Lin Manuel Miranda and Jon Chu’s colourism problem In The Heights

In The Heights, from Crazy Rich Asians director Jon Chu and based on Lin Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’ Tony-award winning musical, is a slice of summer joy with a colourism problem. The glaring omission of Afro Latinx cast members in a film set in the New York neighbourhood of Washington Heights, which has a predominantly Dominican Republican population, has been called out as erasure. The filmmakers say they’re aware of it and discussed it, so why this outcome?

BW+BL debrief on the latest revelations out of Britney Spears ongoing challenge to her 13-year conservatorship. “This conservatorship in abuse,” Spears told a Los Angeles court. “I want my life back.”

And ABC sport broadcaster, former AFL footballer and audience favourite Tony Armstrong joins SE for a 360 conversation on sport, media, race and representation, and his current cultural preoccupations.

Also: a look at allegations of toxic workplace culture at Sony Music Australia

Show notes:

Britney Spears speaks: www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-24/britney-spears-tells-judge-conservatorship-abusive/100239606

Guardian Australia investigation of Sony Music Australia: www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jun/21/sony-music-australia-allegations-toxic-work-culture

In The Heights colourism: www.theroot.com/lets-talk-about-in-the-heights-and-the-erasure-of-dark-1847064126

Tony’s Terrible News: www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3rRBof81TU