This is cross-posted at Geek Feminism.
In the futuristic city of Metropolis, Cindi Mayweather, a.k.a. Android # 57821, falls in love with a human named Anthony Greendown. As a result, the Star Commission schedules for her immediate disassembly. Cindi Mayweather hides in the Neon Valley Street District, while card-carrying android bounty hunters are urged to capture her for a reward. The Droid Control Marshalls forbid the bounty hunters from using phasers that day; they can only use chainsaws and electro-daggers.
Cindi Mayweather is actually the alter-ego of Janelle Monáe, an underrated, multi-talented American recording artist, and apparent science fiction geek. Jason Heller of sci-fl/fantasy site Tor writes of Monáe:
Monáe herself has said how indebted to the SF canon she is: In interviews she’s gushed about Philip K. Dick, The Matrix, Metropolis (a film she pays visual tribute to on the cover of The ArchAndroid), and most often Octavia E. Butler, a visionary writer whose ethnocentric SF clearly marks her as Monáe’s aesthetic godmother. […] Monáe isn’t dabbling in SF. She takes the stuff passionately and seriously.
In her lyrics, Monáe alludes to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, kryptonite, and thinks of herself as “something like a Terminator“. (On the other hand, her lyrics also include some ableist (and nonsensical) phrases like, “shake it like schizo”.)
From her first album, Metropolis, the music video for “Many Moons” is about an Annual Android Auction featuring a performance by Cindi Mayweather, in which Monáe dances erratically and does the moonwalk:
If you liked that video and want more highly-polished videos by Monáe, check out “Tightrope”, which is not sci-fi-themed but has fantasy elements and gender-liberating dancing, as well as the trailer for The ArchAndroid, in which the camera pans around a futuristic city-scape that turns out to be Monáe’s hat.
Related links (thanks, yatima):
- Adventures in Wondaland: Janelle Monae takes us on a musical mission to the future. by Vanessa Lazar at Gender Across Borders
- Janelle Monae turns rhythm and blues into science fiction by Gillian ‘Gus’ Andrews at io9
July 23, 2010 at 12:46 pm
I love Janelle Monae and wish more people new about her.
July 23, 2010 at 8:44 pm
That video just wasted six and a half minutes of my life that I’ll never get back. By the way, what’s “gender liberating dancing”? Are you talking about homoz?
July 23, 2010 at 9:41 pm
No booty shaking.
July 24, 2010 at 1:24 am
But I LIKE booty shaking!!!
Whoomp! Dere it is!
July 24, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Thanks so much, I love this video!
July 24, 2010 at 6:44 pm
kathy-
Glad you liked it. I think it’s awesome. I couldn’t do it. And I tried, too.
July 24, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Fred, U R less than a wipe for my kid’s ass, I didn’t look at ur video cuz I had enough of your BULLSHIT.
July 25, 2010 at 5:04 am
I love you, too. *smooch*
July 25, 2010 at 12:35 pm
I apologize for my poor choice in words, other than that, what i meant stands, Fred.
July 25, 2010 at 6:57 pm
kathy writes, “I apologize for my poor choice in words”
It’s all good. Insults don’t bother me.
July 25, 2010 at 10:42 pm
[…] This is cross-posted at Restructure! […]
July 28, 2010 at 11:55 am
Janelle Monae is awesome! Throughout the entire music video, I was struggling with the “sold” and pricing holograms that showed up next to each of the androids. Socially conscious music FTW!