How Janelle’s work is inspired by Haraway

In the 1980s, Donna Haraway’s cyborg manifesto challenges normal societal ideals about gender identity and the line between a human and a machine. Now, when we get into the year like 2018, Janelle Monáe’s dirty computer helps bring these things to life in the modern day. Her album is a mix of Afrofuturism, being queer, and rebelling against an oppressive system. Both of these works explore the idea of breaking down these super strict categories of identity, and they both use the cyborg as a metaphor to betray this message. Cyborg represents a machine and an organism hybrid, which rejects the usual classifications of gender, sexuality, and humanity. Haraway’s cyborg insists on gender fluidity, where identity can be constructed by yourself, similar to non-binary and today’s age. In Computer, Monet presents a dystopian world where those who don’t conform to the norms of society are labeled as dirty. They are dirty computers and outsiders who are looked down upon because of their queerness and their refusal to fit into what society says is correct. But they can erase their refusal or be cleaned when they reclaim their identity, similar to Haraway’s cyborg, which is the change in our categorization. Monaé’s character, Jane 57821, moves through the futuristic world that is filled with control, surveillance, and punishment her songs, like Pynk and Django Jane, touch on themes of being gender fluid and defying normal gender roles. The album is a celebration of being queer and expressing your freedom while rejecting the norms that society expects you to live by. This is similar to the ideas that Haraway describes in her work. Haraway sees the cyborg as a metaphor for blended identities, while Monet shows how the blending occurs in the real world. There is a mix of race, gender, and sexuality that becomes the forefront of liberation. In both works, technology is a crucial component. Haraway sees technology as a tool for breaking down the oppressive system and blurring the lines of identity in the traditional sense. At the same time, Monet uses literal and symbolic representations of freedom and control. The album is a manifesto that calls for the same kind of post-gender post-race that Haraway envisions. Her album is an anthem for marginalized communities that urges listeners to embrace their differences and rebel against the control society that we live in.