Blemished Queen

(Yes, I haven’t done anything with this blog since last fall. Sorry. I’ll try to be a little more consistent, but I can’t promise anything.)

Confession time: I’m not really into Beyoncé.

“Single Ladies” is pretty catchy, but I’m mostly ambivalent about Queen Bey and her music. That said, it was interesting watching Beyoncé’s fans lose their collective minds over untouched photos of the artist being leaked to the world. Of course, there was plenty of vitriol for the individuals who posted the offending pictures. They tweeted their indignations, some even declaring the photos were actually Photoshopped to make Beyoncé look awful.

Right.

If you haven’t seen the photos and don’t feel like Googling them, I’ll save you the search. Beyoncé looked like a gorgeous 30-something mom with a little acne, uneven skin, and smile lines. She looked, you know, like a human.

First, I think it sucks that these photos were leaked. These were done for a L’Oréal ad campaign and never meant to be seen by the public as is. Unfortunately, it’s getting easier for things like unflattering pictures to be made public and that won’t be stopping in the foreseeable future. At the same time, maybe it isn’t a terrible thing that her rabid fanbase was reminded that Beyoncé isn’t a flawless-skinned epitome of perfection; she doesn’t wake up with static-free hair and breath that smells like roses.

Surprise! She’s made of flesh and blood!

Yes, she’s uber talented, beautiful, and fabulously wealthy, but she has to put on her bodysuit one leg at a time, like the rest of us.

It’s easy to dismiss Beyoncé’s fans for their undying, blind loyalty (like when one fan defaced Beck’s Wikipedia page after he beat out Beyoncé for Best Album of the Year at the Grammys), but I think it’s a sign of something deeper.

I believe everyone has the capability to worship and we all worship at an altar.

It can be the altar of money, an ideal, a celebrity, or whatever else we humans can think of. When we put all of our adoration on something or someone, it becomes our standard for perfection. But what if it’s proven to not be perfect? What if our object of worship is revealed to have blemishes? Rather than deal with the possibility that our idol is faulty, we lash out at those who would dare tarnish our god’s honor.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe Beyoncé’s fans were just upset that her privacy was violated.

Or maybe they were upset that their queen was revealed to be a mortal, like the rest of us.