Ever suspected Frozen was more than a simple singalong? Have the false promises of Emerald City ever rung alarm bells? Here are nine family flicks that have been mined for underlying meaning
See Ben Child‘s article in The Guardian, Jul. 13, 2016.
Category: news
The world of “Tarzan” and ours
In a searching review from yesterday’s The New York Times, critic Manohla Darghis writes in the concluding paragraph:
“Part of Tarzan’s appeal–at least to some–is that he inhabits a world that resembles ours, but without the unsettling distractions of real suffering. It’s become trickier for pop entertainments to gloss over historical traumas, which may be why so many modern colonial struggles involve deep space or an alien invasion. Perhaps it’s easier to rewrite history through futuristic fictions, where worlds can collide before everyone moves on. . .”
I wish Dargis had written more about the intersection of contemporary Hollywood’s vision with Tarzan’s creator Edgar Rice Burroughs’, and about why the blond, muddied, bare chested Alexander Skarsgard (in the role of Tarzan), is a called-for element of our twenty-first century visual culture. Utterly fictive images of transcendent white masculinity have to written, consumed, and rewritten, I guess. . .
“Tarzan has always had bad optics–white hero, black land–to state the excessively, obvious,” quips Dargis.
No kidding, and suddenly Hollywood gets it, too!
If only this was a case of better late than never. . .
Divided cities: South Africa’s apartheid legacy photographed by drone
What does diversity look like?
On top of the Brexit vote, there’s another pitched battle being waged in the UK right now—it’s over a commissioned statue of Mary Seacole (1805-1881), a recognition for her aid and service to the wounded during the Crimean War (1853-1856).
Martin Jennings’s Seacole sculpture is scheduled to be installed at St. Thomas Hospital in London later this month. Opponents say it doesn’t belong at that hallowed site where Florence Nightingale established a nursing school. The opponents double-down when accused of racism by the artist Jennings and other supporters of the monument: Seacole, they claim, wasn’t a nurse nor did she–the child of a free, black Jamaican woman and a white Scottish solider–identify as “black.”
This is a row of great proportions. In the interest of Critical Race Art History, my raised question is “What does diversity look like?”
Sandra Gunning’s essay of 2001, “Traveling with Her Mother’s Tastes: The Negotiations of Gender, Race, and Location in WONDERFUL ADVENTURES OF MRS. SEACOLE IN MANY LANDS,” is a serious consideration of Seacole’s life and times.
Inge Hardison’s Realist Sculpture– ” more in-depth scholarship needed”
“A Sculptor of Black Heroes Leaves a Legacy”Disabled artists use their skills to highlight ‘shoddy and cruel’ treatment over benefits | Society | The Guardian
Harvard Law Drops Slaveholder’s Crest
The Met’s New Outpost & What All Artists Want. . .
“How Advocates of African American Art Are Advancing Racial Equality in the Art World”
See: ARTSY, Jan. 12, 2016
Live: Conversations about Race at Stanford
Tomorrow (Nov. 19, 2015) starts at 12:30 PM Pacific
The first half of the symposium will feature a conversation from 12:30 to 2 pm PST about Policing, Mass Incarceration & Racial Justice with Mychal Denzel Smith (The Nation), Rinku Sen (Colorlines), Isabel Garcia (Derechos Humanos) and Reverend Osagyefo Sekou (Fellowship of Reconciliation & King Research and Education Institute). Moderated by H. Samy Alim.
The second half of the symposium will feature a conversation from 2:30 to 4 pm PST about The Arts, Racial Justice & Cultural Equity with Favianna Rodriguez (CultureStr/ke), Jasiri X (1Hood), Jonathan Calm (Stanford Department of Art & Art History), Deborah Cullinan (Yerba Buena Center for The Arts), and Rita Gonzalez (Los Angeles County Museum of Art). Moderated by Jeff Chang.
Here’s the URL again:
ACRAH 