Janelle Monáe, queen of Afrofuturism and monochromatic looks, has once again disarmed the internet with her bright, brilliant music video for “PYNK”—a song about pussy.
“PYNK is a brash celebration of creation. self love. sexuality. and pussy power!” the video description reads. “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…”
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“PYNK” is rife with pussy imagery (cats, oysters, grapefruits, orchids) and if anything can rejuvenate this potent yet fraught messaging, it’s a wink to the audience from a woman who’s spent the last decade inspiring us with her tenacity, vision, singularity, and commitment to justice.
Pussy-centric feminism is rightly derided as cis-sexist, reductionist, and simply tired. Relying on the notion that “women are united by their vaginas” is a shallow and basic reading that centers white cisgender women. But with an all-Black cast and a deft artistic hand, Monáe explodes and re-appropriates pussy power as a personal, queer, and universally positive force.
The video is a pink-drenched, irreverent amalgamation of Solange’s “Cranes in the Sky” and Cazwell’s “Ice Cream Truck,” where sweeping landscapes meet cheeky dancers who know exactly how good they look—and didn’t get dolled up for your pleasure. While “Ice Cream Truck” appealed to a gay male audience by showcasing oiled, topless men sucking popsicles, Monáe knew what the women’s equivalent would require, and is perhaps the only person with the fortitude to execute it.
Monáe similarly stunned viewers in February, when the musician and actor cheekily acknowledged rumors about her sexuality by appearing with reported girlfriend Tessa Thompson in the extremely bisexually-lit video for “Make Me Feel.” While Monáe playfully indulged in stereotypes about bisexuality (literally running back and forth between Thompson and a man in a leather jacket) with “Make Me Feel,” she accomplishes another reclamation with “PYNK,” turning the pussy power aesthetic into something radical, making it more celebratory than exhausting and centering Black women and queerness. Monáe even clarified that she’s here for girls with and without vaginas, affirming the inclusive power of “PYNK.”
“PYNK” is also reminiscent of the 1999 satirical rom com But I’m a Cheerleader, where LGBTQ teens are sent to a sort of conversion therapy camp that’s hyper-saturated with blues and pinks in an attempt to help the troubled youths rediscover the gender binary. In both, the settings are cognizantly picture-perfect, and the subjects are, too—even though we know they aren’t “supposed” to be. Both “PYNK” and But I’m a Cheerleader wield color as a tool not to divide, but to lampoon prejudice and call on us to rise up, love, and fuck.
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Monáe makes it a point to use the word “pink” to describe more things than pussy (“like the tongue that goes down… like the folds of your brain… like the holes of your heart”)—and then immediately turns around to remind us that she’s still (and perhaps always) singing about her queerness, love, and yes, pussy (“pink is my favorite part”).
She serves sapphic fantasy by cruising alongside Thompson in a pink, hover-car version of the Thelma & Louise cadillac, and spends four-and-a-half minutes among vibrant women partying in the simultaneously vast-yet-intimate setting of the desert. In essence, Monáe is hosting her own Dinah Shore weekend, and we’re just lucky to get a glimpse.
