Formation - Context

Formation - Context

The music video uses intertextuality, referential codes and bricolage.

Bricolage is where a media product is constructed using iconography and conventions of other texts to create a new meaning, mostly used in postmodern media products.

New Orleans and bounce music

In New Orleans, there is a music genre called bounce music, which compiles some beats together with rapping for the purpose of dancing or 'bouncing' to.

The multi-award winning documentary 'That B.E.A.T' (2014) is feautured in Formation.

• The specific elements of iconography the producers used in Formation is footage of the documentary, dancing includes some aspects of how people dance to bounce music and style of the beat in the music.
• The literal pieces of footage the producers used from 'That B.E.A.T' for the video Formation are scenes of some people dancing to it, scenes of flooding, neighbourhoods and New Orleans' life.
• Bounce music also has a large LGBT+ following and fundamental for the scenes in New Orleans, the themes you see in the documentary include gay rappers who could fufil those roles in places to sing, in these places they are inclusive as anyone can come and dance to the music, it is for everyone.
• Beyonce is a millionaire, she used the themes and iconography of 'That B.E.A.T' because it accurately represented New Orleans where her music video took place in.

Antebellum era snd slavery in the American south

The Antebellum era refers to period of economic growth in the south of America in the 19th Century from utilising black slave labour. This eventually ended till the start of the American Civil War in 1861 between supporters of slavery and abolitionists. This started when the industry of plantations of tabacco, sugar, rice and cotton in the Deep South, with the growth, the land owners needed labourers to do the work thus began the slave trade of cheap labour.

There are also costumes seen in the video of white dresses, with symbolic connotations of racism as those who wore the white hoop dresses with the parasols seen in the video worn by slave owners.

An example is the film 'Gone With The Wind', which is set in Antebellum South and exploring the relationship between slave owners and slaves in a way that will make modern audiences nowadays uncomftable. The prominent black character 'Mammy' played by Hattie McDaniel. The binary oppositions of the iconography of in the representation of black people and white people seen in the scenes between 'Mammy' and 'Scarlett' (slave owner) as 'Mammy' is seen as having less formal and structured language compared with 'Scarlett' and also dress, 'Mammy' is wearing a maid's dress whereas 'Scarlett' is wearing a 'beautiful' white dress.

This era is directly referenced in Formation from the dress and setting (mise-en-scene), the previously racist white dress has been used in the music video as a reappropration, an act of reclaiming something that was previously used against that group in this case, the dresses. 

Hurricane Katrina, media coverage and black lives matter

• Hurricane Katrina occured on 23 August.
• Category 5.
• 1833 people died, 1245-1836 injured.
• Millions were left homeless.
• Total cost of damage was $125 billion.
• The economic impacts of the hurricane disrupted oil supply and cotton distrubutions, a study found estimated $150 billion econimic impact on Mississippi and Louisiana. 100,0000s of unemployment in south Mississppi and Louisiana - especially New Orleans. Gambling and entertainment such as casinos were disrupted, agriculture and forestry were affected and therefore affecting jobs, New Orleans filed for bankruptcy protection.

Formation utilises the compilation of media footage from Hurricane Katrina from the iconography of the flooding of houses.

The response to Hurricane Katrina was important to the Black Live Matter movement as many black Americans found that racial pessisism still happens, this disaster was associated with black people as many were left homeless and unemployed in New Orleans as many were low-income. The reponse to the disaster draws attention to the fundamental issues in the United States as the gap between white and black Americans is still wide, with indifferences of livelihoods.