Chantel Gillus, ’24
I recently watched Donald Glover and Janine Nabers’ new show on Amazon Prime called Swarm (2023). After watching the trailers that hinted at the show being inspired by the BeyHive, I was immersed.
The show follows a young Black girl by the name of Andrea “Dre” Greene (Dominique Fishback) who is obsessed with a Beyoncé-esque artist, Ni’Jah (Nirine S. Brown). Dre is a part of Ni’Jah’s fan base “The Swarm” which is the show’s fictional version of Beyoncé’s nonfictional fanbase, the BeyHive. Because Dre is obsessed with Ni’Jah, she begins to indulge in extremely brutal acts involving murdering people who dislike Ni’Jah.
Yes, you heard me. Murdering people.
From my interpretation, Swarm is a satire on “stan” culture (extreme level of fandom), with a particular focus on the BeyHive. With the BeyHive’s reach and influence living up to its name as members sting you if you come for their Queen Bey, it was inevitable that a show or movie would be made about them one day.
Yet, this isn’t a review of the show, or a dissertation about stan culture, the BeyHive, and Beyoncé.
This article is about female rage. Black female rage.
When watching the show, I understood a theme of female rage, which may seem obvious because Dre is visibly angry and engaging in “angry” acts throughout the show. However, there is something noticeable about the majority of people who Dre is angry with.
Beware, there are spoilers ahead.
Outside of Dre killing her Black girlfriend, Rashida (Kiersey Clemons), and many theories about Dre killing her sister, Marissa (Chloe Bailey) offscreen, her victims were Black men and white people.
These are usually some of the people who do not fully understand the Black woman’s experience and/or the trials and tribulations that come with living in our bodies. Instead, Black women are stamped with the “angry Black woman” when showing any signs of regular and heightened emotions.
Some Black men tend to date outside of their race, oftentimes with the reasoning being that Black women are “too aggressive,” “too much,” “too crazy,” or “too mean” while white women are often perceived as the “better” option because they are “soft,” “delicate,” and “nice.”
So, when white women are partaking in “angry” activities in television and movies, it’s seen as a “girl boss” moment. Some may argue that all women are deemed crazy, but it’s all about the narrative that is written as a response. White women are glorified for their anger. It’s transcribed as “baddie behavior.” Surely, white women still fall victim to sexism, but they are still white, so they have the privilege to be upset.
For instance, there is a “Female Rage” trend on TikTok where it’s a compilation of women screaming like banshees or expressing angry and/or sad emotions.
Most of the time, it is clips of Megan Fox in Jennifer’s Body (2009), Natalie Portman in Black Swan (2010), Margot Robbie in I, Tonya (2017), Mia Goth in Pearl (2022), and many more. These leading ladies are some of the poster women for the (white) female rage movement.
There may be a sprinkle of people of color (POC) with a clip of Taraji P. Henson in Hidden Figures (2016), Zendaya in Euphoria (2019-present), or Jenna Ortega in X (2022), but for the most part, it’s white women as the primary representation for female rage.
The compilations of female rage were so oversaturated with white women, some Tik Tok creators were compelled to make compilation videos entitled “Black Female Rage” to show that white women aren’t the only ones allowed to be angry.
The “Black Female Rage” videos include Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale (1995), Lynn Whitfield in A Thin Line Between Love and Hate (1996), Kimberly Elise in Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005), Beyoncé in Obsessed (2009), etc.
When you type “female rage” into the search bar on Tik Tok, most of the faces you will see first are white women. This implies that when they’re talking about female rage, Black women aren’t included. Therefore, we have to make our own category because we’re something separate.
This insinuates that Black women are already angry, so they don’t have to be accounted for. It’s expected of us.
But when you’re seeing a white woman who is compared to a “delicate flower” explode into fits of anger, murder, or showing signs of mental illnesses, it’s empowering.
She’s a cool, quirky girl.
When it’s a white woman, female rage is OK to romanticize.
This has been illustrated through the popularization of the man-eater in Jennifer’s Body, the obsessed and mentally-ill ballerina in Black Swan, and the fame-hungry, axe-murdering Pearl. Along with the fact that the women starring in these films are conventionally attractive, they make female rage look pretty.
Many girls and women idolize these women, and they even want to be them. By modeling their personalities and aesthetics after these characters, creating fan-made videos, and dressing up as them; they have created a stan culture of their own.
There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by characters, that’s the whole point of movies and television–to innovate people. But as I stated earlier, it’s all about the response to these characters.
On the other hand, Dre in Swarm has not been as romanticized as the others mentioned before. Viewers perceive her character as laughable, deranged, or a mixture of both.
The show is still fairly new, but most of the fan-made videos I’ve seen from Swarm have been catered around pop star Billie Eilish’s supporting character, Eva, in the show.
Eilish is a white woman, which reiterates my point of white women overpopulating spaces that are meant to be inclusive, or even exclusive.
Likewise, it is inconclusive as to where Dre will fall in the realms of female rage and its romanticization.
Will she be welcomed in with open arms? Or will she be segregated from the rest?
I don’t know just yet.
Although, there’s something I do know.
As always, a style that Black women have been and still are punished for, has become fashionable for white women to sport.
