Take Lemons and Make Lemonade: Serial Girls and the Question of Race

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of race in relation to the image of serial girls. I reflect on how seriality affects women of colour and how it operates by imposing an ideal white female body and an ideal image of femininity. I am also interested in the way seriality is used by artists of colour, as a means for resistance against white cultural supremacy and (white) misogyny. Beyoncé is one example of how seriality can be reproduced in order to resist. Some relevant proof I analyse in this paper are the 2016 Superbowl performance and the film-album Lemonade. In this context, the image of serial girls appears both as a symptom of racism and as a possibility of anti-racist engagement.