Around twenty years after its conclusion, the original Matrix trilogy has proven to be culturally enduring. Perhaps because now it’s pretty universally accepted as a clear allegory for the alienating forces of capitalism/the experiences of being transgender/how the pernicious illusion of how gynecocracy and feminism subjugates men/the Jewish people returning to Israel/reaffirming white supremacy in the face of multiculturalism/the New Testament/a story told in reverse about a guy who stops taking drugs and gets a job, and I’m not going to debate that here, that particular mystery is now solved. We’ll just conclude that when you make a movie about some tech bro with no friends who feels alone and alienated, a lot of people online are going to relate with it. And, come on, it’s actually a very broad story and set-up that you can basically bring whatever you want to.
But I’m not here to talk about gay shit like allegories. I know writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards. Can we all shuffle out of our Media Studies group wank for one second and just look at the actual film? Personally, I believe that all the films are about people with trenchcoats shooting shit up, which was extremely popular in 1999. Please, I beg of you, insert a bit of wider historical context into your media literacy. I’m joking, of course: if the Matrix was in anyway tied to US school shootings then we’d be getting more than twenty Matrix movies a year! And if the country were getting that many Matrix movies I’m sure the US government would declare a state of national emergency and quickly enact some sweeping and radical changes. I mean, twenty Matrix movies a year?? That’s just unthinkable! Imagine how broken and sick a society needs to be to allow that to happen?
Anyway, I never got round to seeing all the movies. Just the original trilogy.
Well, the first two, couldn’t be arsed with that third one.
OK, so I never got round to watching the second film, just that original movie. Mate, you don’t understand, if you were anyone in 1999 you simply had to watch that movie!
Alright, so I didn’t watch, like, the entire 136 minutes. Just most of it.
OK, maybe not most of it, I maybe haven’t seen the plurality of the movie, maybe haven’t strictly seen at least 51% of it, if you’re going to get all ‘Film Police’ on me, Jesus.
OK, it was playing behind the counter of the off license when I was buying a case of blue WKD back in ’02. I think it was showing the scene where Neo goes to Dracula’s castle for the first time. But I got the gist of it.
In ‘Bram Stoker’s the Matrix’, we’re actually in the year 2199* and the Earth is run by machines in The Matrix as actual human beings are simply harvested. What we all accept as ‘reality’ is actually an artificial reality pumped into humans’ brains in order to pacify them as they’re farmed by The Matrix for their bioelectric energy. Our protagonists (Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Gary Oldman, Alex Winter and Sandra Bullock) have all ‘unplugged’ themselves, they now live in the ‘Zion’ that now exists for people in actual reality, and they are fighting for all humans to have the same privilege. They ‘took the red pill’ and now see the world as it actually is. Taking it also means they care about ethics in video game journalism.
(*god, can you imagine the memes we’re going to get in that year?? It’s going to be worse than all the Back to the Future shit we got in 2015)
But can we talk about ‘how the world actually is’? Can we take a look at this ‘Zion’ that we’re all supposed to be willing our heroes to liberate humanity into?
Mate, it looks like shit.
That’s the world we’re supposed to be fighting for?? This colourless, mechanical wasteland full of brutalist architecture? It looks like what the prison ships look like in other sci-fi movies. And why is everything so fucking blue, yo? Like I say, I haven’t seen the movies, so is this explained in the text? Does that KFC guy explain how the machines have stolen all colours except blue? So all of humanity is supposed to be fighting for the chance to be liberated into a metallic slum with the occasional dance party in some sweaty cave?
Dude, I can smell that place from here? You know what I mean, yeah? Your human utopia looks like it stinks. You’re asking me to give up my Mattel WWE Defining Moments figures collection for this? Can I still get the ‘Behind the Bastards‘ podcasts every week in Zion? I’ve heard rumours of a new Hotelier album, do I just miss that if I’m in Zion? Even I don’t want to go to Zion and my life is fucking shit! You dudes have, like, figured out the code behind artificial reality so you can fucking fly and shit! Why are you so eager to live in this poorly maintained hippie commune from the early 90s?? No, Niobe, I don’t want to listen to ‘listen to Phish and chill’ again, I don’t care what kind of relationship you and your husband have.
That joke kind of has a double meaning, because I’m a fucking comedic genius.
Listen, I accept how there are probably in universe explanations for why Zion is such a shithole – I get how you can’t just have a tropical beach and dancing hula girls hidden in this robot post-apocalypse. And I get and appreciate how the fight for true equality will obviously have to involve some personal sacrifice. The Wachowskis and I are all Communists and see that Zion is obviously meant to signify the beginning stages of the dictatorship of the proletariat. A’ight. I dig it, Comrade Wachowski. But, looking at the Matrix as a piece of fiction (which many people believe it to be), you really should give the audience a reason to superficially desire this new world that the characters are aiming for.
Perhaps (wait for it, wait for it, fucking wait for IT!!) Janelle Monae (BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!) had similar thoughts about their own future dystopia that they’d so far been telling over three albums that were slightly different shades of spectacular. Sure, the android Cindi Mayweather might have travelled back in time to free the citizens of Metropolis from a secret society that suppress freedom and love on that first album. And yeah, that second album concentrates more on Cindi gaining support for their cause to “alert a generation to the decaying infrastructure of the urban community“. And cool, that spectacular third album (and accompanying film*) switches characters to Jane 57821, but we’re still in Metropolis in the same cinematic universe, only the focus on queer relationships under totalitarian rule is made more specific. But what is everyone fighting for here? Is it just another stinky warehouse rave?
(*I cannot stress enough how awesome that film is. Far superior to the album because it just cuts out the forgettable songs)
On ‘Age of Pleasure’, Janelle outlines exactly what that utopia will look like:
Shagging. Loads and loads and loads and loads of shagging. People getting their end away all over the place. Lots of flicking the bean and shit and all.
‘The Age of Pleasure’ is all sexuality and sexual pleasure. It sees Monae step away from actual politics and actual statements to embrace the liberal idea of the ‘Personal is Political’. They announce straight away that “No I’m not the same… I think I done changed”, and the change is obvious. On the second track they explain how “I used to pray about takin’ vacations/Remember them bills we split/Now I’m here with Bueno and we bussin’ bottles”, and that’s the theme of the record: made it from the bottom how I’m here. Fuck you, got mine.
And from that point on it’s basically all bonking: “Can I get a taste? Pussy purrin’/What ya’ servin’, now what you servin’, sexy girl?“; “Tell me what you do when we walk up in the room, yeah/Hope it’s something nasty, we can try it (Try it)/Bite me on my neck and you know what’s comin’ next“; “If I could fuck me right here right now/I would do that”; “Baby, if you pay me in pleasure/I’ma keep it comin’, comin’, come-come-comin“; “‘Cause you’re the one, you’re the one/Double the fun, triple the time for love/You’re the one, you’re the one/You suck the words from my tongue“; “Now, baby, I’m choosy/But me and you can fuck in that jacuzzi/And we can make a scene/Or better yet, we could make a movie/Baby, won’t you whine for me, whine for me/Come on, babe, just whine for me, whine for me“. The album is hornier than a rhinoceros playing with the Towers of Power. And I do kind of wish that she would get a room.
First of all, we can all agree that ‘Age of Pleasure’ is Janelle’s weakest album by quite some distance?
Musically, it’s good, because of course it is. The influences and musical nods are admirable, from afrofuturistic funk to Ethiopian dance music to Jamaican dancehall. I can confidently state that there isn’t a single bad song on the album. Every song is good, man! It’s a tight half hour of joyous trumpets and uplifting odes to self-love. It’s good. I think I can confidently state that it’s the 37th best album of 2023. It’s good. The songs are good. This is a good album.
I need to keep repeating that fact. Because I’m about to tear it to shreds.
Seriously, the fuck is this?
‘Age of Pleasure’ is a good album (did I mention that?). But I don’t want good albums from one of the most creative and adventurous artists of the 21st century. This album is nothing. It’s half an hour of nice little pop ditties – with some genuine highlights – that feels considerably more slight and empty than the 17 minutes of their debut EP. I’m obviously beyond pleased that an artist like Janelle is getting the success and financial recompense that their talent so obviously deserved. But I am furious that I’m supposed to enjoy this apolitical vibe simply because of the identity of the person whose making it.
Because if you read any review of the album then you’ll only encounter that as the sole reason this album is good. Janelle is a queer black person. So we should celebrate the fact that they (and only they) are getting so much pussy and enjoying their wealth so much. Fucking. Liberal. Bullshit. This one black queer person has achieved amazing financial success and is getting wall to wall fanny, so that makes the World OK?? And there is no linking of their own personal pleasure to how it relates to society at large, just that one line that I highlighted about how Janelle used to struggle. Made it from the bottom now I’m here. Fuck you, got mine. I listened to the Pitchfork podcast (yeah, I know) review of the album, where it was explained to me that I – as a cishet fat* white guy – just wouldn’t get how revolutionary the album’s endless celebration of fucking is. Fucking. Liberal. Bullshit. I get it. It’s self-imposed segregation, it’s elitist essentialism. It’s Janelle celebrating how great their life is, and that’s supposed to mean anything is possible for black queer people. So what’s stopping all the rest of you black queers? Janelle did it, why can’t you? Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, yeah? The idea that this is revolutionary is sickening. No, this is how it’s been for more than a hundred years under capitalism: the rich are doing whatever the fuck they want and you are expected to celebrate them. Fucking. Liberal. Bullshit! Yes, I can see why people will and maybe should celebrate Janelle further normalising queer sexuality and sexual desire. But fuck me, it’s 2023 and we’re still applauding people enjoying queer sex? I’d also say that none of this is in the text, it’s all stuff we’ve made up just because of the identity of the artist. Fucking! Liberal! Bullshit!
(*they might not have said ‘fat’. But it was implied! Pitchfork know how insecure I am about my weight!)
And yet, I did exactly the same thing! That whole Matrix/Zion/world building tangent I started off on? That’s not in the text at all! I don’t even think that Janelle has claimed that themselves. That’s simply me clutching at straws. So desperate for this lazy album to be far more than it is.
2020 (no.47) 2018 (no.2) 2013 (no.9) 2010 (no.1)
Necessary Evil 
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