Beyonce the trance

I was not blinking at all. It seemed that I wasn't. I fell into a trance watching Beyonce' vibrate on screen.

It was only after that video that I realized that I did not even remember what the song was or what it was saying. It was the first time that I heard it. All I remembered was Beyonce', her breasts, round butt and long nicely tanned legs.

Most girl teeners simply love 21-year old Beyonce' Knowles. As an advocate of sexual rights, I have would have no right to say that Beyonce's promotion of women's sexual expression is oppressive. It should not be oppressive but liberating instead. But watching her video everyday, everytime I tune in to MTV, somehow gives me an ill-feeling, a kind of discomfort that I would have to confront.

I took a glimpse of Beyonce's profile on the web. She is certainly a very talented musician. She is an artist, an award-winner. There is no doubt that she is a woman of substance.

Beyonce's beauty and stylish function glared at me when an ad on her web revealed that she is promoting a line of dresses, lotion, lipstick and perfume. Oh, I thought she would promote someone like the Philippine liposuction doctor Vicki Belo . I see now that Beyonce' herself is the advertisement.

Saying this about Beyonce is no way saying that she is not a liberating woman character in popular culture. Her confidence in her body has taught a lot of teeners and non-teeners like myself that a woman's body is beautiful, it should be carried with confidence, not something to be hidden.

But I think what makes me wary about the vibrating Beyonce' is that too much of her would make me want to be like her--even if I am not a teener. Just like reinforcement theory in communication. She is just so perfect. If only she can go beneath her glamour and show me the human and not just the advertisement, I would be much more confortable watching her. And she would be definitely be to me a feminist icon in popular culture.

What I fear in the sexually liberating pop-feminism's oppressive tendency is not really the sex, but its part in the propagation of a standard or set of standards that demands too much from my empty pocket.