{"id":206,"date":"2025-05-05T21:47:58","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T21:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/?p=206"},"modified":"2025-05-05T21:49:22","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T21:49:22","slug":"to-choice-to-pursue-utopia-in-dirty-computer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/?p=206","title":{"rendered":"The choice to pursue utopia in Dirty Computer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Within the emotion picture Dirty Computer, we watch as the main character Jane undergoes a process of having all of her memories erased as part of a cleaning process for being a dirty computer. The various memories are alluded to be dreams, making it ambiguous as to whether or not they were real memories. In one such memory, we watch as Jane and her partner, Zen, walk into a club and meet up with someone who appears to also be Jane\u2019s partner, Ch\u00e9, as they dance and enjoy their time together in the club. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The memory ends with one of the two white men viewing the memories of Jane deleting the memory and moving onto the next one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Following the deleted memory, we see Jane dressed in white, wearing golden bracelets, seated on what looks like a medical bed, while Zen, who is in a similar attire, along with a golden cage around her head, looks over her tattoo of a naked woman on a cross. Jane mentions how she can\u2019t discern whether her memories of them together were real or not, but wishes not to lose them regardless, and to continue remembering her time with Zen. Zen comments that she does not remember how they met, that thinking about it will make the process harder, and that it\u2019s better to enjoy the cleaning process and forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Within the memories, while Jane is in constant need of avoiding the police while ultimately getting captured, she’s happy and gets to act freely. In her memories, Jane can love who she wants to love, dress as flamboyant as she likes, and dance with no restrictions. In contrast, while on the medical table, she is put into a modest white outfit with her hair tied in a ponytail, has no feeling in her legs, and is subjected to a removal of her memories and any individuality she once possessed to have the privilege to live within the facility. Therefore, for Jane to be accepted into their society, she would have to first conform to the norms and accept the cleaning process, just as Zen suggested. This struggle between maintaining independence and personality versus being socially accepted becomes more apparent when considering Jane\u2019s queer relationship between Zen and Ch\u00e9, and the fact that they are all black while those in power are all white. Throughout the emotion picture, the state of the memories is repeatedly questioned between being real or a dream, which can be interpreted as a potential utopia. This notion of a utopia then ties in with the reading Feeling Utopia <\/em>by Munoz, about the idea of queerness being an ideality, a future that is to be longed for, yet out of reach. So, when Jane decides to break out of the facility along with her partners, it is because of this hope for utopia and their unwillingness to settle for the present that pushes them to move toward the future, to reach utopia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Within the emotion picture Dirty Computer, we watch as the main character Jane undergoes a process of having all of her memories erased as part of a cleaning process for being a dirty computer. The various memories are alluded to be dreams, making it ambiguous as to whether or not they were real memories. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=206"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}