Abandonment of Conformity

 Janelle Monet is what Rolling Stones would call, a "visionary." She's an incredibly accomplished singer, songwriter, actor, dancer, etc. For class, we watched Janelle Monet's Dirty Computer, which is a brilliant film based on her album. This film investigates interesting elements and leads into our theme of African punk that we've recently been exploring. This film's ideal is a future where people are sort of brainwashed to the point where they lose all individuality. This is important for the narrative because Janelle is a person who does not fit into cultural normality, particularly in America. To elaborate, she is a woman, who is queer, and who is black which does not necessarily fit into the patriarchal white world of American normality. Dirty Computer does an excellent job of highlighting these themes in a futuristic world. In this world, Janelle is persecuted for her individuality in the film, being stopped in traffic by robots, attempting brain wash to change her personality to fit into this new world, and overall just a white-washed sad place. Overall, this brilliant film highlights truly modern issues in a playful, fun way, yet it still manages to grip the viewer with serious themes.