Beyonce first introduced her alter-ego, Sasha Fierce, in 2008 when she released her album, “I Am… Sasha Fierce.” According to Beyonce, she created this alter-ego to express a different side of herself, one that was bold and glamorous, and confident being on stage. In her early career, she felt nervous performing and the persona of Sasha Fierce helped her gain confidence as a performer.
In the album cover, we can see Sasha Fierce in all her glory. She stares straight into the camera, which gives the impression that she is making direct eye contact with the viewer. Her chin is slightly raised and her lips parted which, when put all together, conveys an expression of daring self-assuredness and sensuality. She does not appear to be wearing anything (or at least not on the part of her body we can see) and holds her hair straight back from her face, meaning nothing obstructs the viewer from having a clear view of her face and body. Additionally, her elbows extend outward, so she takes up more space in the frame.
Not only is Sasha Fierce totally badass, she also gives a real-world example of the power and complexities of avatar production. We can consider Sasha Fierce to be an avatar Beyonce uses/used to access confidence agency as a black female performer. Beyonce’s deployment of Sasha fierce can be thought of as avatar production in that it is a “cogent and brave performance of alterity,” as is the way McMillan defines avatar production in “Performing Objects.” In this way, Beyonce crafted an alter-ego and presented and performed this “other” to the public. Further, Mcmillan, borrowing the words of Sianne Ngai, asserts that avatars are “particulary unique ‘ways of inhabiting a social role that actually distorts its boundaries.’” In her performance of Sasha Fierce, Beyonce pulls on tropes and stereotypes of black women, specifically that they are sexual, bold, and commanding. In her construction of Sasha Fierce, Beyonce amplifies these qualities: in the album cover, she appears to not be wearing clothes, her lips are parted, and she’s staring directly into the viewer’s eyes. Through embodying these characteristics, Beyonce isn’t enacting “mere mimesis,” but rather bringing light to these tropes and taking agency over how she is enacting them. In thinking about avatars, and specifically the way Beynce uses the avatar of Sasha Fierce, we can also consider the ways that avatars provide “new possibilities for human agency.” The act of crafting an avatar is one imbued with agency and potential, an act that involves using oneself as a base but then actively building upon oneself or shifting oneself to create an alternate persona or self. Similarly, in Beyonce’s production of Sasha Fierce, she is able to amplify parts of herself and pull on external inspriation to intentionally craft an alter-ego. In taking agency in the process of producing Sasha Fierce, she subverts the power dynamics that created these harmful stereotypes of black women in that she herself employs them.
One reply on “Avatar Production and Sasha Fierce”
Hi Laura, I really appreciated your application of the concept of avatars to Sasha Fierce. I think Sasha Fierce is a perfect example of an avatar because it is a persona that is intentionally embodied by Beyonce according to specific performative choices. Sasha Fierce is received as both object and subject — she is packaged and sold, but intentionally so, and she grants Beyonce certain agency as a character on stage. I liked your analysis of the album cover — I though you highlighted the artistic choices really clearly. We talked about this in class a bit, but I’m still not sure I totally buy into the idea that in presenting herself in a certain way, Beyonce is “bringing light to these tropes,” as you said. I understand why performance gives a subject agency, and I think that in certain settings self-sexualization (just as one example) can be read as an explicit critique of sexualization done by others, but I’m not totally convinced that this critique plays out the same way in the music industry when the image is being sold to audiences. Just something I’m still mulling over. But I really do agree with what you said about how the process of producing Sasha Fierce itself yields agency.