Author: boydl3

Solange’s “Cranes in the Sky” music video opens with a shot of Solange wearing a pale pink dress made of a trash bag and holding a bag filled with boxes over her shoulder. She stares into the camera, lips slightly parted, and her hand making soft caressing motions in the space in front of her pelvis. The scene then shifts between shots of Solange in various minimalistic outdoor landscapes. In each, she shifts her body positioning, and makes slow, deliberate, and subtle motions with her body. Later, we see shots of Solange in groups of other black women. In each shot, they lean on each other, creating a connected and intertwined mass of bodies. The rest of the video is interspersed with solo shots of Solange and group shots of her and the other women, painting an interesting contrast between solitude and community. 

The “Cranes in the Sky” music video is absolutely packed with gestures in the way Rodriguez conceptualizes them in “Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings.” For one, the video features multitudes of “specific corporeal articulations of fingers, thighs, and tongues, the movement of the living body and her parts.” Several of the shots in the video depict these bodily gestures: a flick of the wrist, a flutter of fingers, a slow blink. As Rodiguez highlights, “gestures are “always relational; they form connections between different parts of our bodies; they cite other gestures; they extend the reach of the self into the space between us; they bring into being the possibility of a ‘we.’” The scenes in this video both demonstrate a corporeal relationality, one that exists between parts of the body, but also an interpersonal relationality, one that forms a collective. In the group shots emerges a physical relationality in the intertwinement of bodies that also conveys a greater sense of communal relationality stemming from a shared female and black identity. In the gesture of a head resting on another shoulder, a hand enveloping another’s elbow, a chin resting atop another’s head, we can see the way they “extend the reach of the self into the space between” to form a collective. 

Similarly to the physical act of diminishing space between bodies, Rodriguez notes how “the political gestures we undertake—shouting back in defiance, marching in protest, even the passing of a digital petition from one person to another—enact the process of forging collectives.” In this way, we can read their physical relationality as indicative of greater political community building. Moreover, the interplay between solitude and collectivity in the video gestures toward the possibilities of communal healing. The solo shots reflect moments of introspection and alienation, while the group formations invoke a sense of mutual care and support. In these group formations, we see what Rodriguez might call a “queer gesture,” one that is “non-hierarchical, and centered in healing.” Altogether, this video paints a picture of the potentiality of gesture, both on an individual level and in the process of building collectives.

In his Blonde album, released in 2016, Frank Ocean speaks to his own experiences with his masculinity and sexuality. His lyrics are filled with past musings and future aspirations, love, loss, hope, and pain. Frank Ocean’s lyrics can be read through the lens of Muñoz’s queer utopia in the way they imagine a future that is not yet here, something on the horizon. As Muñoz states, “Queerness is a structuring and educated mode of desiring that allows us to see and feel beyond the quagmire of the present,” a “longing that propels us onward, beyond romances of the negative and toiling in thre present,” “the thing that lets us feel that this world is not enough, that indeed something is missing” (1). 

Frank Ocean’s lyrics embody this type of active hope for a future that rejects the oppression of the present. In “Solo,” Ocean sings, “It’s hell on Earth and the city’s on fire. Inhale, in hell there’s heaven.” In these lyrics, Ocean acknowledges the brokenness of the present moment, but the potential for something beautiful to emerge from it. This lyric also speaks to Muñoz’s ideas of concrete utopias which are “relational to historically situated struggles” (3). What he imagines emerges from the current moment and is situated in reality, even when it imagines something new. It is a “heaven” that stems from the current “hell.” 

His lyrics from “Seigfried” similarly evoke ideas of queer futurity and a concrete utopia. Ocean sings, “Dreaming a thought that could dream about a thought That could think of the dreamer that thought That could think of dreaming and getting a glimmer of God I be dreaming a dream in a thought That could dream about a thought That could think about dreaming a dream where I can not, where I can not.” In these lyrics, Ocean conveys the way this dream builds upon itself, from previous dreams. Just like Muñoz’s ideas of concrete utopia, this dream for the future is “relational” and situated within a present context. 

Frank Ocean’s lyrics also speak to queerness as “not simply a being but a doing for and towards the future” (1). In the song, “Pretty Sweet,” he sings, “To the end I’ll make it All the risk, I’ll take it.” In this line, Ocean asserts a determination to achieve this future and to take the risks needed to get there. His lyrics are rich with the potentiality that is needed to achieve Muñoz’s queer utopia. 

Beyonce first introduced her alter-ego, Sasha Fierce, in 2008 when she released her album, “I Am… Sasha Fierce.” According to Beyonce, she created this alter-ego to express a different side of herself, one that was bold and glamorous, and confident being on stage. In her early career, she felt nervous performing and the persona of Sasha Fierce helped her gain confidence as a performer. 

In the album cover, we can see Sasha Fierce in all her glory. She stares straight into the camera, which gives the impression that she is making direct eye contact with the viewer. Her chin is slightly raised and her lips parted which, when put all together, conveys an expression of daring self-assuredness and sensuality. She does not appear to be wearing anything (or at least not on the part of her body we can see) and holds her hair straight back from her face, meaning nothing obstructs the viewer from having a clear view of her face and body. Additionally, her elbows extend outward, so she takes up more space in the frame. 

Not only is Sasha Fierce totally badass, she also gives a real-world example of the power and complexities of avatar production. We can consider Sasha Fierce to be an avatar Beyonce uses/used to access confidence agency as a black female performer. Beyonce’s deployment of Sasha fierce can be thought of as avatar production in that it is a “cogent and brave performance of alterity,” as is the way McMillan defines avatar production in “Performing Objects.” In this way, Beyonce crafted an alter-ego and presented and performed this “other” to the public. Further, Mcmillan, borrowing the words of Sianne Ngai, asserts that avatars are “particulary unique ‘ways of inhabiting a social role that actually distorts its boundaries.’” In her performance of Sasha Fierce, Beyonce pulls on tropes and stereotypes of black women, specifically that they are sexual, bold, and commanding. In her construction of Sasha Fierce, Beyonce amplifies these qualities: in the album cover, she appears to not be wearing clothes, her lips are parted, and she’s staring directly into the viewer’s eyes. Through embodying these characteristics, Beyonce isn’t enacting “mere mimesis,” but rather bringing light to these tropes and taking agency over how she is enacting them. In thinking about avatars, and specifically the way Beynce uses the avatar of Sasha Fierce, we can also consider the ways that avatars provide “new possibilities for human agency.” The act of crafting an avatar is one imbued with agency and potential, an act that involves using oneself as a base but then actively building upon oneself or shifting oneself to create an alternate persona or self. Similarly, in Beyonce’s production of Sasha Fierce, she is able to amplify parts of herself and pull on external inspriation to intentionally craft an alter-ego. In taking agency in the process of producing Sasha Fierce, she subverts the power dynamics that created these harmful stereotypes of black women in that she herself employs them. 

Taylor Swift’s, “The Man” music video opens with a man in a suit, hands in his pockets, staring at a city skyline outside of the window of his corner office. The camera follows him as he exits his office and his employees cheer for him as he stands soaking in their praise, hands outstretched in a show of self-satisfaction. In the next scene, the same man sits on a train, aggressively man-spreading and smoking a cigar. The camera starts by centering on him, then slowly zooms out to reveal those sitting around him coughing from his cigar smoke that has spread across the train car. In the next scene, the man weaves through a sea of scantily-clad women laying on towels on the deck of a cruise ship. Again, the man is centrally located in the shot while the women exist in the exterior of the shot and are on a plane below him as they are laying down while he is standing. Later on in the music video, we see a scene of the same man sitting on a fountain in a park, holding a small child. He again takes a central position in the shot, while we see other people surrounding him, cheering and smiling at him in a show of appreciation. In the last shot of the music video, the man, dressed in an all-white tennis outfit and matching sweat band, smashes his tennis racket onto the court and upends a basket of tennis balls in a display of unbridled rage. The camera then pans out and we see that this tennis court is actually a set. The man walks over to Taylor Swift herself sitting on a chair labeled “director” and asks how the take was. She responds “Pretty good, but could you try and be sexier, maybe more likeable this time?”

The various scenes in “The Man” music video drive home the message that being a man affords one certain rights to space, opportunity, and treatment. His central position in the shots demonstrate the dominance and deference he is given as a man. In the majority of the scenes, he acts like a total sleazeball yet continues to act this way as those around him either reward him or stay silent about his behavior. The chorus of the Man: “I’m so sick of running as fast as I can
Wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man, And I’m so sick of them coming at me again, ‘Cause if I was a man, Then I’d be the man,” highlights the access to status and opportunity that being a man offers. While Taylor Swift is not wrong in noting that the patriarchal structure we live under grants status and privilege to men simply on the basis of their gender, her lyrics lack nuance and an intersectional lens. The core message of “The Man,” that men are advantaged and women are disadvantaged, lacks an understanding of the way social, economic, racial, political, and other factors privilege certain people and disadvantage others. While Taylor Swift would “be the man” if she “was a man,” other women would not because they are not white, affluent, and able-bodied. Taylor Swift centers white womanhood as the default female experience, which comes through when she imagines herself as a powerful and privileged man. Swift’s centering of white womanhood is further illuminated by her dialogue at the end of the music video. She tells the male actor to “try and be sexier,” clearly playing on the sexist trope of male directors urging female actresses to be more sexual and appealing to the male gaze. While this is a very real phenomena, this comment completely disregards the oversexualization of women of color in contrast with the desexualization of white women. Along with truly being one of Taylor Swift’s worst songs, “The Man” offers a commentary on sexism and patriarchal structures that completely lack any sort of intersectional analysis or thought.