Beyoncé isn’t my Idol

Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has done quite well for herself. She’s sold more than 118 million records, has a net worth of $350 million and seventeen Grammy awards to her name. Not to mention the privilege of being married to husband, Jay-Z, and giving birth to daughter, Blue Ivy Carter.

I’m not a fan of Bey.

Idolatry is defined as being the extreme admiration, love, or reverence for something or someone. Like many public figures, Beyoncé has worked hard to be idolised.

The humorless and grand image Beyoncé publishes of herself promotes idol worship. This is what sells the records, the face, the body, everything that is the brand of Beyoncé.

She may have told us that girls run the world, but Beyoncé’s self-aggrandising image tells us otherwise: Queen Bey runs the world. This disturbs me.

Why is it so unpopular to dislike Beyoncé, or rather what Queen Bey stands for? If I announced that I didn’t like Beyoncé’s performer peers such as Mariah Carey or Britney Spears, no one would care. At this moment in time, what Beyoncé has is idol worship among even ‘cool’ or ‘normal’ fans. It goes beyond liking or disliking the music she produces, it’s about the brand and the woman. It’s personal.

Let’s take a step back. What is fundamentally wrong with Beyoncé’s image? In the February 2013 cover of American GQ, the self-proclaimed modern feminist had a word or two to say about men, money and physical appearance:

“Why do [women] have to take a backseat? I truly believe that women should be financially independent from their men. And let’s face it, money gives men the power to run the show. It gives men the power to define value. They define what’s sexy. And men define what’s feminine. It’s ridiculous.”

She says this in the magazine that is covered with this:

Cover of February 2013 GQ

Do correct me if I’m wrong: given her words and appearance above, it seems Beyoncé views modesty as the male defined version of femininity. So, instead of being modest, let’s tell all girls, women, boys and men who see this cover photo that not wearing clothes is the way for a gal to challenge the males in her life and get ahead. Great.

I can’t be the only woman in the world who found her opening to the Grammy’s this year more distasteful and uninteresting than empowering and romantic.

Bey’s opener at the Grammy’s this year

I don’t think of female empowerment when I see a woman of any age, figure or position in life wearing a leather thong alongside her husband while performing for an audience.

Still, we not only applaud, we fawn. We want to be a part of her brand and have a taste of her in our life. She’s that awesome.

Are you following Beyoncé on Instagram? She’s not following you. Don’t take it too hard though, Queen Bey doesn’t follow anyone. Why would she? Larger than life idols don’t admire other idols.

“Beyonce Wakes Up Beautiful, Just As We Suspected” was a headline in the Huffington Post this month.

Beyoncé, by definition a public figure, has been described as a private person. Why, then, does she have someone on her payroll to point a camera lens at her at every waking moment? Why does she instagram multiple photos of herself daily? Why does she keep an archive full of every artifact of herself that she and her staff can get their hands onto?

There is a word that comes to mind  – narcissism.

Beyoncé is an idol in the eyes of others because she is an idol in the eyes of herself. Beyoncé the idol isn’t someone to aspire to because, while metallic and beautiful to the casual onlooker, it is cold – it shuts out the inspiration of other people, it focuses solely on the vast within.

Life as a metallic idol sounds pretty boring to me. It’s a lucrative life to be sure. I know more than a few people who will spend hundreds of pounds this February to bow down low and see Queen Bey perform for a couple of hours while on tour in Glasgow.

Images courtesy of iamminglee.com, gq.com, dailymail.co.uk and huffingtonpost.com