Beyoncé is a well-known African American artist who is continuously releasing hit albums all over America. Her song “Formation” displays the message that race should not be discriminated against and that she is proud of who she is, where she came from and how hard she hard she has worked for her successful career. Throughout the video she uses a lot of imagery to represent different events that have happened throughout history that should have been prevented, or should teach us lessons about what is going wrong in our society in order to prevent them in the future. 

One of these past events in history that she portrays in the video is the shooting of 18-year old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The young man was fatally shot 6 times by a white police officer after robbing a convenience store. He was reported to be unarmed and moving toward the officer with his hands up when he was shot, according to witnesses. This event triggered many protests and riots and ultimately led to the “Black Lives Matter” movement. People all over the world are showing their support for this movement now in many different ways such as protests, artwork and social media. Beyoncé brings this particular event into the music video to show that she supports this movement and she thinks that racism is still a prevalent issue in the world be live in today. Some of the symbols used in the video to represent this specific event are when the young African American boy is dancing in front of the policemen, and at the end of the video when the camera shows the wall that reads, “Stop Shooting Us”. 

An important motif that can be followed throughout the video is the boy dancing in front of the policemen. In the first scene that this is shown, the young boy is dressed in all black with his hood up in front of a line of policemen who are also dressed in all black in police uniforms (3:40). These dark colors contrast with the background of the scene which consists of the pink and purple sky, and the police cars bright blue sirens flashing. The use of these different colors against each other can make the people in all black stand out. This is significant to the scene because it allows our eyes to focus on all of the people and what they are doing. The child having his hood up is also significant because having your head covered by a hat or hood in front of an authoritative presence is seen as disrespectful. The different filming techniques used in this scene are over the shoulder shots, long shots and medium shots. There are a lot of over the shoulder shots in this scene both behind the boy and behind the police officer. There is a long shot when they show a full view of the boy dancing, and there are medium and close shots mostly along the line of police officers as they are watching him. This scene is important because the young boy dancing in front of the policemen with his hood up represents people of different races standing up for themselves and not letting authorities discriminate against them. 

The next scene that we see this motif is when the boy is dancing and then abruptly stops as all of the police officers in the line put their hands up simultaneously (4:05). In this scene we see similar color schemes and filming techniques. We again see the people dressed in all black and the pink and purple sky in the background. In this scene there are mostly over the shoulder shots and long shots. The most significant over the shoulder shot is the last one when we can see the perspective from behind the boy’s head who has just stopped dancing, and all the police officers in the background put their hands up all at once. This scene is important because the police officers putting their hands up represent authority finally listening to the people that are being discriminated against and doing something to change it. This scene is significant in relating to the Ferguson event because in the actual event the teen did supposedly put his hands up in front of a line of policemen, but he was still shot. Later after this event, during the protests, the image became very popular of a boy that was portrayed as innocent holding his hands up in front of the policemen who were portrayed as evil and unfair. In the video they create an image of a young African American boy dancing in front of a line of policemen, who then put their hands up at the end instead. This image is very significant because it is sending a message that we should stand up to the unfair treatment of different races by the authorities and not let them abuse their power against us. 

The main message to take away from this song and video is that Beyoncé acknowledges that race is still a prevalent issue in our society and is something that needs to be addressed and stopped. She shows this idea throughout the video by creating scenes that relate to the Ferguson event. The two scenes that I described clearly represent this tragic event by using a young African American boy with his hood up and a line of police officers in front of him. The scenes differ from the actual event is that the child is dancing and the police officers are the ones that put their hands up. The way that the video and reality are different from each other is very important to getting the overall message. She expresses her feelings through the song “Formation” to not only address the issues of police brutality, but also the entire experience of an African American person in modern America. Beyoncé is trying to help inspire us to change the way the world thinks about race, and to empower those who have been discriminated against. 
