BEWITCHED, BOTHERED BEYONCE

The singer mixes the old-school celebrity style of a Whitney Houston with the Internet-fueled fame of a Lindsay Lohan, says Emmett Price, a professor of music. While she doesn’t indulge in drug-taking and partying, Beyonce still draws a level of Web-generated scrutiny that can have detrimental effects on her career, says Price.

She’s also black. Her race, and her skin colour, provoke diverse reactions that aren’t always positive. For example. the gossip site TMZ.com referred to Beyonce’s appearance at the recent BET Awards, at which she wore a robot costume, as the singer’s “roboho performance.”

On the urban site Concrete Loop, a post about Beyonce can devolve into hundreds of Beyonce lovers and haters sniping at each other electronically. “They just go crazy with the comments,” says Angel Laws, the creator of Concrete Loop. “It can go on for days.”

Beyonce began her quest for worldwide popularity in her hometown of Houston. Television profiles of the singer often include videos shot by her parents that show Beyonce and her friends Kelly Rowland, LaTavia Roberson, and LeToya Luckett devotedly practicing dance routines as children.

Their persistence paid off in 1998 when Destiny’s Child’s self-titled debut album produced the hit No, No, No. However, the title of the group’s second CD, The Writing’s on the Wall proved prophetic for two members: BeyoncÈ’s father replaced Roberson and Luckett with Michelle Williams and Farrah Franklin.

Roberson and Luckett accused Knowles of favoring his daughter, and entertainment gossip writers alleged that the firings were part of Knowles’s effort to secure a solo career for her.

Thus years later when Beyonce snagged the plum role of Deena Jones in Dreamgirls, her critics thought it perfect casting: The part echoed BeyoncÈ’s own with Destiny’s Child.

It’s hard to understand why BeyoncÈ elicits such passionate feelings. Comments online and in interviews offer answers ranging from overexposure to jealousy to racism.

The criticism reveals the ingrained problem of colour that has vexed the African-American community.

Even when there’s a puncture in the singer’s carefully constructed persona, no one can deny her professionalism and talent. Julia Shia, a 17-year-old dancer from Cambridge, became a BeyoncÈ fan after the release of the singer’s first solo CD Dangerously in Love. Shia admires BeyoncÈ’s. But she also understands where the criticism comes from. “She portrays herself as a sex symbol rather than an artist,” says Shia.
VANESSA E. JONES Globe Staff (NYT)