5 Essential Authors Who Are Rethinking Rock Music and Race
These five contemporary authors rethink the relationship between rock music and race, challenging dominant narratives through multiple strategies, genres, and arguments.
race
It Ain’t Easy Being Green in Wicked’s Hollywood
In Wicked: Part 1, “normal” citizens come in all skin colors – except green. It ain’t easy being green in Wicked’s (or America’s) Hollywood.
Nazis and Racial and Sexual Subtexts in ‘Revenge of the Zombies’
Revenge of the Zombies stands at the axis of Nazis, race relations and feminism in a mishmash of wartime themes under an immigrant director.
K-Pop: Race in the Music Industry
Why do K-pop’s Asian pop stars get less recognition in the Land of the Free than non-Asian pop stars in the Land of the Morning Calm?
Hans Kundnani’s Forward-Looking ‘Eurowhiteness’ Suffers Blind Spots
Hans Kundnani’s Eurowhiteness is a take on racism from a European perspective, which is as forward-looking as it is occasionally short-sighted.
The Excellent ‘Little Richard: I Am Everything’ Captures Just About Everything
Little Richard brought a sheer exhilaration that was sexual, spiritual, and joyous and put it to music like no other. Lisa Cortés excellent documentary does the man justice.
How “Hip Checks” Betray Our Gender-Mediated Gaze
Erica Rand applies the sports method, “hip checks”, to explore race and gender bias in ‘The Small Book of Hip Checks’.
Sundance 2021: Rebecca Hall’s Visually Gorgeous ‘Passing’ Is Cerebral But Cool
Rebecca Hall's Passing has a distance to it affirms the film's message but it doesn't necessarily make for appealing cinema.
Black in the Middle: An Anthology of the Black Midwest (excerpt)
In this excerpt of Black in the Middle, PopMatters‘ Mark Reynolds compares the nearly identical racial divides in his cities, Cleveland and Chicago, that to this day are stubbornly entrenched.
Nicholas Buccola’s ‘The Fire Is Upon Us’ Is Obscured by the Smoke
Nicholas Buccola's The Fire Is Upon US is, at times, marred by glibness, impatience, and ahistorical tendencies that suggest, to an extent, it is also a reflective of the deteriorating conditions that mark our public discourse in 2020.
Zadie Smith’s ‘Intimations’ Essays Pandemic with Erudite Wit and Compassion
Zadie Smith's Intimations is an essay collection of gleaming, wry, and crisp prose that wears its erudition lightly but takes flight on both everyday and lofty matters.
Performing Race in James Whale’s ‘Show Boat’
There's a song performed in James Whale's musical, Show Boat, wherein race is revealed as a set of variegated and contradictory performances, signals to others, a manner of being seen and a manner of remaining hidden, and it isn't "Old Man River".