Madame Tussauds’s New Beyoncé Wax Figure is a Little... Off

via The Wrap - Madame Tussauds’ new Beyoncé wax sculpture

Typically, the term “whitewashing” is used to describe the phenomenon in film of white actors and actresses being cast as non-white characters; this week, however, Madame Tussauds has brought whitewashing to a whole new level. The wax museum’s recently released Beyoncé sculpture has been criticized by Beyoncé’s fanbase as being, well… definitely not Beyoncé.

The figure, which is currently being displayed in New York city, is noticeably pale, and looks more like a cross between Mariah Carey and Kate Hudson than it does Beyoncé.

This is especially concerning to Beyoncé’s fans, considering that so much of the artist’s work is based on racial politics. Her song "Formation," from the album Lemonade which was released in 2016, was a strong expression of her ethnic and cultural roots as a black woman from the south. Brandon C. Kesselly, a journalist from Rising Young Minds, wrote this about the song:

The video featured the singer in a flooded New Orleans asserting herself atop a floating police car. There were also shots of a young boy dancing in front of riot police, a wall with the words “Stop shooting us” painted in black, and various homages to Black, Creole or New Orleans culture. All of Beyoncé’s backup dancers were Black, with models and actors posing in different types of fashion from the past and present. The only white actors in the entire video were the riot police.

But Madame Tussauds insists that this is not a racial problem. The organization told TMZ that the Beyoncé sculpture’s pale complexion is purely an issue of lighting. Beyoncé has not yet commented on the figurine.

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Haley Snyder

A graduate of the New School's Eugene Lang College of the Liberal Arts, and the founder of Millennial Trash. [she/her]

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