Janelle Monáe Peels the Onion

January 8, 2023 7:20 PM

The musician and actress talks “Glass Onion” spoilers, growing up in Kansas, becoming an android, and the inspirational notes she keeps on her phone. [slNewYorker]
posted by Ahmad Khani (31 comments total)

Her voice is heavenly. There is an acoustic version of “Tonight” featuring her that I will watch and listen to endlessly.
posted by davey_darling at 7:33 PM on January 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Is there a way around the paywall?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:33 PM on January 8, 2023

If you have Apple News+ you can read it there.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:41 PM on January 8, 2023

Thank you for posting this. I've loved Monae since I was first introduced to her, probably right here on the blue, with her single Tightrope. That wasn't early to the game, but was other than most. And she's utterly remarkable.

I feel like her connection of queer identity and Black female identity sort of helps me feel better about the decades I've spent listening to Black female artists who Have Something To Say. It's something I feel a bit embarrassed to talk about because I'm a white guy in my mid-50s, but Paula and Janet and Dionne Farris and yes Janelle and many others occupy a big place in my life, have fed me lessons that might have been meant for Black women but with my life experience I took it as talking to me, also.

I'm still trying to analyze this part of me, but this interview helped me a bit and I need to read it a few more times, much more closely, because there are probably things in there I could find more in.

Thank you so much!
posted by hippybear at 7:49 PM on January 8, 2023 [14 favorites]

Monáe seems perfectly cast in "The Glass Onion" - a very tricky role to pull off - and the interview reveals some of the reasons why, I think. She talks about how she turned the experience of being a maid into an opportunity to improve her singing, she talks about how she parsed all she had learnt in the Baptist church into those parts which were of enduring value versus those to be "unlearned", she talks about seeing that successful career in musical theatre would have given her too many typecast roles to grow: at every stage she comes over as somebody who is about three steps ahead on her planning.

Looking at her role in The Glass Onion, in particular, I found myself comparing her with Grace Jones in, say "View to a Kill". Maybe I was right.
posted by rongorongo at 12:45 AM on January 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

Paywall free link. Love Janelle, they were phenomenal in the (very good) Glass Onion.
posted by ellieBOA at 1:21 AM on January 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh god I love her so much. I was stoked when I heard that she was in Glass Onion, and overjoyed to find out that she's basically the main character.
posted by Chronorin at 1:28 AM on January 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

And Empress and anyone else, bookmark this link and you can read any paywalled article by searching to see if someone has already saved it, and save it if not.

Now I’ve read the article, wow, this is one of the best interviews I’ve read with Janelle, thanks for sharing AK!
posted by ellieBOA at 1:51 AM on January 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

Her work going between the two voices and accents of Helen and Andi was just superb and that work was a key to the entire movie. It’s too bad they aren’t doing the “same cast, but everyone plays completely different characters” thing that was proposed by a lot of fans, because I’d love to see her and Craig bouncing the script off each other like that again.
posted by azpenguin at 2:59 AM on January 9, 2023 [7 favorites]

Meaning this with respect, she's like a version of Maude Lebowski that someone plucked out of the film world ideally with a giant claw machine, made sentient, and turned loose in our world.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:10 AM on January 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

Janelle Monáe's recommendation in this interview was my introduction to the album 'Stevie Wonder's Journey Through "The Secret Life of Plants"' (Wikipedia and YouTube). One has to imagine his record company's reaction to the news that, the follow up to a decade of Grammy award winning best records was going to be a concept album about plant sentience (a double album - with Braille embossed title and making use of something called a "sampling synthesizer" that would surely never catch on). It is a great illustration of the idea she cites by Bowie - that artists should grow by always be wading into water where they are a bit out of their depth; then see where that takes you - somebody somewhere will love it!

(I love the interview's coda where there is an intervention by a neighbouring woman in the cafe and the subject switches to the importance of inner child, one's personal inner god, and Janelle 's hot shoes.)
posted by rongorongo at 5:01 AM on January 9, 2023

Great interview! I've been trying to learn more about Monáe since seeing Glass Onion. She's so fantastic in that and I've known vaguely about her music and artistic career. I admire solo artists like her who create this whole image and story around themselves. Her afrofuturism, her look, her android comparisons. The comparisons to Grace Jones and David Bowie seem apt.

I appreciate her honoring of Octavia Butler. I think she'd be great in Wild Seed, but maybe a few years older still before playing Anyanwu. I think she'd also be interesting in the more alien Xenogenesis series but that might be a little too on the nose. It was fun watching her play straight human on Glass Onion, she's a remarkably good actor.

I'm reading The Memory Librarian and might be failing. There's something interesting there but the storytelling is pretty oblique and hard for me to follow. Does anyone have hope for me? Maybe I should put the Dirty Computer album front and center and just read the book as an accompaniment.
posted by Nelson at 6:32 AM on January 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

I think The Archandroid is a stronger album than Dirty Computer, personally. I mean, all her work builds on what she did before, but for me that remains her most clear statement so far.
posted by hippybear at 6:38 AM on January 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

I found The Memory Librarian to be pretty opaque, Nelson. I felt like I got a lot more out of it when I read more for vibes than for plot.
posted by minsies at 6:40 AM on January 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

In 2018, she came out as pansexual, and last April revealed herself to be nonbinary; she uses she/her or they/them pronouns but says that her preferred pronoun is “freeassmuthafucka.”

posted by kirkaracha at 7:47 AM on January 9, 2023 [11 favorites]

I don't want to give anything away, but I thought her role would have been epic if she could have pulled it off, but in a lazily written movie (which I think it was) they only concentrated on one of her characters, gave the other really short shrift, and in doing so I don't think it worked at all.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:58 AM on January 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

lazily written movie (which I think it was)

I didn't get the fuss made about this film. At best it was fair to middling. In other words, yet another pretentious Rian Johnson production.
posted by drstrangelove at 9:18 AM on January 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm reading The Memory Librarian and might be failing. There's something interesting there but the storytelling is pretty oblique and hard for me to follow. Does anyone have hope for me? Maybe I should put the Dirty Computer album front and center and just read the book as an accompaniment.

I would recommend watching the "Emotion Picture" for Dirty Computer. It's basically a collection of music videos for the album, linked through a narrative wrapping that seems to be the basis of the world expanded in The Memory Librarian.

It's also TOTALLY AWESOME and I've watched it multiple times and spent a month or two annoying my friends with my constant evangelism of it, and Monáe in general. YMMV of course.
posted by Roommate at 9:27 AM on January 9, 2023 [6 favorites]

Did y'all seriously come in here just to take a dump on Glass Onion?
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:39 AM on January 9, 2023 [12 favorites]

Pretentious? It's a fun murder mystery.
posted by jonathanhughes at 10:41 AM on January 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

It's a fun murder mystery

Or at least 2/3 of one!
posted by mittens at 10:46 AM on January 9, 2023

Janelle Monàe is more than this planet deserves; we're blessed to share the air with them.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:12 AM on January 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

I've watched it multiple times and spent a month or two annoying my friends with my constant evangelism of it, and Monáe in general.

Oh good. I'm glad it wasn't just me.
posted by vverse23 at 11:23 AM on January 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

I didn't get the fuss made about this film. At best it was fair to middling. In other words, yet another pretentious Rian Johnson production.
posted by drstrangelove at 12:18 PM on January 9

Well, Rian Johnson is no Kubrick, that’s for sure.
posted by TedW at 11:25 AM on January 9, 2023

Did y'all seriously come in here just to take a dump on Glass Onion?

Forget it, seanmpuckett, it's MetaFilter.
posted by Pendragon at 11:53 AM on January 9, 2023 [7 favorites]

I think The Archandroid is a stronger album than Dirty Computer
I mean, I agree, but I'm a middle aged folky and one of these albums has an actual madrigal on it, so I would.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 1:25 PM on January 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

I also thought Glass Onion was very pretentious! The only other movie I have seen is Jack and Jill
posted by ominous_paws at 2:02 PM on January 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

Janelle Monáe was amazing in Glass Onion, and this interview made me realize I want to be them when I grow up.
posted by medusa at 2:20 PM on January 9, 2023

I'm reading The Memory Librarian and might be failing. There's something interesting there but the storytelling is pretty oblique and hard for me to follow. Does anyone have hope for me?

I think the best way to approach The Memory Librarian is to accept that you’re being dropped into an alternate reality cold and without a guidebook. There’s really no backstory or exposition, per-se, that gives you an understanding why this world is the way it is. You get bits and pieces, but you really just have to accept it and go with the flow.

I really loved the book.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:32 AM on January 10, 2023

> Her work going between the two voices and accents of Helen and Andi was just superb and that work was a key to the entire movie. It’s too bad they aren’t doing the “same cast, but everyone plays completely different characters” thing that was proposed by a lot of fans, because I’d love to see her and Craig bouncing the script off each other like that again.

Now you've got me really wondering how well Monáe would pull off a Benoit Blanc accent.

And as much as I'd want to see that fan-speculated Benoit Blanc/Muppets mystery movie, I now really want to see Monáe and The Muppets in any project together. And throw in Tatiana Maslany too.
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 1:07 PM on January 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Monáe pulling off a Benoit Blanc accent. Next request? ;-)
posted by Nelson at 1:42 PM on January 10, 2023 [5 favorites]