In Janelle Monáe’s film Dirty Computer, the music video “PYNK” begins with Jane (Monáe’s character) driving a (hovering) pink convertible with other women of color through a pink desert, arriving at the Pynk Rest Stop and Inn, denoted with an old-fashioned drive-in sign and another sign advertising that “girls eat free and never leave.” The song then starts with close up shots of fingers snapping and high-heeled feet tapping to the beat, images of women of color dressed extravagantly at an empty pool and Janelle Monáe in the pink desert, often gazing directly into the camera. As her voice comes in with the lyric “pink like the inside of your…” the scene shifts to Jane and four other women of color wearing frilly pink, yonic pants, as well as two other women sans pants, dancing with the pink desert as their backdrop. Their dancing is interspersed with shots of Jane on her own and an oyster covered in pink glitter, then a close up of Jane with Zen’s (Tessa Thompson’s character) head between her legs, seeming to be the clitoris of the vulva image evoked by the pants. More dancing scenes follow, in the convertible, the empty pool, and the desert, before a short instrumental—during which Zen and Jane are on opposite ends of a row of women of color in white underwear, with the camera zoomed in to their butts, thrust into the air. When the soft chorus starts again, Jane is dancing on a fluffy pink bed with more women, with close up images of their underwear with “sex cells,” “great cosmic mother,” and “I grab back” embroidered on them, as well as images of a fluffy cat, more oysters, hands grasping silky sheets, and feathers and lingerie. The second part of the chorus and the following verse is danced to in a diner and the poolside at night, interspersed with scenes of the women working out. The scene then shifts back to the desert for the chorus, where Jane and Zen are on a mattress, staring into each others’ eyes and dancing sensually, switching to rapid close up, evocative images of women’s bodies—tongues touching, a bikini being untied, spit falling from a mouth, a stomach—and yonic objects before the song ends with the lyric “pink is my favorite part.”
PYNK is a brash celebration of creation, self love, sexuality, and pussy power! PYNK is the color that unites us all, for pink is the color found in the deepest and darkest nooks and crannies of humans everywhere. PYNK is where the future is born.
Janelle Monáe
The song and music video seems to be a celebration of feminine sexuality, featuring only women of color. “PYNK” seems to offer a utopian alternative to the pop and hip hop music videos of the 90s and early 2000s, where women’s bodies were objectified, becoming accessories to the (often male) singer, and female viewers had to choose between identifying with the victim or the perpetrator of the phallocentric gaze—where bell hooks would call for an oppositional gaze. Close-up images of black women’s butts and breasts are featured in the “PYNK,” but for a female audience. The women are the holders of a sexualizing gaze, rather than the object of this gaze, with their constant movement and direct eye contact with the camera giving them a sense of agency. This agency is furthered by the scene with Zen’s head between Jane’s legs, where the pseudo clitoral stimulation seems to argue that women can be the receiver of pleasure, provided by themselves or other women. The yonic pants worn in this scene seem to be a performance of objecthood—in this case, the women become a vulva—where the costume/avatar circumvents the prescribed limitations on black women in the public sphere. Janelle Monáe finds power in her femininity, instead of a reduced notion of self.
3 replies on “Pink like the paradise found.”
Given the focus on female anatomy and the use of the “y” in the title (similar to the term “womyn,” which was originally meant to (phonetically) exclude men but has been co-opted by TERFs) there has been some discourse over whether “pussy power” celebrated in the song is transphobic. Janelle Monáe and Tessa Thompson have both spoken out about this, saying that PYNK celebrates women with and without vaginas, which is exemplified by serveral images in the video. You can read more about it in the article “Gender Definition and Expressions of Sexuality in Janelle Monáe’s “Pynk””
I really liked your analysis in connected the music video to ideas of utopia, and was not an angle that I had considered when thinking about the video before. I think that the video is certainly conveying a sense of beauty that does not appeal to masculine gaze and sensibilities. I think it overall succeeds at it as much as can possibly occur. I often have trouble trying to determine if the way bodies are displayed can be done in a way that does not have to connect to the male gaze in some way, especially in erotic contexts. I still don’t know if something like a female gaze, or lesbian gaze exists, but I think this video could be considered a good example of it. Really cool analysis!
I like how you brought in ideas of objecthood and the male gaze in your blog post as I think Janelle Monáe troubles these ideas in a really interesting way in this music video. As you note, hip hop videos of the past privileged the male gaze with women made into objects for men’s consumption. Interestingly, Monáe also makes women into objects in this music video through the costuming choices that make women look like vulvas. Instead of sexualization under the male gaze, the women in the music video are intentionally objectified under the female gaze. This sexualization is no longer inherently degrading as it doesn’t emerge from a hierarchical gendered relationship.