Opinion

Best news of the week? Kylie Jenner’s cereal confession

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By Nivriti Butalia

Thank goodness for Kylie Jenner. Amid all the noise on Twitter this week about god knows what all, Kylie Jenner offered respite that I am grateful for.Where to start about the noise? Possibly on an auspicious note, with the news of Anup Jalotia, devotional singer and his student of the year, 28-year-old Jasleen Matharu; or Woody Allen and his wife of 20 years, Soon-Yi Previn, finally “breaking her silence”. There was also Trump’s guy, dodgy Brett Kavanaugh still  harping on ‘I didn’t do it’; India made triple talaq a crime; and beat Pakistan here in Dubai. There was other stuff too obviously, but moving on.

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Cinema

Why Woody Allen’s wife’s story is not anti-#metoo

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By Anamika Chatterjee

What happens to a family in the aftermath of the wear-and-tear of hearts? This week, a detailed account of Soon-Yi Previn, published in the New York Magazine on September 17, glimpsed into this deeply conflicted world. Soon Yi, the adopted daughter of Hollywood actress Mia Farrow, landed in our collective conscience way back in 1992, following the news of an affair with filmmaker Woody Allen, who’d been dating Farrow for nearly a decade. In the years that followed, Soon-Yi assumed several roles in our collective imagination — she is at once the victim of Allen’s whims and fancies and a willing accomplice. Her silence over the years has done little justice to the perceptions attached to her. A reason why her recent interview with Daphne Merkin was a story waiting to be told.

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Uncategorized

There are fine lines between anti-ageing and anti-wrinkle

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By Sushmita Bose

Ageism: “the stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination against people on the basis of their age”

— World Health Organization

After body-shaming and skin-lightening, anti-ageing is the newest kid on the block to be placed in the line of fire. Why should anyone be ashamed of being/growing old — just like they shouldn’t be ashamed of being ‘plus size’ or dark-skinned? Stolidly solid in theory; but if you ask me, in practice, it’s a pipedream. Simply consider why it’s not alright to tell someone any (or all) of the following, “Wow, you’re so fat!” (as opposed to “Wow, you’re so slim!”), “Wow, you’re so dark!” (as opposed to “Wow, you’re so light-skinned, rather like peaches and cream), or “Wow, you’re so old!” (as opposed to “Wow, you’re so young!”) — and you’ll get the drift.

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Auto

How a dictator’s dream car became a symbol for love

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By Keith Pereña

I wish it was yellow or pink, my colleague said as we drove around in her black VW. I found the initial colour choices confusing. I was thinking more along the lines of ‘Cherry Red’ or ‘Midnight Blue’. But this wasn’t a Ford Mustang, this was a Volkswagen Beetle — a car that for three generations has been known as a symbol of peace and love wrapped in a four-wheel cutesy package.

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Opinion, Perspective

You’ve got to call and cancel. Not turning up is just boorish

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By Nivriti Butalia

Say, it’s the weekend. You’re having lunch out. Maybe you’ve made dinner plans. You’ve called and booked a table somewhere nice — Downtown or DIFC or City Walk or one of the joints by the beach. Something comes up. You don’t feel like dealing with traffic. Or someone wants to go somewhere else. Or Netflix and leftovers seem more tempting (or just cheaper). You end up not going. Nor do you call and cancel. You pull off, what is called, a no-show. After all, how does it matter, right?

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Education, UAE

Discrimination goes beyond that one nursery, let’s get real

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By Kelly Clarke

I am sure you read the news this week. That nursery; that advert and those two unfortunate words. To recap, here’s a quick rundown. While on the hunt for new staff across its nursery branches in the UAE, an education group saw it fit to post an ad that was dotted with discriminatory references. It had no qualms about specifying the exact type of candidate it was looking for.

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