It's been a busy few days for Beyonce. First she committed the crime of cultural appropriation against the most populous democracy in the world – India – by appearing in a video as a Bollywood actor.
Thus she was adopting the practices of a marginalised group for profit and/or social capital and furthermore reinforcing the legacy of colonial representation – as the argument was expressed.
As if that wasn't that enough to be getting on with, last Sunday night she succeeded in igniting a race row because her performance at the Super Bowl paid tribute to the Black Panther movement and to Malcolm X and as such was "racist, anti-police and anti-law enforcement".
But cultural appropriation and the ignition of a race row turned out to be the least of it for Queen Bey. The capital offence here was recording a song with those notorious indie-pop bedwetters, Coldplay.
If you need your card marked on Beyonce – a person on whom the increasingly intertwined worlds of celebrity and politics seem to pivot these days – it’s enough to know that the 34-year-old Texan has become the most important and compelling popular entertainer of the 21st century.
A triptych of aesthetic beauty, monumental talent and showbiz smarts, she has become a weather vane for our times – complete with all the miserable stupidity which that entails.
Denounced her
That in the last few days Beyonce has been recast as the new
Angela Davis
and has had former New York City mayor
Rudy Giuliani
denounce her for using her Super Bowl appearance “as a platform to attack police officers”, sees the singer in territory that not even Dylan, Springsteen, Bono or Sting have scaled.
The shibboleth that our culture is now defined by popular entertainment was evident in the manner in which eyeballs in the US were moved away from the New Hampshire primary this week and on to a seafood chain restaurant.
The Red Lobster chain was enjoying the best sales in its history thanks to being name-checked in the new Beyonce single. It's touchingly romantic that there were queues outside Red Lobster restaurants this week on the back of Beyonce singing "When he f*** me good I take his ass to Red Lobster" in her new song. As for Beyonce's cultural appropriation, she was pilloried by some for appearing in Coldplay's Hymn For The Weekend music video.
Filmed in Mumbai during the Holi festival of light, the video features fire-eaters, saffron flags, bearded holy men and other such daftness. Instead of a real Bollywood actor being used, Beyonce played the part.
Maybe this was all because the pop music video is intended as a global promotional sales tool and not as an insight into contemporary Indian life. David Bowie did something similar with no sanction.
As for the race row on the back of her Super Bowl performance – as with Barack Obama, Beyonce is of mixed heritage – her father is African- American, her mother is Louisiana Creole. And, like Obama, Beyonce identifies as black.
Mindful of February being black history month in the US, Beyonce's performance was a tribute to the historical Black Panther movement (her good friend Kanye West's father was a Black Panther) and to Malcolm X. Her stage outfit was a deliberate copy of that which Michael Jackson wore at his 1993 Super Bowl performance – Jackson being the artist who destroyed the colour bar in the music industry. The line Beyonce sang on Sunday: I like my Negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils was a direct response to those black activists who, as they did with Jackson before, accuse her of "whitening" her skin to "dilute" her blackness.
Her backing singers gave the black power salute and held up a sign saying "Justice 4 Mario Woods", in reference to the ongoing dispute over a black man being shot dead by several police officers in the Super Bowl host city, San Francisco, last year.
That Beyonce did all this at a time when voters are being asked to decide on a new US president and two weeks out of the most controversial Oscar ceremony yet to be held is why – however your political toast is buttered – her performance was an unprecedented moment in popular music culture.
And that Beyonce did all this at a time when she has a new album and tickets to a world tour to sell is also an unprecedented moment in popular business culture.
Red Lobster included.