by Rajeev Balasubramanyam Two weeks ago I met an artist who hadn’t produced any work since Trump’s election in November. She was in shock, felt helpless and bereft. ‘I just want things to go back to normal,’ she said, ‘and then I can make art again.’ By ‘normal,’ I suspect she meant a return to… Read More
The Holy Riverman
by Rajeev Balasubramanyam An insecure, bullied child in darkest, whitest Lancashire, I wanted two things: to fit in, and to be weird. Fitting in was never a realistic proposition. I was the only non-white kid for miles around; far shorter than everyone else, barely knew the rules of football (I loved cricket), left-handed, South Indian (a… Read More
The new Jungle Book tries to bypass racism by erasing identities altogether
by Rajeev Balasubramanyam George Orwell called Rudyard Kipling ‘the prophet of British imperialism… morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting.’ And yet eighty years after Kipling’s death, Disney’s adaption of his Jungle Books (itself a remake of the 1967 original) has become a global success and the second highest grossing film of this month. Have we really progressed… Read More
Hollywood and the ‘R’ Word
by Rajeev Balasubramanyam Chris Rock did it. He used the ‘R-word’. ‘Here’s the real question,’ he said on Oscar night. ‘The real question everybody wants to know…: Is Hollywood racist? Is Hollywood racist?’ He said it twice. And then he answered it. ‘You’re damn right Hollywood is racist. But it ain’t that racist that you’ve… Read More
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