Doobie Doo
Veteran
The film features two characters played by the singer herself – the suit-wearing powerhouse Janelle Monáe and the free-spirited, slightly risqué Janelle Monáe who sashays into a club with Tessa Thompson; she sensuously accepts a lollipop from Thompson while locking eyes with a handsome guy. It may not need explaining, says Monáe, but gossip rags have wondered loudly whether these 33 seconds (and a seemingly affectionate red-carpet appearance) could mean that Monáe and Thompson are dating, or that Monáe is “finally” out of the closet.
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Monáe (right) with Tessa Thompson at a film premiere in February 2018. Photograph: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images
Rumours have long been whispered about her sexuality, but Monáe has thus far resisted publicly defining it; she characterises herself again as “sexually liberated” and she declines to frame Make Me Feel in literal terms. “It’s a celebratory song,” she says. “I hope that comes across. That people feel more free, no matter where they are in their lives, that they feel celebrated. Because I’m about women’s empowerment. I’m about agency. I’m about being in control of your narrative and your body. That was personal for me to even talk about: to let people know you don’t own or control me and you will not use my image to defame or denounce other women.”
It’s an ugly phenomenon she has glimpsed on social media. “I see how people try to pit women against each other,” she says. “There are people who have used my image to slut-shame other women: ‘Janelle, we really appreciate that you don’t show your body.’ That’s something I’m not cool with. I have worn a tuxedo, but I have never covered up for respectability politics or to shame other women.
“I’m guilty feeling like I can’t just be,” she says. “Like either it’s this or it’s that, it’s black or it’s white. But there’s so much grey. And I think I’m kind of discovering the grey and realising it’s OK not to have all the answers, or to supply them.”
In the years after Electric Lady, Monáe turned her talents to playing other people – in Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight, the first LGBTQ film and the first film with an all-black cast to win the best picture Oscar; in Hidden Figures, about female African American Nasa employees; and, recently, in Channel 4’s adaptation of Philip K dikk’s dystopian Electric Dreams. She spoke movingly at the Women’s March on Washington in 2017 (“Remember to choose freedom over fear!”) and later that year launched the organisation Fem the Future, a pre-Time’s Up grassroots movement aimed at empowering women and those identifying as women, especially in the arts and music.
'You don't own or control me': Janelle Monáe on her music, politics and undefinable sexuality
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Monáe (right) with Tessa Thompson at a film premiere in February 2018. Photograph: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images
Rumours have long been whispered about her sexuality, but Monáe has thus far resisted publicly defining it; she characterises herself again as “sexually liberated” and she declines to frame Make Me Feel in literal terms. “It’s a celebratory song,” she says. “I hope that comes across. That people feel more free, no matter where they are in their lives, that they feel celebrated. Because I’m about women’s empowerment. I’m about agency. I’m about being in control of your narrative and your body. That was personal for me to even talk about: to let people know you don’t own or control me and you will not use my image to defame or denounce other women.”
It’s an ugly phenomenon she has glimpsed on social media. “I see how people try to pit women against each other,” she says. “There are people who have used my image to slut-shame other women: ‘Janelle, we really appreciate that you don’t show your body.’ That’s something I’m not cool with. I have worn a tuxedo, but I have never covered up for respectability politics or to shame other women.
“I’m guilty feeling like I can’t just be,” she says. “Like either it’s this or it’s that, it’s black or it’s white. But there’s so much grey. And I think I’m kind of discovering the grey and realising it’s OK not to have all the answers, or to supply them.”
In the years after Electric Lady, Monáe turned her talents to playing other people – in Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight, the first LGBTQ film and the first film with an all-black cast to win the best picture Oscar; in Hidden Figures, about female African American Nasa employees; and, recently, in Channel 4’s adaptation of Philip K dikk’s dystopian Electric Dreams. She spoke movingly at the Women’s March on Washington in 2017 (“Remember to choose freedom over fear!”) and later that year launched the organisation Fem the Future, a pre-Time’s Up grassroots movement aimed at empowering women and those identifying as women, especially in the arts and music.
'You don't own or control me': Janelle Monáe on her music, politics and undefinable sexuality
she can eat Tessa while I'm knocking out the lining. 
Good time had by all.
Imm go jerk off now
even if they are attractive...
