In The Buzz Cut, we bring you a round-up of all the weird, controversial, and wonderful stories we’ve been reading all week.
What would Cinderella do in 2021? Well, a new adaptation with Camila Cabello has Ella dreaming of opening a dress shop instead of marrying a prince. The fairy “godmother” is gender-neutral and is called “Fab G.” But this “girlboss” notion thought to be a feminist product feels tired. What would it take to draw up new characters, ones that are truly feminist? Wouldn’t that be the real magic?
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Andy Murray is a rare story in the saga of tennis. His isn’t a hero’s journey, but one that is humane and humble. If anything, the joy of watching him play “speaks more profoundly to the organic human desire to just do something you love, regardless of title or rank or carrot at the finish line.”
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Everyone’s favorite ogre, Shrek, has become the face of joy during the pandemic. Some communities are exchanging gift boxes anonymously, with Shrek-related paraphernalia within. In mysterious ways, these exchanges are allowing people to connect without occupying the same space. Talk about unlikely pandemic heroes.
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The question of where trans men and women fit in gender-segregated sports is slowly dawning on Indian sensibility. “Sports in India is mostly associated with men and perhaps that is a factor for those who transition; trans women may want to prove their femininity in their new identity.” For athletes, the struggle continues to be to find a way to cultivate professional and creative visibility.
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Kanye West’s 10th studio album Donda comes with the promise of his signature existentialism. While Kanye may have visualized it as a result of his chaotic past, the two-hour-long package seems like an accumulation of second-tier cuts — of what was, not what is, of conflict, and questionable Ye choices. Is he asking for forgiveness or forgiving something? Donda is not just odd, “it’s exhausting.”
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Texas implemented a six-week abortion limit as a law this week. This is one woman’s story of getting an abortion at eight weeks, just hours before the abortion ban came into place: “I was really worried I would end up having to have the baby.”
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In 2019, an Indian soldier-turned-policeman in Assam was living his own nightmare. He was declared a “foreigner” because of India’s new citizenship laws; his nation told him he came from Bangladesh after 1971, when, in fact, he was born in Assam in 1967. The unsettling account shows the institutional fall of a “model Indian citizen.” One only has to wonder what happens to others.
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The story of a grieving mother trying to prove the murder of her daughter is chilling. The case unfolded over 30 years; she unites with a sketch artist to trace the killer and navigate the system. There was no closure towards the end; “it’s too pat a concept to apply to tragedy, too neat a way to describe what it means to find answers…”
