India made world history last night when the hit song ‘Naatu Naatu’ from the Telugu language film (AKA Tollywood) RRR (2022) became the first Indian song to win an Oscar for “Best Original Song” at the 95th Academy Awards. But some who celebrated the monumental victory also lamented the apparent absence of South Asian dancers on stage, let alone South Indian performers – as well as the film’s repeated misidentification as a Bollywood production.
These omissions are particularly glaring in the context in which “Naatu Naatu” appears in the film. In RRR, directed by SS Rajamouli, the number follows a scene in which an Englishman hurls racial slurs at one of the protagonists, Komaram Bheem (played by NT Rama Rao Jr), for being one of the only Indian men present at a period colonial. Party of British nobility. The Englishman asks Bheem what “those brown buggers” know about art and dance while demonstrating classic western ballroom styles. Bheem is saved by the other lead, A Rama Raju (played by Ram Charan), who asks the Englishman if he knows ‘Naatu’ before the pair go straight into a speed dance routine lightning bolt set to an energetic percussive music number.
The “choreographers” for the Oscars performance were Napoleon and Tabitha Dumo, known together as Nappytabs, from So you think you can dance. Although neither Nappytabs nor the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) responded to Hyperallergic asks for the complete list of artists from last night, several social networks users reported that none of them were of South Asian descent. The dancers who performed the main characters alongside the film’s playback singers Kaala Bhairava and Rahul Sipligunj are confirmed to be Billy Mustapha, a Lebanese-Canadian dancer, and Jason Glover, an American dancer. Both Mustapha and Glover seem to have stepped into the spotlight thanks to So you think you can dance.
Critics started pouring in after one of the participating American dancers, Lauren Gottlieb, shared a Instagram post now deleted from a repeat. A TikTok user named Maheetha Bhardhwaj (@dancing_uro_doc) posted a viral video explaining his disappointment with the Academy for their decision, summing up the majority of the concerns of the South Asian Diaspora.
The song’s choreography and instrumentals are rooted in the South Indian ‘Kuthu’ and ‘Teenmaar’ styles originating from the states of Tamil Nadu and Telangana. “Kuthu”, which means “punch” in Tamil, and “Teenmaar”, which means “three sounds” in Telugu, are less well known. informal folk genres which use percussion instruments and vigorous dance movements.
Music director Divya Jethwani (@adaywithdivya) also took to instagram to express her dismay at the selection of what she described as Dancers “going through Brown” instead of those of South Asian descent for stage performance.
In an interview with HyperallergicJethwani, co-founder of an emerging label called Namah Music Group that works with South Asian talent internationally, said the significance of the film scene’s anti-colonial stance “basically gets entirely erased when they had Brown passers-by holding their hands as if playing two Indian revolutionaries.
“It killed it for so many people and it just took away what this story really meant and why ‘RRR’ deserved to be recognized the way it was,” Jethwani continued.
Jethwani, with several news electrical outletsalso noted how both “Naatu Naatu” and RRR have been repeatedly misidentified as Bollywood productions instead of Tollywood productions. Jimmy Kimmel even slipped and said “Bollywood bombshell” at the end of his Oscars monologue as the “Naatu Naatu” dancers forced him off stage. “Bollywood” is a portmanteau of Bombay (now Mumbai), the base of Hindi-language film production, and Hollywood; while “Tollywood” is a similar portmanteau but for Telangana, where the majority of Telugu language cinema is produced. Bollywood and North Indian entertainment media have eclipsed South Indian productions globally, leaving some room for confusion besides similar names.
Asked about it, Jethwani said Hyperallergic that “it just boils down to not having a cultural consultant who knows and understands the Indian community and its nuances within cultures, languages, people and ways of life”.
“No one was in the room to prevent that from happening,” Jethwani said. “I haven’t made any contact with Nappytabs, but I have been in communication with the Academy (AMPAS) and there are conversations about how we can address this. I think an apology is probably the only something they can do now in hindsight.
