Blonded: Breaking Down Race and Gender Norms with Frank Ocean’s Blonde

Leah Bayley-Hay – ENG 332 Critical Approaches II – Stevenson University

Blond vs Blonde Boys Don’t Cry

Ø As Blonde progresses, each song and interlude on the album contains lyrics that defy the bounds of
Frank Ocean is an artist of many heteronormativity as Ocean expresses his own sense of gender and identity. Blonde encompasses the
talents that has enchanted his spectrum of sexuality by defying societal labels such as Gay, Bi, etc.
audience with his singing and Ø Songs such as “Skyline To” and “Good Guy” showcase Ocean’s
songwriting since his debut mixtape relation with his sexuality - both guilt and comfort in his queer
Nostalgia, Ultra. Along with his identity which reflects his own conscious and society. This can be
interpreted through the view of Du Bois’s double consciousness that
popularity in musical talents, Ocean queer black men may have internal conflict over their perception of
has made a name for himself as one self and what African-American culture/society expects of them
of the few Black, male artists in the (which is hegemonic masculinity)
R&B and Rap genre to openly push Ø In her research journal “Spitting Bars and Subverting
against racial and gender stereotypes Heteronormativity,” Lizzy Elkins brings up the notion that Ocean
continually diverges from heteronormativity and masculinity (5). Elkin
and embrace his definition of also notes that Ocean departs from hetero-focused hypersexual
sexuality in his work. tendencies in his genre, on Blonde, which would typically be expected
of him by society (7)
His second studio album, Blonde (alternatively titled blond) encompasses Ø Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick claims people are different from each other. Sedgwick offers the notion that to
those themes throughout the project. filter the large scope of benign sexual variation to binaries (homosexual and heterosexual) would be to
limit freedom and disregard queer identities that do not fit perfectly into those categories.
My project examines Frank Ocean’s Blonde through a queer African-American lens to
explore how the album pushes against heteronormative expectations of Black men as Frank Ocean’s Blonde rejects the homophobic definition of masculinity
Ocean expresses is own sense of identity. I will be using R.W. Connell’s idea of
hegemonic masculinity, W.E.B Du Bois’s concept of double consciousness, and Eve and embraces queer masculinity and feelings through Ocean’s expression
Kosofsky Sedgwick’s idea of benign sexual variation to reveal the modern, Black queer of his own on the album.
male societal viewpoint throughout the album.

Sexuality Beyond Labels Theoretical Terms

“This shift and subsequent maintenance of his popularity through this diversion Heteronormativity – the presumption that heterosexuality is the norm or the only sexual
orientation
from heteronormativity and masculinity is significant because it models the
Double Consciousness – “second sight” that comes from being both African American and
potentioal of American public opinion to shift towards acceptance.” – Lizzy American
Elkins (Spitting Bars and Subverting Heteronormativity p. 5) Benign Sexual Variation – the idea that no gender role is “best” for every man or woman
Hegemonic Masculinity – the dominant form of masculinity that is expected of men in our
“In the particular area of sexuality, for instance, I assume that most of us know society
the following things that can differentiate even people of identical gender, race,
nationality, class, and “sexual orientation” - each one of which, however, if
taken seriously as pure difference, retains the unaccounted-for potential to
References
disrupt many forms of the available thinking about sexuality” – Eve Kosofsky Blanchon, Josephine, "Representations of Black Queer Masculinity in Contemporary Popular Music: A Close Analysis of Tyler, The
Creator and Frank Ocean" (2020). Honors Theses. 326. https://scarab.bates.edu/honorstheses/32
Sedgwick (Epistemology of the Closet, p. 24-25)
Elkins, Lizzy. “Spitting Bars and Subverting Heteronormativity: An Analysis of Frank Ocean and Tyler, the Creator's Departures from
Heteronormativity, Traditional Concepts of Masculinity, and the Gender Binary.” Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal, vol. 13, no. 1,
“These concepts of duality and ambiguity materialize through much of 2018, https://doi.org/10.5399/uo/ourj.13.1.2.

Blonde and allude to the complex manner in which Ocean constructs Rafferty, Kerri Lynn. “Blond or Blonde? Frank Ocean and Identity Construction.” Microsoft Word - Kerri Rafferty, "Blond or Blonde?, 17
Apr. 2018, https://scholarshare.temple.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.12613/469/p15037coll12_2702.pdf?sequence=1.
identity.” Kerri Lynn Rafferty (Blond or Blonde?, p. 6).
Sedgwick, E. Epistemology of the Closet. Miles R, 1999.