If I Were a Boy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWpsOqh8q0M&ob=av3e

Beyonce’s music video, If I Were a Boy, distorts gender as Beyonce imagines herself as her boyfriend and her boyfriend as the girl for just one day. The entire video is made up of stereotypes. She is a police officer who drinks beers with her bros and ignores her husband who makes her breakfast and expects her to eat with him. She chases after other men and teaches him to shoot a gun. She turns off her phone and acts broken to score with men. Then, she says that she only cares about herself. Basically, the entire video simplifies the binaristic view, showing the man’s role to be that of the abuser and cheater.

But the reason I chose this video is that by simplifying it so much, it almost seems like the music video is mocking the fact that men are acting based on standards set by other people and society. She walks through what her life would be like on a daily basis purely based on stereotypes of a typical man, and it works; she plays the part. The video divides the two roles so intensely that it results in a video that makes both characters look ridiculous and mean, when in reality, most men are not the man that Beyonce plays. By attempting to blur the binary role of gender, Beyonce realizes at the end of the video that she is left even more hurt. In essence, the video seems to state that blurring the binaries is basically impossible. To Beyonce, the roles of gender are so ingrained in the individual mind of her man that he will never change. It brings up the question of whether or not blurring the binary vision is a realistic idea at all or if it is in reality impossible.