation” she uses that social popularity to send message after message through the video in countless images and clips. There are multiple elements and scenes throughout the video such as Beyoncé on top of a police car that is in a flood, a brief image of the words “stop shooting us”, and a man holding a newspaper with Martin Luther King Jr. on it saying “more than a dreamer. All of these images are filmed in such a way to lead the viewer to the idea of racial injustice and the rift between African Americans and the police that is plaguing our country today.  

The first aspect of this video that depicts racial injustice is when Beyoncé is shown multiple times throughout the video sitting on top of a police car. Each time this scene is shown the car is deeper in the water, eventually becoming fully submerged in the flooding. This scene is often captured by either a longshot or a bird’s eye view to show the surrounding water and the amount of it that is overcoming the police car. These types of angles help the viewer see the scale of the damage that the flood is creating. The idea of this scene is to depict the public view of police and how it is declining. The progression throughout the music video of the car sinking more and more into the water is to show that decline of the public view of the police over time. The fact that Beyoncé is being pulled down at the end with the car is meant to show how both the police and the African American community are pulling one another down with each other. 

The second image that Beyoncé includes of a spray painted wall that says “stop shooting us” is a more obvious and direct message. Just moments before the text is displayed there is a young black child who put his hands up in front of a dozen police officers in riot gear. This child is presumably the one who wrote the words “stop shooting us” because he is in the same location and both shots are at night. Beyoncé uses a child as the one who sprays the graffiti because in most works of literature, children are used to symbolize innocence. The fact that a child is the one who spray painted the words on the wall is to address the fact that many of the recent shootings of African Americans by police were innocent and meant no harm. Also the constant pleas from African American movements are intended to be innocent and want to end the feud between the police and their community. Both images of the boy and the graffiti are over the shoulder shots to add the effect that the viewer is so close to the subject of the scene that it is like they are in it. Beyoncé does this to add more emotional impact to an already emotional scene for those who feel that this is the way that black people are being treated by the police.

The third and final scene in “Formation” that is used to depict a message to the viewer of the current racial problems facing our country is of a black man holding a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. headlined with “More than a Dreamer”. The purpose of adding this scene to the music video is to reference the African American civil rights movement led by MLK himself.

During the civil rights movement many changes took place allowing African Americans to become more equal from a law standpoint. However, Beyoncé uses this newspaper whose publisher is “The Truth”. The publisher having that name is to allude to the false accusations and stereotypes against black communities. This scene is to remind people that although the civil rights movement is over, King Jr.’s dream is not yet fulfilled because there is still racial prejudice in the country today.  The type of shot that is used is a close up on the newspaper to completely direct your attention to the three main things of MLK, the header, and the publisher. This piece of imagery is a smart addition to the music video because it brings in historic events that everyone is familiar with and reinforces the fact that the fight for equality is not over and the country can still become better.

All these elements reinforce and bring attention to the racial injustices and the rift between the African American communities and the police that have plagued our country recently. After examining Beyoncé’s music video of “Formation”, there are three key elements and images used to shed light on the nation’s current dilemma with racial inequality. Using scenes of a police car sinking, graffiti saying “stop shooting us”, and a newspaper with Martin Luther King Jr on the front page, are just some of the ways Beyonce raises awareness about the racial injustices in our country. Beyoncé uses her pop culture icon status and her influence on not only young adults, but everyone else to vocalize her position on our country’s issues not through the lyrics but with the imagery and filmic language in this music video. It is said that actions speak louder than words and in this graphic novel the actions and imagery speak much louder than any lyrics she sings in it.