There’s a scene in the premiere episode of the third season of "Scandal" that I often replay in my head: cruel, maniacal Rowan Pope (Joe Morton) towers over his daughter Olivia (Kerry Washington) in an airport hangar. Olivia, the series’ star, whose primary quality is perfection to the point of imperfection, is rarely caught without her armor of power suit and steely determination. In this particular scene, though, she looks small and weak in an athletic-looking zip-up, almost a child again. "Do you have to be so mediocre?" Rowan mocks, after having reminded her of the imperative of being twice as good to get half as much as what "they" have. His invective is a familiar one, a commonly repeated sentiment drilled into the minds of young people of color to prepare us for the harsh world outside our homes.
I often imagine Matthew Knowles towering over his daughter in a similar way, prodding a young Beyoncé until she formed the protective second skin that has often described as robot-like. She tends to credit her now-estranged father and erstwhile manager for her work ethic; it’s a double-edged testament to their relationship, both an expression of gratitude and a softly lobbed accusation. After all, she built her empire by being twice as good, working twice as hard, being perfect to the point of imperfection. Beyoncé is not mediocre.
Last week, she released Yours and Mine, an 11-minute short film described as a celebration of the one-year anniversary of the paradigm-shifting album Beyoncé. But more than a literal reflection on the record, the film celebrates the freedom the album signified for her by underlining its themes: freedom from the constraints of fame, from oppressive gender roles, from respectability politics, from the fear of love and motherhood and sexuality, all intertwined. The film plays like an update to 2013’s Beyoncé: Life Is But a Dream, the HBO documentary that served as a coming out party for her post-motherhood self-discovery.
As black-and-white footage from the album’s accompanying music videos is artfully spliced together, Beyoncé meditates on privacy, feminism, love, and motherhood. There are a lot of clichés delivered as revelation, but Yours and Mine is typical Beyoncé: grandiosity and self-indulgence performed so earnestly that it takes an extreme case of cynicism not to, at the very least, be happy for her.
Despite having been a successful working artist since teenagehood, Beyoncé is a late bloomer. She only dissociated from her public image and career long enough to begin knowing herself and her identity and her politics over the past couple of years. The fundamental self-truths that most of us learn about ourselves in our adolescence, Beyoncé is grasping, very publicly, in her 30s. "You can’t put your finger on who I am. I can’t put my finger on who I am. I am complicated," she says, sounding like she’s talking to herself more than to her audience.
"I was brought up seeing my mother try to please...and I always felt like it was my job to fix the problem," she says, echoing Olivia Pope almost literally. Unlike Olivia, though, Beyoncé is self-actualizing; she’s finally standing on the sun.