THE BLACK FEMININE DIVINE UNLEASHED IN MASS MEDIA
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 12: Beyoncé performs during the 2017 Grammys on February 12, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
In The Lemonade Reader — a 2019 interdisciplinary book edited by Kinitra D. Brooks and Kameelah L. Martin that deals with Beyoncé’s 2016 visual album, Lemonade — scholar Melanie C. Jones describes the “The Black Feminine Divine” as the embodiment of divinity, beauty and glory within Black women. The Black Feminine Divine calls for the exorcism of both the patriarchal God and the white Goddess in order to enact Black women’s liberation through integration. The re-awakening of the Black Feminine Divine in mass media pushes Black women of all faiths to see themselves as exactly that, and helps counteract society’s complete devaluation of the Black Woman.
Drawing from novelist Alice Walker’s collection of essays, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose, she begins by defining the term womanist in four different ways. The first definition is, “A Black feminist or feminist of color.” The fourth is, “Womanist is to feminist as purple to lavender.” What Walker means is that womanism is based on the history and experiences of Black women and uses that framework to focus on issues of race, class, and gender all at once. Feminism falls under womanism as a category that has historically only applied to white women, and only dealt with gender; and Black liberation efforts also tend to exclude Black women. This is why womanism was and is still needed. Womanism, as Walker describes it, directly connects to the idea of the Black Feminine Divine. The Black Feminine Divine attempts to confront both “the missing analysis of gender in Black theology’s struggle for Black liberation and race in white feminist theology’s rally against patriarchy.” (The Lemonade Reader, 104).
In Walker’s particular essay titled In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, she consistently references the boundless creativity and art residing within the Black woman. She often refers to the Black woman as a Creator who then “Orders the Universe in the image of her personal conception of beauty,” (241). She paints a clear picture of the Black Feminine Divine from an artistic point of view in order to emphasize the notion of Black mothers, grandmothers and daughters as made in the image of the Goddess.
When considering the representation of Black women as Goddesses, one can look to different forms of mass media that have taken this notion and used it to portray the Black woman in America’s focus as capable of embodying divinity and sanctity. Whether the creators of these media did this intentionally or not, Black women everywhere can still see themselves within the Black Feminine Divine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhdTAwkDu1Q
In Beyoncé’s 2017 Grammy performance when she performed the “Lemonade” album live, the message that she reintroduced the world to was that of the Black Feminine Divine. Beyoncé’s performance transports us into the world of the Goddess represented as a pregnant Beyoncé adorned in a golden headdress and gilded, crystal-encrusted dress surrounded by bowing female dancers. Beyoncé channels multiple Goddess figures across African Diasporic spiritualities and religious traditions, including Oshun and the Black Madonna. Overall, Beyoncé unleashes the Black Feminine Divine on her audience and emphasizes the universal value of Black spirituality with Black women centered.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxW5yuzVi8w
One can then shift their focus to rapper and singer-songwriter, Doja Cat and her music video + lyrics for Woman, the first track off her 2021 album Planet Her. Throughout the video, we can see Doja embodying multiple representations of African deity-like figures. She celebrates and embraces Black femininity by adorning herself in different ceremonial and spiritual African headdresses and bodily pieces; and she finishes her looks off with African inspired hairstyles, makeup, and dances. The entire premise of the video in the first place is Doja channeling her inner divine feminine to help Teyana Taylor, who plays a Goddess-like queen, defend her throne from male usurpers. Doja’s Goddess manifests as a cloud of shimmering gold, and quickly becomes the powerful, divine center of attention.
Looking specifically at some of Doja’s lyrics in the song we hear, “Baby, worship my hips and waist So feminine with grace.” (1:18). Doja emphasizes a need for worship of the Black women in all their femininity and affirms their divinity by doing so. Next she raps, “Gotta prove it to myself that I’m on top of shit And you will never know a God without a Goddess As honest as fuckin’ honest get.” (1:58). She directly implies that the Goddess is the true peak of power and that without her, the God could never come to be. She also says, “Mother Earth, Mother Mary rise to the top Divine feminine, I’m feminine (why?) Woman.” (2:24). Like Beyoncé she channels powerful female deities and directly references the Divine feminine, putting herself and all Black women in that position.
We can even look at comic books and other superhero media. Storm, while not a Goddess in the traditional sense (usually), might as well be one. Since the creation of her character in 1975, she’s never been portrayed visually as anything other than a powerful, Goddess-like Black woman. Storm is considered one of the most powerful and showcases that in her every move. Throughout the years, she has often been worshiped as an African Goddess, and in one storyline she actually became one, transcending her mortal body in order to save the day. She truly embodies the Black Feminine Divine in every way.
There are many more examples that can be provided but overall, when the Black Goddess is affirmed in mass media, Black women are able to see themselves in a new liberating light and reclaim the Black Feminine Divine within themselves, their mothers, daughters, and sisters; and this is so very necessary. Black women have historically been ridiculed, belittled, undervalued, violated and discriminated against and are still treated as such today, just in different ways. Because of this, it’s extremely important for Black women to almost religiously hold onto the idea of themselves as sacred, holy, and divine.