In The Buzz Cut, we bring you a round-up of all the weird, controversial, and wonderful stories we’ve been reading all week.
Think saas-bahu shows, and a visual of Smriti Irani opening the doors of the Virmani clan’s house comes to mind. Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi started 21 years ago on this day; between ridiculous plot twists, rebirths, and plastic surgeries, it managed to shape the cultural sensibilities of the Indian middle class.
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A woman reopening her closet for the first time in a year offers a lovely meditation on fashion. The expectations from a different world are projected onto pants and dresses. The dread of dressing up again reflects the state of the closet too: “I could not shake the feeling that I’d disturbed a tomb.”
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A story about one of the first Indian women to set foot on the southern continent for research is also one about the science of climate change, tragic deaths, and gender bias. In the end, India’s Antarctica story echoes “the worth of scientific endeavor and the human spirit itself.”
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A movie inspired by a 147-tweet-long Twitter thread (that started with “y’all wanna hear a story about why me and this bitch here fell out? It’s kind of long but full of suspense”) is the latest entry to realist cinema. But Zola is a reminder that you can’t tell stories about Black women without Black women creators at the locus: It’s an exposé on the ways in which white people perform Blackness.
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Bombay as a colonial city has a curious relationship with clocks: it operated on more than one time zone for decades. A long history of time, clocks, and resistance lies within the battle of time zones: “a thorny, charged issue that rankled the city’s pride and resurfaced repeatedly over a century.”
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The story of a villain made out of liquid metal breathing life into a science-fiction epic is one we all know too well. An oral history of Terminator 2: Judgment Day celebrates 30 years, with the director noting: “I have always loved The Wizard of Oz. This movie is about the Tin Man getting his heart.”
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Hong Kong has jailed dozens of activists opposing its contentious new security laws. Letters from jails highlight resilience in a relentless fight for free speech and democracy: “My dear, this world is not a place about reasoning and logic... we can only hope for the unknown future and learn to live with fear, so our hearts can be strong.”
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“We distinguish humans from animals as if humans weren’t animals,” citing our ability to emote, feel, speak. But research attests to high cognitive levels in animals too. Creating a “periodic table” of animal intelligence — a chart of intelligence — may help address animal rights, root out human bias, and determine who gets the tag of “personhood.”
