The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| Australian ‘Sapphires’ protest ‘disrespectful’ US film cover Posted: 05 Aug 2013 02:04 AM PDT The Aboriginal Australian women whose lives inspired the acclaimed movie "The Sapphires" have protested at the film's US DVD cover, saying its portrayal of a white male actor as the lead disrespects people of colour. The feel-good flick about four Aboriginal singers sent to entertain troops in Vietnam has the women on its DVD cover in Australia. But in the US version they are "blue washed" and placed in the background while Irish actor Chris O'Dowd – who plays their manager – is front and centre in full colour. The original Sapphires – Naomi Mayers, Beverly Briggs, Lois Peeler and Laurel Robinson – have written to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the US to complain. The women, in a letter written on their behalf by the Aboriginal Medical Service, say the DVD cover completely missed the trauma that people of colour experienced in Australia and the United States. ''The US cover of the DVD... in fact reinforces precisely the sort of bigotry that Naomi, Beverly, Lois and Laurel fought so hard against,'' it said. ''We're hopeful that the NAACP – with its long and proud history of advocating strongly for the interests of people of colour – will add its significant voice to calls for the DVD cover to be changed.'' Mayers, who works at the Aboriginal Medical Service in inner Sydney's Redfern suburb, described the cover as disrespectful. ''What has upset us is that the DVD cover appears to miss that point (of the film) entirely,'' she told The Sydney Morning Herald. ''It's disrespectful to the very talented young Aboriginal actors in the film, and it's disrespectful to us as a group. ''But in particular, it's disrespectful to women of colour everywhere who have stood up against this sort of thing all their lives." Mayers said the women were proud of their work with the Sapphires and of the film. "We hope that the US distributors of the DVD stop and think about how their depiction of that work might be received, and that it motivates them to reconsider the cover artwork before the DVD is distributed,'' she said. The US cover has already caused a storm on social media, with O'Dowd himself tweeting in response to a question that it was "ridiculous, misleading, ill-judged, insensitive and everything the film wasn't". - AFP, August 5, 2013. |
| Lollapalooza’s broad appeal leads to biggest audience yet Posted: 05 Aug 2013 12:02 AM PDT Lollapalooza, the three-day music festival in Chicago's historic Grant Park, was bigger than ever this year with a lineup that honored its alternative rock roots and broadened its appeal to fans of folk, dance, rap and even country music. A record 300,000 people took in nearly 150 bands playing on eight stages set up across the mile-long park lawn just across the street from the shores of Lake Michigan. The varieties of music were as disparate as the concert attendees. Teens in brightly-colored tank tops bobbed to the bass music of Dillon Francis in the dance arena on Friday while goths in black swayed to Sunday's closing set by alternative veterans the Cure. Vampire Weekend supplied the literary pop, singing about the Oxford comma, while country-rocker Eric Church sang about drinking Jack Daniels and getting stoned. The chart-topping pop folk group Mumford and Sons drew some of the largest crowds on Saturday who heard their banjo-and-acoustic guitar rave-ups "I Will Wait" and "The Cave," after another folk group on the rise, the Lumineers, warmed up the crowd from a stage across the park's lawn. The sold-out annual summer event, which last year pumped $120 million into the local economy and booked many downtown hotels to capacity this year, is Chicago's largest concert. Nine Inch Nails, the veteran alternative band fronted by Trent Reznor, played the first Lollapalooza in 1991 and closed Friday night with their first U.S. gig in four years. A large portion of the crowd was not even born when Reznor burst onto the scene with his aggressive industrial rock, breaking through with the song "Head Like a Hole," which they performed toward the end of their set. "I came here for the girls and (band) the Killers. I don't know who Nine Inch Nails are," said 15-year-old Ryan Coolidge, a resident of Chicago's northwest suburbs. Two artists scheduled to perform Saturday night on the same stage abruptly canceled appearances. Rapper Azealia Banks was said to have come down with a throat ailment while Lollapalooza organizers announced that Death Grips, a rap group from California, "chose not to appear." The festival largely went off without a hitch otherwise, with rains muddying fields early on Friday before sunshine and cooler-than-normal temperatures provided comfortable conditions for the fans. Ben Gibbard announced that the show would be the last for his group the Postal Service. Local hip-hop artist Chance the Rapper, whose uplifting tales about rising above the gun violence on Chicago's streets, was such a success on a smaller stage that many could not get close enough to see the 20-year-old. The dance stage Perry's - named after Lollapalooza organizer Perry Farrell - was one of the most popular. Bottom-heavy bass music dubstep dominated that area, with acts such as Baauer - known for his track "Harlem Shake" and the hundreds of social media dance routine videos it spawned. Grant Kwiecinski, aka GRiZ, played saxophone over his squelching bass tunes. He first attended four years ago as a fan, an event that contributed to him making a career of music. "My one experience with Lollapalooza was in 2009 - it was actually the first music festival I've ever been to," he said in an interview. "It was one of those very cool memories where it all starts to make sense to you very quickly." - Reuters, August 5, 2013. |
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