{"id":224,"date":"2025-05-06T03:39:01","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T03:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/?p=224"},"modified":"2025-05-06T03:40:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T03:40:03","slug":"pink-like-the-paradise-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/?p=224","title":{"rendered":"Pink like the paradise found."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In Janelle Mon\u00e1e\u2019s film Dirty Computer<\/em>, the music video \u201cPYNK\u201d begins with Jane (Mon\u00e1e\u2019s 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 \u201cgirls eat free and never leave.\u201d 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 Mon\u00e1e in the pink desert, often gazing directly into the camera. As her voice comes in with the lyric \u201cpink like the inside of your\u2026\u201d 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\u2019s (Tessa Thompson\u2019s 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\u2014during 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 \u201csex cells,\u201d \u201cgreat cosmic mother,\u201d and \u201cI grab back\u201d 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\u2019 eyes and dancing sensually, switching to rapid close up, evocative images of women\u2019s bodies\u2014tongues touching, a bikini being untied, spit falling from a mouth, a stomach\u2014and yonic objects before the song ends with the lyric \u201cpink is my favorite part.\u201d   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Janelle Mon\u00e1e<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The song and music video seems to be a celebration of feminine sexuality, featuring only women of color. \u201cPYNK\u201d seems to offer a utopian alternative to the pop and hip hop music videos of the 90s and early 2000s, where women\u2019s 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\u2014where bell hooks would call for an oppositional gaze. Close-up images of black women\u2019s butts and breasts are featured in the \u201cPYNK,\u201d 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\u2019s head between Jane\u2019s 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\u2014in this case, the women become a vulva\u2014where the costume\/avatar circumvents the prescribed limitations on black women in the public sphere. Janelle Mon\u00e1e finds power in her femininity, instead of a reduced notion of self.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Janelle Mon\u00e1e\u2019s film Dirty Computer, the music video \u201cPYNK\u201d begins with Jane (Mon\u00e1e\u2019s 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 \u201cgirls eat free and never leave.\u201d The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224","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\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions\/227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}