(no subject)

[haptalaon]

NSFW - content: celebrating genitals, Janelle Monae's divine new song.


What I really like about Janelle Monae's new song/video PYNK is it's - not smutty, or funny, or ashamed, it's just kinda happy and sweet and all
about vaginas. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it.

I've read some articles about how it's radical to talk about women's bodies like that, which it is. But I actually think it's pretty unique in songs about bodies or sex period. Or even songs about love.

PYNK is a song about joy and happiness. 
 

Comments

[alexseanchai]

it's beautiful

and Monae and Thompson have both made a point of not excluding trans women in this conversation, like, even in the video when they've got the women dancing in the vagina pants? not all the women have vagina pants

[haptalaon]

Oh, that's absolutely lovely :) Can I ask whether that's your interpretation of the video, or whether it's also rooted in interviews they've given about it?


(Monae is one of my heroes, so I'd be crushed to discover she went in for trans-exclusionary feminism; and heartened if she's openly expressed support.)

After Electric Lady came out I wrote, like, a 4000 word essay about her imagery and lyrics - not for publication, just because I had so. Many. Feelings.

[alexseanchai]

Both! Well, tweets from Monae and Thompson, but y'know.

[haptalaon]

I think what I'm enjoying about this and also Make Me Feel is that Monae is - attractive, obviously, but very *in control* of her sexual image.

Sexy women dancing is a staple of music videos, but Monae does it in a way which is on her terms, for her enjoyment, and which doesn't seem like it's there to be consumed by the audience. It's like, life goals for women - the idea you could dress up and dance at a club and not have people try and devour you or make you into something they need you to be. She doesn't seem like a victim the way, say, t.A.T.u or early Britney Spears/Christina Agulera seem like they are part of an industry sexualising them for our pleasure and their profit - but not necessarily as part of the performers' sexual understanding of herself.

I don't know how she does it; I suppose being an android helps. But it's generally just a cool thing to see - this is how we could have attractive women dancing in music videos, and it not have complicated misogynistic dimensions; or with PYNK, this is how we could talk about bodies and womens' sensuality in a way that is joyous and sweet and powerful. Like a parallel universe we could create if the patriarchy wasn't a thing.

[alexseanchai]

InDEEEEED