In The Buzz Cut, we bring you a round-up of all the weird, controversial, and wonderful stories we’ve been reading all week.
Bees are dying, and what better way to inspire conservation efforts than have Angelina Jolie reiterate the message? The actor stood still for 18 minutes while bees swarmed around her face and body for a photoshoot — to bolster support for protecting livelihoods and the biosphere. They don’t call her “godmother” of bees for nothing.
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Pakistani women through generations have used saris to experiment, express, and create sartorial history — even though the nine yards are considered a foreign item of clothing in Pakistan, courtesy of politics and men in power. A writer uses the cultural drapings of the sari to trace Pakistan’s history itself: “To wear the sari in Pakistan today is to recognize its roots in war, trauma, and middle-class liberal guilt, in social mobility, and in the ability to make choices.”
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Miss Universe was glamorous — and sharply political, this year. Participants from Singapore, Myanmar, and Uruguay made powerful statements during the “national costume” segment. Miss Myanmar Thuzar Wint Lwin, who won the segment, raised a sign that read “Pray for Myanmar” to draw attention to the military coup.
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A real-life German criminal named Dagobert looked at the Disney show DuckTales for inspiration. Like Scrooge McDuck, the money-grabbing bandit carried out countless robberies and kidnappings, giving the police a run for their money. Dagobert became a German folk hero; when he got caught, one person remembers thinking: “It was almost a shame that everything was over. As strange as it sounds, it was also fun.”
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When stripped of the slow-panning shots and suspense, Netflix’s adaptation of The Woman in the Window is a narrative of how we treat women with mental illness. Amy Adams’s character plays a ‘victim’ who hasn’t left her house in a long time, but she is “the epitome of a tragic, hysterical woman—the kind of character who’s easy to write off and should be a victim rather than a heroine.“
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Can Bitcoin and the world of technology have anything to do with astrology? Arguably so. Both tend to make their audience believers of some sort — even the “bitcoin bro,” who otherwise sneers at destiny and luck. Bitcoin is perhaps just astrology for men.
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The violence in Palestine stands at a geographical distance but is hardly confined by its borders. The Palestinian resistance is the “story of all those who are dominated, colonized, enslaved, oppressed—who are being crushed like rubble under the weight of the world of empire.”
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Recovering from trauma is “is measured not in months, but in years or decades.” When it comes to the pandemic, this could even last beyond the life span of human compassion. Imagining a post-pandemic life is fraught with conflicting emotions then: some will remember more than others. Can we ever get to a point of moving on, even forgetting?
