“Power play in the gaze”: The role of position in establishing power structure in Beyoncé’s “Formation”

As she coasts past in the scene from 1:00 to 1:06, Beyoncé retains eye contact with the camera; her cool, deliberate gaze reeks of confidence and poise. This attitude seems at first to echo the shift in tempo of the song, the blank absence of the repetitive, almost claxon-like beat that has dominated the listener’s…