Feminism as a media product: the Beyoncé paradox

Abstract

Since 2014, an increasing number of celebrities has manifested itself publicly as feminist, a phenomenon that has coincided in time with the emergence of a new space for the discussion about women issues in traditional media and social media netwotks. Taking as paradigmatic the case of Beyoncé, this text explores the intersection between mainstream culture, mass media and feminism, contextualized in the logics of advanced capitalism, neo-liberalism and its patriarchal rearmament and the celebritization of the media space in which they coincide. Its objective will be to expose, through the academic and media reactions to Beyonce’s feminism, the strengths and weaknesses of the so-called postfeminism, and to propose that its utility as a subversive tool could be considered not in relation to the public that receives and reworks it, but in terms of its ability to mobilize and produce mutations in both journalistic and academic practice.