consumption of black women ' s hurt and anger that other media , notably reality television , encourage . Instead , with Beyoncé ' s account of her black girl alchemist journey as only a starting point , Lemonade concerns itself with legitimating and creating space for a range of black women ' s emotions , pushing back against the generational curse of hurt patriarchs and unrelenting state actors who refuse to stop hurting the women and girls who sacrifice the most and love them best . In still and quiet formation , black women , donning white , watch us from plantation porches , returning the gaze to remind us that they are people who are feeling . Serena looks at us . Leah Chase ' s eyes smile at us . Quvenzhané watches us . Beyoncé meets and holds our eyes . Lesley McSpadden , Sybrina Fulton and Gwen Carr , mothers of the slain Mike Brown , Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner , look at us , asking us to look at them and the pictures they hold of their murdered sons . Southern black women , their hair freshly Marcelcurled , look and smile . We are to be seen , they say , not just watched and consumed . The film ' s thesis is made evident in the transition from & quot ; Pray You Catch Me & quot ; to & quot ; Hold Up .& quot ; Diving from atop a building into herself , the transition finds Beyoncé ' s true self under water , slumbering , while she outwardly tries to dissemble , to bracket the hurt and anxiety of a potentially cheating partner . What follows is an emergence from baptismal waters . Donning the saffron garb associated with Yoruba Orisha Oshun , whose presence endures in black Southern religious practice , Beyoncé emerges from the water undissembled . As such , she is both joy and rage , bringing forth more water in which the street ' s