Pop Culture Archives

How Netflix’s Always Be My Maybe Balances Ambition with Romance

Nahnatchka Khan’s Always Be My Maybe isn’t perfect but it is that rare rom-com that comes the closest to responding to the modern times by making its lead actress’s professional identity the sexiest thing about her. In the movie, love involves compromise, just not that of a woman’s career.

Poulomi Das June 1, 2016

Pop Culture

Rediscovering the Charm of Elaine Benes, TV’s Favourite Feminist

Sitcoms have long used what I’d call the “Robin/Lily binary” for female characters – they’re either nurturing, quirky, non-threatening women, or rebellious, outspoken women who aspire to maleness in the most superficial way. But Seinfeld’s Elaine Benes is nothing like that. She lives an independent, self-sufficient life, one in which she has all the career and personal issues that someone in their 30s might.

Mudra June 1, 2016

Pop Culture

In “What the Love!” Karan Johar Proves that He Has No Idea about Love or Millennials

Part-Queer Eye, part-Splitsvilla, and complete trainwreck, Netflix’s Indian dating reality show What The Love! is little more than another opportunity for Karan Johar to brag about the list of famous people whose numbers he has saved on his phone.

Poulomi Das May 31, 2016

Pop Culture

Marie Kondo’s Greatest Con: Making Us Throw out Our Crap, So She Can Sell Us Hers

How could you, Marie Kondo? After guilt-tripping us for being hoarders and telling us our beloved possessions, collected over the years, didn’t spark joy, you have the temerity to come up with an online store that sells even more crap!

Purba Ray May 31, 2016

Pop Culture

Cuttputlli review: Bland and Boring

Akshay Kumar is the weakest link in a film that rarely makes sense or has you at the edge of your seat.

Pradeep Menon May 31, 2016

Pop Culture

The Problem with Aladdin’s “Feminist” Princess Jasmine

In Guy Ritchie's Aladdin, we look at Princess Jasmine through the prism of a feminist gaze: The Sultan’s daughter isn't ready to accept that she can never claim the throne. Yet, the problem is that the reimagination of Jasmine, exists in the film to convey just one thing: Disney’s earnest attempts at a progressive rebranding

Chandrima Pal May 31, 2016

Pop Culture

2017: The Year That Destroyed ’90s Bollywood

This was the year our rose-tinted memories of the glorious ’90s died. “Oonchi Hai Building” is permanently sullied by Varun Dhawan and we’ll never look at Govinda, Sridevi, and Sanjay Dutt the same way again.

Poulomi Das May 31, 2016

Pop Culture

“Lover” is the Most Emotionally Honest Romantic Declaration By Taylor Swift in 13 Years

Right from the moment I heard “Lover”, the titular track of Taylor Swift’s seventh album, it felt like a kind of homecoming, that was at once, wholly familiar and deeply uncomfortable. In it, Swift finally sings of love and not about it, like a poet invested in creating poetry. Like love is not as much a lifeboat of her life, but life itself.

Poulomi Das May 31, 2016

Pop Culture

Supriya Pathak and the many faces of Anguish

Supriya Pathak rose to national fame with her comic role in Khichdi. But it’s her many portrayals of anguish and motherly steel of late that have opened up a new chapter in a career that seems set for some new, unprecedented highs..

Manik Sharma May 30, 2016

Pop Culture

Jaani Dushman: India’s Only Superhero Film You Should Care About

In Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahaani, Bollywood got its first indigenous green-eyed superhero. Half-ichhadhari naag, half-assassin, full-time lover and slayer of perverts.

Poulomi Das May 29, 2016