I am willing to bet that Beyoncé’s recent decision to write her own film depicting the life and story of Saartjie Baartman might have something to do with Kim Kardashian’s breaking of the Internet and then said Internet’s caparison of Kim to Saartjie Baartman.

Many discussions were produced in poor taste and various think pieces were published commenting on them, yet Beyoncé didn’t take the critique and is now using Saartjie’s story to, well, win an award. Does no one ever learn?

Taken to Europe to be exhibited in a freak show, there’s not much known about Saartjie – not even her birth name –  other than that she was a slave in the Cape that was offered the chance to travel to Europe where she passed away a few years later. Most of the character depictions that exist today are mere caricatures, enlarging certain aspects of her body to exaggerate the differences between “abnormal” African women and “normal” caucasian women. So not even what she looks like is known.

Yet Beyoncé wants to play her.

Beyoncé has hired a whole host of acting coaches and writers to make the movie happen in a bid to bag an Academy Award.

Beyoncé is desperate to be taken seriously as an actress. Even though she’s had a string of well-received movies, she still feels her breakthrough role is yet to come.

She now wants to write a screenplay that gains her respect – and hopefully awards – from the film industry, and thinks Saartjie’s story could be her ticket. Winning an Academy Award would mean everything to her, and she’s a woman who is used to getting exactly what she wants.

Yet another example of exploitation? Definitely – especially if her sole reason is to win an award. And because Queen Béy is a woman of power and respect, it’ll be interesting to see how long critics take to say something – she’ll have to get it very wrong for them to do so and she hasn’t exactly started on the right footing.

[source: channel24]