Not Quite Irreplaceable

I have a couple of observations to make about this song and video. The whole point of this song is to show that Beyonce is an independant woman. She doesn't need a man to survive, and she certainly doesn't need this man in particular. He thinks that he's one in a million but that's just not true because she can stand on her own.

So the video follows this scene with her boyfriend as she kicks him out of their house. (Which, by the way, is an amazingly large house.) She packs his things in a box, calls him a cab and boots him. I'm sure it's well deserved, anyway.

So she's grandstanding, singing in his face, lecturing him about how unnecessary he is. She waves him off repeatedly, the whole bit. And the power roles are classically reversed as he keeps trying to change her mind, trying to make up with her. Presumably, he acted like a jerk and assumed that he could get away with it because he was irreplaceable and now she's proving how wrong he was.

So tell me, why does she have another man coming over to the house "in a minute?" She's going on and on about how "you must not know 'bout me." She doesn't need her current (soon to be ex) boyfriend. Oh, but she's so afraid to be alone that she has another man coming over before the first one is even gone. Five minutes by herself would be scary, right? Talk about desperation.

And what's more, how can she have another guy on the wings just like that? Does she flirt with every guy that she meets? Does she string along replacement players, just in case her current flame dies out? She obviously had another guy that was just waiting for his chance to be with her. Maybe she was the one that was cheating on her man, eh?

To be fair, I may not be giving her enough credit. Maybe she was loyal and honest and true to her boyfriend. Maybe her character in this video does have that kind of integrity. So that means that she prefers to pick a shallow man as her go-to guy. A man that likes to catch girls on the rebound, one that is slimey enough to walk in while the ex is still walking out. Maybe this second guy is the type of person that will jump at the chance to be with a girl that has ignored him and dismissed his advances all along, but he "admires" her because of how strong she is. Or maybe she's hot enough that she can call any random guy and they'll drop everything. Nothing like completely physical and superficial attraction, I guess.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, they say. And she's downright nasty about it, talking down to her ex and bragging about another guy. It might be safe to assume that this is just one in a long line of guys that she simply destroys once they cross her. One can only shudder and then pity the next man in line.