The Biggest Gay Name in Pop Frank Ocean’s New Release is Out
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| New released ’meandering, yet fantastic’ |
Over the past four days, there has been no bigger story in the arts space than Frank Ocean. Thursday night, the elusive artist released a meandering, yet fantastic visual album Endless. An even longer masterpiece Blonde came Saturday, along with a 360-page print publication titled Boys Don't Crydistributed at pop up shops in four major international cities.
However, reading many major gay publications, you wouldn't have any idea that one of the most visible, queer POC artist of our generation — an artist who by many accounts completely changed the game for queer celebrities — had returned.
Neither the Advocate Magazine, Out Magazine, nor the U.K.'s Gay Times covered any of Ocean's recent projects upon their release. Gay Times, which has a music section on its site, hadn't posted a single article on any Ocean-related content until Monday morning, and it eventually came in the form of a short stub about a poem from Ocean's Boys Don't Cry that was gaining coverage across the web. Many fans couldn't help but see this as yet one more piece of evidence in the ongoing conversation surrounding #GayMediaSoWhite.
Twitter user Philip Van De Kamp noticed the seemingly obvious gaffes of each major queer publication, tweeting Sunday morning, "Hi Grammy-winning LGBT POC, Frank Ocean released two albums. Whenever you have time after brunch," tagging each site's social media profiles.
Users quickly hopped onto the thread to offer that these publications might not have had editorial staff available to cover the releases throughout the weekend. However, that excuse doesn't explain why Ocean's Endless wasn't at least covered Thursday or Friday.
Gay Times found plenty of time on Thursday to post about Lady Gaga's new single, which isn't due until September. On Friday, the site also published an article announcing Words & Noises' EP release, a duo fronted by two white artists. Out published their first piece, a track-by-track breakdown, Monday only after their oversight began to make waves online.
With Blonde, there are so many queer themes for major LGBTQ outlets to unpack, from Ocean's candid "Good Guys," an ode to a man Ocean met for a blind date in a New York City gay bar, to the gender fluid style the artist employs in his "Nikes" video, singing while decked out in glitter, eyeliner and a Balmain outfit.
Many readers assume these outlets failed to cover Ocean's releases because he's a queer person of color. The oversight comes at a time when the queer community remains in a heated conversation surrounding gay media's whitewashing of its content and magazine covers. The hashtag #GayMediaSoWhite has exposed this issue month after month throughout 2016, without much of a response from most outlets.
Without these publications help, the Grammy-winning, genre-bending, progressive-thinking queer artist has still managed to top iTunes charts and drive conversations on publications of all sizes and concentrations. Perhaps the major gay magazines will soon realize what was missed.
Mic reached out to Gay Times, Advocate Magazine, Out Magazine and Towleroad for comment and will update if we hear back.
Pink News responded to our request for comment, pointing to two articles discussing Ocean's imminent releases prior to Thursday night — one from early July and another on Aug. 12. "PinkNews has extensively covered Frank Ocean's latest releases," U.K. editor Nick Duffy wrote in an email. “Unfortunately, we will never be able to write about everything within this ever-expanding remit, but we do our best to make sure our coverage reflects the breadth and diversity of LGBT culture while remaining conscious of our global audience's interests."
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