Not long ago in some ways, 2013 was still a cultural moment when a person like Monica Lewinsky could continue to be mocked despite a purported “wake-up call” to society about the persistently sexist treatment of women in general and Lewinsky in particular during and after the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Yet it was odd that, in 2013, Beyoncé, a self-proclaimed “feminist” despite offering us a song like “Cater 2 U” in her Destiny’s Child days, should seek to dredge up that tired blow job reference to Lewinsky in a beloved song called “Partition.” One that was performed during the roughly sixteen-minute medley she performed at the 2014 MTV VMAs, where the “iconic” scene of her before the word “feminist” in giant letters behind her was shown right after she sang “Partition.” A too-ironic pairing considering it’s the track that denigrates Lewinsky.
Released as the third single from her self-titled surprise drop album, the song starts out “innocently” enough as yet another one of Beyoncé’s odes to capitalism (e.g., “All on Instagram, cake by the pound/Circulate the image every time I come around/Gs up, tell me how I’m lookin’, babe”) before segueing into how the trappings of that system have allowed for kinkier ways to fuck.
In this instance, and as the song title suggests, that includes boning in the back of a limo with the partition up so no one can see “Yoncé on her knees” as she goes to town on, one presumes, Jay-Z. Whose image, once again, ruins a song of hers when we picture him as the subject of, “Oh he so horny, yeah he want to fuck/He popped all my buttons and he ripped my blouse/He Monica-Lewinsky’d all on my gown.” And there it is. The line that summarily resuscitated a subject that, at such a point, Lewinsky was probably hopeful had “calmed down.” What with fifteen years having gone by since the scandal broke in January of 1998. But no, Beyoncé, “feminist” extraordinaire, saw it as somehow being the perfect opportunity to dredge up Monica’s full name despite the headline’s moment having long passed.
Unfortunately, Beyoncé being Beyoncé, it was she who got to decide whether America was done wielding this extremely tired “joke.” Lewinsky herself has frequently tried to make the best of her situation—being America’s walking punchline—by leaning into the “hilarity” as much as possible herself. Which is why, back in 2014, in an interview with Vanity Fair called “Shame and Survival,” Lewinsky noted, “Thanks, Beyoncé. But if we’re verbing, I think you meant ‘Bill Clinton’d all on my gown,’ not ‘Monica Lewinsky’d.’” Lewinsky’s certainly right about that, but Beyoncé has never been hemmed in by rules of subject-verb agreement.
In addition to this interview being called out by the Beyhive as some sort of “proof” that Lewinsky has long been “capitalizing” on being mentioned by Beyoncé, they also lambasted her for the fact that she “even” has “rap song muse” in her bio. To that, Lewinsky replied, “Actually, it’s how I’ve learned to deal with painful or humiliating things… I find the humor. E.g., in my TED Talk.” Indeed, what else can a girl do in such a situation but “learn to laugh” about the constant mockery at her expense? All while Clinton himself still seems to bear less of the brunt for what went down (no positional pun intended).
In fact, it was precisely because the record still hadn’t really been set straight from Lewinsky’s perspective that, in 2021, the release of American Crime Story: Impeachment gave her an entirely unprecedented chance to finally address the affair—and Clinton’s overt abuse of power—in a way that she had never been able to before. Working as a producer and consultant, Lewinsky’s own voice gave the desired post-#MeToo lens that many (though not men) had been seeking regarding this scandal, so steeped in the narrative of lambasting Lewinsky for being the “tart” who “tempted” a married man. Said married man already being notorious for courting extramarital affairs. That Lewinsky was also involved in a very collaborative process with Beanie Feldstein helped with the delivery of Monica’s essence at that time in her life. So much that The Evening Standard wrote of the series, “As a piece of storytelling it is compelling—and all credit to Lewinsky for having the courage to come forward and tell her version of events.”
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Feldstein, too, remarked on Lewinsky’s courage, “The thing I don’t think people understand about this story is the depth of pain that Monica had to go through during it. Like… when Monica was with the FBI in the Ritz-Carlton. I don’t think most people know that that happened.” Lewinsky chimed in, with her classic sense of humor, “I disagree. Well, okay, I think you’re right, there are a lot of people who don’t know it happened. But I also think what’s interesting, and it’s reflective of what the purpose of American Crime Story is, in a way, is that that’s not new information. That information was equally available to people as whoever I dated or whatever I wore was. That information was there—it just wasn’t as clickable as ‘oral sex’ or ‘tart’ or ‘tramp’ or ‘slut.’”
And yet even with Impeachment’s vindicating slant, with one off-handed mention from Bey every time “Partition” is played, Lewinsky is brought right back down into the gutter of where she was in 1998. The fans, of course, would like to tell Monica that she’d be a fool to turn her nose up at such a “gift” from Beyoncé. And that her “lashing out” right now by piggybacking off a “real cause” is just another “sad” bid for “relevancy.” What’s more, that it’s been nine years and she needs to “let it go.” Did anyone say that about other cringe-y moments from pop culture past? Like, for example, the clamoring that led to Disney putting a disclaimer before much of its older content? No. Which just goes to show that when it comes to the topic of shaming women for sexual acts, we still haven’t come very far with regard to our understanding and empathy. Our desire to address and correct mistakes. Particularly if it doesn’t suit someone’s need to view Beyoncé as “infallible” in all her choices.
It would turn out to be rather prescient for Lewinsky to say of Impeachment, “One of the things that’ll be compelling to me is to see the generational reactions. A very important part of my transition over the last six or seven years has been the younger generations, who were not even born yet, who’ve said, ‘We’re coming to this not having lived through it, but through this female gaze of looking at these women’s narratives and how they were woven into history and objectified, and going, wait, what?’ So it’ll be interesting to see if people have changed some of their views—and there will be people who don’t.” Definitely not if Beyoncé has to come under fire in any way, shape or form. Or if it requires “tampering” with her “genius.” Even though if Bey wanted to be truly “edgy” to begin with, she might as well have just said “splooged” instead of “Monica Lewinsky’d.”
To boot, when a white woman gets involved in the fray (sometimes called “inserting herself into things”—here, a dangerous choice of words), especially with a Black woman, the tendency is to immediately holler “tone-deaf” and “white privilege,” as one Twitter user essentially did with the comment, “Do you not hear the entitlement? Removing a lyric that affects a marginalized group of people isn’t an invitation for her to make the situation about herself or #that event.” But obviously, it’s about more than “herself.” It’s about the way in which Beyoncé assumes that because she’s Beyoncé, she has the license to use such a triggering event for her own purposes. And that somehow, she was “elevating” Lewinsky more than other male musicians who have wielded her name before (there’s a reason she calls herself a “rap song muse,” for she’s been named-checked by everyone from Eminem to Kanye West to Kid Cudi to Migos).
Listening to “Partition,” which is, inarguably, a “banger,” this is the part of the song that inevitably makes one cringe, and always has. Not just because it’s a pop culture reference that felt like such a non sequitur in 2013, but because it’s a “feminist” so blatantly cutting down another woman by belittling her for the very thing that men would. That’s what actually makes it even worse than male rappers who have cited Lewinsky’s name for their own “ill verses.”
In the same aforementioned 2014 interview, Lewinsky declared, “It’s time to stop tiptoeing around my past—and other people’s futures. I am determined to have a different ending to my story. I’ve decided, finally, to stick my head above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my past (what this will cost me, I will soon find out).” Staring down a war with the Beyhive for finally speaking openly on how she really feels about “Partition,” Lewinsky is finding out, once again, what it costs to speak the truth, as there is no shortage of venom from Beyoncé fans determined to keep their “president” an unbesmirchable god. But if Beyoncé really wants to be “the kind of girl you like,” she might start with obliging this additional request.
