Listening to Janelle Monet’s album had me thinking the entire time-- this is renaissance but made by a queer person for queer people-- this is what I meant when I felt weird with the way we’re gassing up Beyoncé for making a profit off of gay influences and culture. Beyoncé’s renaissance can be an homage and it can be important (and it can slap-- which it does), but there’s something that it will never fully have as compared to a work like Janelle Monet’s The Age of Pleasure, and that’s actually being explicitly for, about, and by the LGBTQ+ community.
Also, Beyoncé just doesn’t uphold the ethos of the LGBTQ+ folks she says she’s honoring. At the end of the day she’s a Black capitalist and she’s doing a job that brings her money. She’s not advocating for justice or out on these streets or even directly calling out and challenging, like you said, the states and politicians that are threatening the lives of the very people she says she’s paying homage to. So, while I will be attending Renaissance St. Louis, I still have my reservations about supporting a straight artist on this scale capitalizing on queer culture in a moment where we are literally under attack and she’s largely silent
These are some really great points! I 100% agree that she should be way more vocal and involved when it comes to the rampant queerphobia in our country and there's no reason for her not to be. I feel like once the tour gets to the US, which is in less than two weeks, this sort of conversation will be inevitable and the pressure will be heavier pressing her back against a wall, so I guess we'll have to see what she does.
As far as comparing Renaissance with The Age of Pleasure, I personally can't. I don't think they were ever intended to do the same thing and I never got the same message or sense of contentment from them. When I listen to The Age of Pleasure I feel more empowered in my queer identity because Janelle is so empowered and unapologetic about theirs. I can relate to Janelle more deeply than Beyoncé at this current moment and I do feel like Janelle had to intention of putting her experience with gender and sexuality in this album so The Age of Pleasure was made specifically for queer people. That being said, my connection with Beyoncé and Renaissance was more about the "renaissance" of the album--the rebirth, the renewal. Whenever she's talked about how this album helped her escape and to be free and find the joys in life, THAT'S what I relate to above anything else because during quarantine, I felt really restricted mentally and emotionally and then I went through my own renaissance period where I had some of the same realizations as her that included furthering exploring queerness as a whole. So I'm not exactly sure why she chose this specific time to focus on queerness, but if I had to guess, it's because queer people have the truest grasp of what mental and emotional freedom is. I think when she got in the studio and worked with house music and these queer producers and queer creatives, she wanted to create work that recognized that. The lyrics of the album aren't blatantly "queer" (except for a few questionable lines in Thique) but queerness is an umbrella term and it has to do with so many other things such as this sense of freedom she's talking about, the self-love, the love for others, etc, which is why even if the lyrics aren't explicitly queer, they're still connecting to so many queer people without speaking for them. I've said so many times that cishet people would benefit greatly from living life with some queer ideology or practices that don't really need to have anything to do with sexuality or gender and I feel like that's what she's touching on here. To me it's kind of like how I'm cisgender but still have adopted a lot of transgender viewpoints on gender into how I live within mine. I think that's an amazing thing and more people should follow suit. I don't see anything wrong with her exploring this in her art but we run into problems like this when the extent to which she's capitalizing comes into play.
Anyway, I feel like Renaissance is about freedom and love and The Age of Pleasure is about that as well, plus the sexuality. I don't think they were supposed to do the same thing or be versions of one another because Beyoncé and Janelle are coming from different places in their approach to these two works. And Beyoncé does need to recognize her identity as a Black capitalist who've we only known to be cishet. This album has done a lot for me and the queer community as far as simply fostering community on the biggest mainstream scale so I'm glad she did it because I know she's positively impacting and validating millions of queer lives. Even though she shouldn't be the head of who queer people turn to, she's the only person high enough in society to take that on AND who has opened up that door. Since she has placed herself in this position, she does need to be pushing her voice and reach further with the amount of power she has in order to advocate loudly for the people she says she wants to honor. Fostering a safe space within her music is one thing, but she has the power to be one of the strongest queer allies of all time and you're right, she should be doing a lot more with that.
Listening to Janelle Monet’s album had me thinking the entire time-- this is renaissance but made by a queer person for queer people-- this is what I meant when I felt weird with the way we’re gassing up Beyoncé for making a profit off of gay influences and culture. Beyoncé’s renaissance can be an homage and it can be important (and it can slap-- which it does), but there’s something that it will never fully have as compared to a work like Janelle Monet’s The Age of Pleasure, and that’s actually being explicitly for, about, and by the LGBTQ+ community.
Also, Beyoncé just doesn’t uphold the ethos of the LGBTQ+ folks she says she’s honoring. At the end of the day she’s a Black capitalist and she’s doing a job that brings her money. She’s not advocating for justice or out on these streets or even directly calling out and challenging, like you said, the states and politicians that are threatening the lives of the very people she says she’s paying homage to. So, while I will be attending Renaissance St. Louis, I still have my reservations about supporting a straight artist on this scale capitalizing on queer culture in a moment where we are literally under attack and she’s largely silent
(SORRY THIS IS SO LONG)
These are some really great points! I 100% agree that she should be way more vocal and involved when it comes to the rampant queerphobia in our country and there's no reason for her not to be. I feel like once the tour gets to the US, which is in less than two weeks, this sort of conversation will be inevitable and the pressure will be heavier pressing her back against a wall, so I guess we'll have to see what she does.
As far as comparing Renaissance with The Age of Pleasure, I personally can't. I don't think they were ever intended to do the same thing and I never got the same message or sense of contentment from them. When I listen to The Age of Pleasure I feel more empowered in my queer identity because Janelle is so empowered and unapologetic about theirs. I can relate to Janelle more deeply than Beyoncé at this current moment and I do feel like Janelle had to intention of putting her experience with gender and sexuality in this album so The Age of Pleasure was made specifically for queer people. That being said, my connection with Beyoncé and Renaissance was more about the "renaissance" of the album--the rebirth, the renewal. Whenever she's talked about how this album helped her escape and to be free and find the joys in life, THAT'S what I relate to above anything else because during quarantine, I felt really restricted mentally and emotionally and then I went through my own renaissance period where I had some of the same realizations as her that included furthering exploring queerness as a whole. So I'm not exactly sure why she chose this specific time to focus on queerness, but if I had to guess, it's because queer people have the truest grasp of what mental and emotional freedom is. I think when she got in the studio and worked with house music and these queer producers and queer creatives, she wanted to create work that recognized that. The lyrics of the album aren't blatantly "queer" (except for a few questionable lines in Thique) but queerness is an umbrella term and it has to do with so many other things such as this sense of freedom she's talking about, the self-love, the love for others, etc, which is why even if the lyrics aren't explicitly queer, they're still connecting to so many queer people without speaking for them. I've said so many times that cishet people would benefit greatly from living life with some queer ideology or practices that don't really need to have anything to do with sexuality or gender and I feel like that's what she's touching on here. To me it's kind of like how I'm cisgender but still have adopted a lot of transgender viewpoints on gender into how I live within mine. I think that's an amazing thing and more people should follow suit. I don't see anything wrong with her exploring this in her art but we run into problems like this when the extent to which she's capitalizing comes into play.
Anyway, I feel like Renaissance is about freedom and love and The Age of Pleasure is about that as well, plus the sexuality. I don't think they were supposed to do the same thing or be versions of one another because Beyoncé and Janelle are coming from different places in their approach to these two works. And Beyoncé does need to recognize her identity as a Black capitalist who've we only known to be cishet. This album has done a lot for me and the queer community as far as simply fostering community on the biggest mainstream scale so I'm glad she did it because I know she's positively impacting and validating millions of queer lives. Even though she shouldn't be the head of who queer people turn to, she's the only person high enough in society to take that on AND who has opened up that door. Since she has placed herself in this position, she does need to be pushing her voice and reach further with the amount of power she has in order to advocate loudly for the people she says she wants to honor. Fostering a safe space within her music is one thing, but she has the power to be one of the strongest queer allies of all time and you're right, she should be doing a lot more with that.