Frank Ocean - Channel Orange (2012)

lol tim

I guess straight people take for granted that coming out or admitting to a powerful attraction ISN'T marketeing or Creating a Narrative.

i meant that schlump's right about the consequences being unknown (and unknowable) at this point. like, in doing this, frank ocean isn't following the accepted steps of a familiar career-advancement scheme.

i mean sure, self-presentation is a kind of marketing. we're always creating a narrative. that's as true of straight people as anyone else. but a lot of people (a lot of straight people, not to put too fine a point on it) will cynically dismiss frank's action here as "mere marketing", and i reject that.

^ yeah I would agree with this. i think being able to read his choice as marketing or self-definition is really interesting, speaks to something true about how we project our selves, but all the accusations of it as such have been loaded with the idea that it's a detached, sensible move, or a commercial strategy, which i don't buy. it's more that for someone to roll their eyes & say, oh huh this old gambit doesn't really seem to intersect with what the guy's options are, cf goole's post, & in terms of reacting with the guy's work, the catalyst for anything being said or needing made sense of. i really liked some of the small clarifications people were making in the ta-nehisi piece about the nuances of how he might or might not define himself, & all of those considerations react interestingly w/what frank wrote, & what he wrote on his new record, & what he wrote on his last. i just think wherever he's up to in terms of talking about himself and his past is more rooted in those things - referencing parts of his past, singing about lovers unconcerned with the genre expectations covering personal pronouns - than it is anything else. it's creating a narrative yeah, like everything is, but that's part of the guy's artistry rather than his marketing, to me.

lol I just learned right now that Johnny Mathis is out. Of course, this probably says more about how little I pay attention to Johnny Mathis than it does anything else.

― Johnny Fever, Wednesday, July 4, 2012 1:18 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Here's the thing about Mathis, though. When he "came out" in People magazine in '82, it was in the most measured terms: "Homosexuality is a lifestyle that I have grown accustomed to." He then forced the magazine to immediately issue a retraction -- I guess he thought his comments were off the record? If he is gay, he seems to be v. conflicted about it -- or, at least, conflicted about being out. He's never, for instance, had a long-term relationship of any sort that anyone knows about. (That said, he also apparently gave interviews to The Advocate in the '70s when few ostensibly straight celebrities were doing so, and he's donated money to gay causes.)

He said more recently that he forced them to retract it because he got death threats and freaked out about it. He went back on the record as being gay in 2006.

not to judge him because that's a terrible situation to be in, especially back then, but i wonder if any homophobe has ever been satisfied or placated by a retraction of a coming-out announcement.

Some of them are. I mean. The Christian right's whole deal is that you can change and marry opposite-sex partners etc. etc. etc.

The main goal is to keep everyone fully closeted and 'being straight' but the secondary goal is to at the very least keep all of us rowdy and sinful queers out of the public eye because WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN.

the children find this lifestyle v alluring

they are particularly vulnerable during the cootie years

Ebony article covers everything we've already covered here, but I guess the "thinkpieces" are starting to materialize: http://www.ebony.com/entertainment-culture/why-frank-oceans-coming-out-is-more-significant-than-anderson-coopers

He said more recently that he forced them to retract it because he got death threats and freaked out about it. He went back on the record as being gay in 2006.

Oh word? I had no idea.

Whenever I hear the whole "if the children see gay people being all gay and everything they will want to be gay themselves" argument, it only makes me wonder how fragile the person making the argument's own sexuality must be. Like, is your God-bestowed heterosexual attraction really that flimsy that the whole house of cards could be sent crumbling down cause of an episode of Glee or whatever?

“We probably haven’t seen a Black male artist do this since Sylvester,” Gipson added, referring to the iconic and late openly gay disco legend that died of AIDS-related complications in 1988.

xp

Whenever I hear the whole "if the children see gay people being all gay and everything they will want to be gay themselves" argument, it only makes me wonder how fragile the person making the argument's own sexuality must be. Like, is your God-bestowed heterosexual attraction really that flimsy that the whole house of cards could be sent crumbling down cause of an episode of Glee or whatever?

Usually, yes. Cf. http://gayhomophobe.com/

xp RuPaul?

out to begin with?

Sen. Roberto Arango on grindr. Claimed he was "documenting his weight loss."

http://www.mizozo.com/images/item_images/28000/27595_gallery.jpg

i felt i should document my weight loss on this Free Gay iPhone App

did Sen. Robert Arango release an R&B album I'm not aware of and that's why his name came up here? I'm just confused about this turn in the conversation

"Robert Arango" is a Frank Ocean nom de spume

i humbly request that we don't turn this thread into a compendium of now-out homophobes

Fair nuff. Sorry guys.

a cumpendium

anyway, it is sort of crazy that we can't come up with a comparable instance

when did "nom de spume" become a thing

questions better not asked

anyway, it is sort of crazy that we can't come up with a comparable instance

Tonex
Kele Okereke

kele is probably the most analogous example

Yeah, dude doesn't really have much of a foothold in the r&b/hip-hop scene, though.

i humbly request that we don't turn this thread into a compendium of now-out homophobes

is it okay to start a thread about Robert Arango's lost R&B album

Yeah, dude doesn't really have much of a foothold in the r&b/hip-hop scene, though.

― Johnny Fever, Friday, July 6, 2012 2:08 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

no, but other than that

I thought we were just talking about black male musicians in general. Ocean's story of his first love kind of reminded me of Bloc Party's "I Still Remember," in fact.

Yeah. Kele did do that dance album but he's always primarily been part of the indie scene and I don't know how large a profile he really has in North America - Britishers, etc.

well obv he had no profile in rap/r&b but there are still a lot of similarities there. not that it really matters.

Tonex
Kele Okereke

― Never translate Dutch (jaymc), Friday, July 6, 2012 11:06 AM (3 minutes ago)

thanks, jaymc.

do you some of you guys even notice that are going "okay but he's not REALLY black"

Tonex/B. Slade is a really interesting example I had forgotten about. Big gospel star who came out.

xp I don't think that's what's happening here? It's more about who Kele's audience is than who Kele is.

"i still remember" is such an amazing song

K. Sanneh's great profile of Tonex is locked away behind a paywall. :/

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/02/08/100208fa_fact_sanneh

kele -- or, at least bloc party -- was more famous in the UK when he came out than frank is in the US now (or at least prior to his coming out), and as far as i know the UK can be as intolerable of gays as the US can

I don't think that's what's happening here? It's more about who Kele's audience is than who Kele is.

In what way does that matter? It's not like super flamboyant drag queen Sylvester was alienating the disco audience with his act.

Bloc Party had a pretty decent US profile -- #12 and #18 debuts on the album chart. FO's album will debut higher but i dunno if by a huge amount.

xxpost

No denying this is true, but hasn't the UK had a longer history of out gay pop stars than the States? Like, i believe George Michael was still having hits over there when he was nothing but tabloid fodder over here.

also the implication that the world of indie rock was a safer place for a coming out than the rap/r&b world is possibly true, but there's probably a smaller gulf than people are implying, i think.

bloc party were a big band in the UK and popular amongst, you know, straight white males who think oasis & blur are the best bands of all time. not exactly the most welcoming of arms.

Sylvester's audience was different from Frank Ocean's, too. xxp

Tbh, I hadn't considered that the audience for indie in the UK is considerably more "laddish" than here.

man I forgot how good "I Still Remember" is.

Just about the only keeper from that second album imo.

I think, considering that the original comment was "first black male musician to come out since Sylvester", using the perceived hostility of the audience as a barometer for deciding whether someone "counts" or not should make you examine some of the assumptions you're making