Emotion Picture

 Janelle Monaés Dirty Computer is described as an emotion picture rather than a motion picture. It is a 50 minute picture that centers the story of a woman (Monaé herself) and a long lost love escaping a futuristic community where it's difficult to tell if it's a utopia or dystopia they are trying to achieve. Janelle, among others abducted into the community are referred to as "dirty computers", which is coincidentally,  the title of the work.  Within this futuristic and controlled world, the people are forced to have really simplistic/popular/white names with a sequence of numbers to follow. 

The video switches between this Orwellian level world and bright eccentric pop numbers like "Crazy, Classic Life" or "Pynk". The pop numbers function as Monaés life before she was taken in. The undeniable energy of these musical numbers represents the true freedom she has before she was taken into the new world. Monaés long lost love in this film is a woman. Not only this but they seem to be polyamorous as they also include a man in this relationship later in the picture. Queerness not only is, but represents freedom and rejection of the repressed (or dystopic world). In this film Monaés first life is everything that is is forbidden once she enters the world where she is seen as a "dirty computer". Her colorful clothing, her queer love, her ability to express freely and experience permanence. By taking away permanence with their technology and cleansing they are removing all things culturally related to her life. This brings in the classic afrofuturist theme of the work. Using advanced technology (like erasing memory) to fight against the richness of Black life and demean their humanity down to that of an electronic. This is very similar to Black people in the real world being treated similarly to animals. 

Overall Monaés Dirty Computer focuses on themes of freedom vs confinement in a contrasting afrofuturist classic pop short film or 'Emotion Picture"