Discussion:
- Post at least one comment, observation, or question on the reading. This post can be brief (even a sentence!) and informal. It can be an observation you made while reading, a comment you’d make in class, a discussion question, etc.
- Respond to at least one comment, observation, or question on the reading. Like your post, this response can also be brief. Just respond to one of your classmate’s posts with a related thought, observation, question, answer, etc. Feel free to respond to someone else’s response to keep the conversation going!
scdiversity.home.blog 
Personally, I thought reading this alongside watching Dirty Computer was extremely helpful. It helped to confirm thoughts I had about the message Janelle Monae was trying to convey and in addition, added some I missed. Additionally, the research behind the piece gave me insight to Dirty Computer. For example, I did not know that Janelle cam out as pansexual as Dirty Computer was released. This fact adds a level to the queer pride expressed in the album. My favorite part, however, was the emphasis in the last paragraph of how Janelle Monae is living the American dream we were promised (not the one we were actually given).
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I definitely agree that this article helped to confirm some of the feelings I had after initially watching the video, I think it was a really helpful source to accompany this piece.
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Yes – the article was a nice complement to the video.
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I liked the emphasis there too! This article was extremely helpful with understanding more about Dirty Computer and Janelle Monáe. I liked the ideas the article brought up and gave me much more to think about!
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I agree this helps me understand the video as well.
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I also did not know that Janelle came out as pansexual the same time Dirty Computer was released and reading the article definitely helped me understand the video a lot more.
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I’m glad you found the article helpful! There are so many sources out there about “Dirty Computer” and Janelle Monáe’s work in general, so it was hard to choose. We could definitely spend an entire semester talking about just “Dirty Computer” in depth!
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I found the portion of this article about how Monae connects technology and identity to be really interesting. I think it’s really relevant to our culture today that we can use the internet and other technologies to shape how others perceive us. I think that Dirty Computer really showcases how this ability to shape others’ perceptions of us can be used to either conform to some status quo or to reshape the culture we are living in, as Monae attempts to do by making this project centered around queer women of color.
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I agree that Dirty Computer emphasizes the pressure to conform to society and displays the strength to not do so.
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I agree, it is a really interesting take on the role of technology in our lives and how socially important it is.
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I definitely agree with the significance of the connection between technology and identity. I think it’s interesting that you bring up perception because I think that the connection between perception and self-identity varies a lot and so I think Dirty Computer tries to show that aspect as well.
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Definitely! There is a lot of great work on how technology and, in particular, social media platforms impact how we communicate and understand identity today. In some ways, this opens up different ways for companies to capitalize on or co-opt identities, but on the flip side, it also means that articulating identity in powerful ways can be circulated more widely and it can also include more participants. For instance, with social media, blogs, etc., anyone can be an author in a sense which complicates how we think about expertise and access to audience.
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I don’t really have much else to say other than that the entire article helped me see Monae’s emotion picture more clearly
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I’m glad you found it helpful!
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This was interesting, and definitely helped follow-up the video. Monae should be proud of herself for accepting herself for who she is.
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Glad you enjoyed it and found it helpful!
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It was really nice to see another take on her emotion picture and learn more background information about it. I found it really helpful in understanding her intentions better, which makes the whole album even more interesting and powerful.
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I’m glad you found the article helpful! I wanted to give you all some framing and additional information, but I wanted to have it come after your first viewing of the album so that you also had some space to think through it yourself.
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Reading the article helped me understand Janelle Monáe’s album and “emotion picture” much more and appreciate its purpose. She created a space where people could be celebrated all while confronting social hierarchies. Not many artists can make their music more than just music and relate to other things successfully but I believe she did. I would agree and say that Dirty Computer does showcase queer Afrofuturism. How she mixes social issues with science fiction reminded me of Black panther and how it also showcases Afrofuturism. There are more works out there that do that and I am curious about others. I applaud how Monáe explores the body’s relationship to temporal experience in a empowering, feminist and edgy way.
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I completely agree that not many artists can do what Janelle did with her music. She’s so inspiring and the way she included such deep meaning into her music is so empowering!
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I completely agree. I remember going to a concert and she performed a few of her songs from the album. The way she was able to connect with the crowd was amazing. Her whole performance and message were so powerful.
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Black Panther is definitely a great connection to make! It’s also interesting to think about how in drawing on Afrofuturism both the movie and Janelle Monáe’s work also incorporate the idea of Black royalty.
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After reading the article, I definitely learned a lot more about the message that Janelle Monae expressed in her album. She really isn’t afraid to show who she is and I love how she emphasizes the importance of equality and individuality in the world. I hope others can learn about the importance of her message and the meaning of Afrofuturism as I did.
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Definitely! I’m glad you enjoyed the article and album.
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I pretty much agree with what has been already said on this reading. The article did hi-light some of the important points and messages that are brought up throughout the album. One thing that I will add is that I found the end of the article really interesting. Although the songs suggest that there are happy endings it really is not the case. The “Emotion Picture” compliments the lyrics but at the same time it does not reinforce the happy ending that some of the songs may imply.
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I’m glad you bring up the question of the happy endings. It’s part of why I found Monáe’s work to be so interesting and complex. It makes sense that she draws on Afrofuturism since a lot of Afrofuturist work is similarly invested in envisioning the future and Black people’s place within it while still speaking on current and past injustice.
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I definitely agree, i think that ’emotion picture’ is a very broad term and in the case of Monae’s video, implies the continued struggle to move towards a happier ending.
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This article helps me understand the content of the video. Especially when I see the video, my Wi-Fi crashed and I guess for most of the main idea of the video. After reading the article, I understand more about the black culture which I did not pay attention to before. The only thing I feel not good is the article is long and when I read the last part of it, I already lost my patient.
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I’m glad the article helped you make sense of the album! Thank you for your note about the article’s length as well. That’s definitely helpful for me to know!
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The article definitely helps me understand what was happening in the video a lot more. It gave me some information about Monae that I didn’t know prior to watching the video. I knew she was in the movie Hidden Figures but I did not think to connect her role in the movie to the video before reading the article.
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I’m glad you found it helpful! I had almost forgotten about her being in Hidden Figures. She’s also in Moonlight!
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Before this article, I had not heard of the term Afrofuturism before. I thought that the article explained it well and such that I understood what it meant and how it applied to Dirty Computer. The article also brought up points I had not considered and helped me see connections I didn’t make when I was watching the emotion picture the other day. I also liked how the article took specific lines and explained them in different contexts and thought that this gave me a better understanding because the lyrics were something that I did not focus as much on when I watched the emotion picture.
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I also, never heard of the term before reading this article either
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I’m glad this was a helpful overview of the term. It’s such a vast, complex tradition within Black art and thought, so picking a source to give a quick description of it was hard.
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I agree, there are a lot of new terms and ideas presented through the video. The article also helped clarify things!
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I definitely agree with the article because I also mentioned how she goes against social norms in the “Dirty Computer” video. I find it very interesting because it goes back to what we talked about in the beginning of the semester with black women breaking barriers.
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Definitely! Even though we’ve covered work from a long time period and we are now looking at more recent things like albums by Beyoncé and Monáe, it’s interesting to see how many of our conversations and reading discussions are connected across time.
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I thought that this article did a really good job at explaining what Afrofuturism is and how Monae portrayed it in her video. I especially was interested by the part where the article says:
“The songs themselves are utopic, the “emotion picture” is disconcertingly dystopian. This juxtaposition embodies a queerness all its own, letting viewers know there is no stability.”
I think the concept of an ’emotion picture’ perfectly describes the following sentence, and how the emotion that Monae’s character fights against is so impactful in the afrofuturism goal of redefining black futures.
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The article definitely clarified and highlighted many things about the video. I didn’t know what Afrofuturism was before reading the article and it is really interesting to see how it connects to Dirty Computer and it definitely makes sense now with other pieces of work like Black Panther. The article was like connecting all the pieces and parts together.
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