In recent months, the release of Beyoncé’s new song “Formation” has made waves across the country. The song’s accompanying music video has particularly sparked a lot of controversy. We (Emily Vork and Catie Stewart) find the current discussions about it to be a perfect example of “the death of the author“–once Beyoncé released the video, the meaning ceased to belong to her. Now each individual is responsible for determining what the video represents, and, because of that, there will always be disagreements. Since we love Beyoncé and we have nothing better to do with our time, we have attempted to add our commentary to the ongoing discourse surrounding the video. Enjoy.