“PYNK’’ is a song included in Dirty Computer (2018), the third album released by the singer and actress Janelle Monáe (Kansas City, 1985). In this song, Monáe, who usually shows her commitment to feminism in her work, draws attention to the female body, especially the female genitals and, as a result, female sexuality. Monáe celebrates both self-stimulation and sexual encounters with other people, focusing on lesbian sexual intercourse. Consequently, through this song, Monáe adopts a clear and unapologetic feminist stance and claims self-love for all women. The song’s message is even reflected in its concise title: “PYNK”. Monáe explores throughout the whole song what PYNK means for her: the color of unity, since all women and all humans in general are, literally, pink on their inside. A few examples of how the singer relates this color to the inside of the human body in this song are: “the inside of your..”., “behind all of the doors..”., “the tongue that goes down…” —the suggestive ellipses in these three lines probably refer to the vulva— or “the folds of your brain..”.. However, the emphasis on pink is also present in the chorus, where the singer defends femaleness exclusively and as an opposite of maleness. Alluding to the traditional differentiation between blue related to males and pink to females, Monáe sings: “Cause boy, it’s cool if you got blue/ We got the pynk”. All these aspects were reflected in Monáe’s description of the song in the album:
“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...”. (Monáe, quoted in Sodomsky). Therefore, for Moáne, pink is both powerful and empowering.
Andrea Delgado López, American Music Videos: Lessons about the Nation 55 Finally, the spelling of the title is also related to feminism: as Matthias (42) claims, writing it with y “alludes to the feminist action that (phonetically) excludes men from female spaces by spelling “women” as “womyn”.
The music video, directed by Emma Westenberg, has the two same main focuses as the song: the color pink and the female body. The pink dessert, clothes, car, and even some shots where a pink filter is applied, are some of the many emphases on this color, while the characters themselves—all of them black women—stress the main motif of the song and video, that is, the sisterly union between women. One of the most characteristic elements of the video are the pants that simulate a vulva, designed by Duran Lantink.
Worn just by some of the dancers and the singer —Monáne’s reasoning behind this is that she “[doesn’t] believe that all women need to possess a vagina to be a woman”
(Moáne, quoted in Warner)—, their design and the different shades of pink imitate the labia of the vulva. In one scene, Monáe, dressed in these pants, has Tessa Thompson’s head between her legs. Thompson’s head is a clear reference to the clitoris: Monáe caresses her, alluding to female masturbation. These pants are so representative of the song that they were included in the single cover art. The reference to female genitals continues throughout the whole video: someone introducing a finger in a donut’s hole or half an orange with an ice cube falling into it are two allusions to both female genitals and masturbation. The vulva is also present when various close shots of underpants with messages appear. The three messages that can be read are “sex cells”—probably referring to “sex cells like sperm and an egg” (Dworsky 24), given the video’s celebration of the body—, “great cosmic mother” or “I grab back”. The last one is “a shout out to the march’s popular slogan ‘Pussy Grabs Back’, a response to Donald Trump’s infamous comments about grabbing women ‘by the pussy’” (Brown). These close shots offer a clear view of the reality of female bodies: there are different sizes and, as Monáe shows, many women do not want to remove their pubic hair, as it is habitual to do now because of porn’s influence. Additionally, there is a clear reference to the penis, when a pink bat between two legs appears. This may also hint again at the presence of transsexual women.
The video also stresses women’s liberation in terms of sexual relationships and independence from men. On the one hand, there are various scenes where women are having fun: they dance and sing in a convertible, an empty pool, a pajama party and at a restaurant or they even exercise together. On the other hand, there are multiple allusions to lesbianism. On various occasions, females interact and touch each other wearing lingerie. Another scene that focuses on lesbianism features Thompson and Monáe, who try to get to each other by crossing over various women facing down and moving their bottoms up and down. Both of them and other characters in the video hug or hold and touch each other on repeated occasions.
The song and the video are a perfect response to the current feminist movement by focusing on female sexuality and body, issues that have been widely repressed. While heterosexual men have the opportunity to openly talk about their sexual experiences—
both alone and with other people—feminism has to fight for the end of female sexuality as a taboo. The idealization of the female body from a heterosexual and male perspective continues to be its most popular representation, while some feminist artists keep attracting attention to their sexuality—and not their sexualization—as an ambit that still
Andrea Delgado López, American Music Videos: Lessons about the Nation 56 has to be further discussed and demystified. This is even more remarkable regarding lesbianism, since this collective is silenced because of both their gender and sexual orientation. Thus, the video attempts to be intersectional, since it also focuses on race and, less noticeably, on different body sizes —more aspects such as disability could be included to emphasize more its intersectional stance. Concerning LGTBIQ+ activism, while “PYNK” could be considered an ode to lesbianism, it has also been criticized due to its emphasis on the vulva and, consequently, the alleged discrimination against transsexual women. While it is certainly true that genitals do not dictate gender expression and that having a vulva is not a synonym for being a feminine person, the fact that the video emphasizes the vulva does not make it transphobic. “PYNK” attempts to challenge the history that has systematically subordinated female genitals. Regarding this controversy and after claiming that transsexual women are women, Moáne states: “I have [a vulva and] I’m proud of it, but there’s a lot of policing and controlling that people are trying to have over our vaginas and when you think about female genital mutilation, when you think about all these women’s issues, I wanted to make sure we were discussing these issues but we were also celebrating each other” (Moáne, quoted in Warner).
Therefore, even if the video only focuses on transsexual women succinctly, which may not be enough to claim that it deals with both trans- and cis-women equally, the celebration of the vulva is still necessary, as it is the celebration of the penis in a feminine body.
Works Cited
Brown, Lisa. “Janelle Monáe & Grimes Celebrate Female Sexuality With ‘PYNK’”. Genius, 10 April 2018 https://genius.com/a/janelle-monae-grimes-celebrate-female-sexuality-with-pynk. Accessed 14 April 2021.
Dworsky, Amy, (Miss) Representation: An Analysis of the Music Videos and Lyrics of Janelle Monae as an Expression of Femininity, Feminism, and Female Rage. 2019.
Pace University, Honors College Theses.
https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/honorscollege_theses/218.
Matthias, Meg. “Gender Definition and Expressions of Sexuality in Janelle Monáe’s
“Pynk”“. RhetTech, vol. 1, 2018, pp. 40-44.
Sodomsky, Sam. “Janelle Monáe and Grimes Share New Song and Video “PYNK”:
Watch”. Pitchfork, 20 April 2018 https://pitchfork.com/news/grimes-joins-janelle-monae-for-new-song-pynk-listen/. Accessed 14 April 2021.
Warner, Kara “Janelle Monáe Says She’s ‘Working On’ Mass Producing Those ‘Vagina Pants’”. People, 1 May 2018 https://people.com/style/janelle-monae-says-shes-working-on-mass-producing-those-vagina-pants/. Accessed 14 April 2021.
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