Show Notes
If you thought we’d disappeared, think again! Nakkiah and Miranda have a treat for you. Recently, at the Melbourne Writers Festival, they sat down with journalist, memoirist and comic book writer Ta-Nehisi Coates to talk about race in general, and specifically whether democracy is failing people of colour in the US and in Australia, and why hope is irrelevant in the face of political struggle. But that’s not all! They also invited Melbourne-based artists Birdz and Alice Skye to perform in front of the live audience. Enjoy this special live episode of BuzzFeed’s Pretty For An Aboriginal. (And please forgive us for the occasional audio echo and mic feedback. It was live in a large venue!) Credits: Hosted by: Nakkiah Lui @nakkiahlui and Miranda Tapsell @missmirandatapProduced and edited by Nicola Harvey @nicolaharveyPerformances by Birdz (and band) and Alice Skye.Opening Track (performed live at the Thornbury Theatre on August 29 for the Melbourne Writers Festival): Birdz, “This Side (ft Alice Skye). Reproduced here with permission from Nathan Bird and Bad Apples Music. Special thanks to: Makeup artist Rosie Kilvert @rosiekalina, Eddie Fitzpatrick and Marieke Hardy from Melbourne Writers Festival, Coco Eke from Bad Apples Music, and Carolyn Logan.
More from Pretty For An Aboriginal
In this special live episode, presented and recorded at the Sydney Opera House as part of the All About Women festival, Nakkiah and Miranda are joined by actor and budding director Shari Sebbens to unpack the fall out from the Marvel blockbuster Black Panther.
We decided to record a bonus episode because recently Australia’s prime minister Malcolm Turnbull landed a pretty big blow on Indigenous Australians. Last week, he rejected the Indigenous Voice to Parliament proposed in the Uluru Statement From The Heart – a way forward for recognition devised by hundreds of Indigenous leaders earlier this year. We’re recording this conversation in front of a small live audience at Junket, a Canberra conference for future leaders and people doing interesting things. Nakkiah Lui and Miranda Tapsell invited delegates into Nakkiah’s cosy hotel room to talk to about race in this country.
In a perfect world Miranda Tapsell would be the star of a wildly successful rom-com, or a franchised superhero film. The Frances Ha or Jessica James of Australia, or an Aboriginal Storm in the next edition of X-Men. But in order to be Australia’s favourite romantic lead, Miranda has to write her own feature film because…let’s be honest — lead roles for Aboriginal actors in a rom-com aren’t all that common. But is there a shift afoot?
Nakkiah and Miranda talk about race even when they’re not talking about race. It permeates their daily experience.
In this episode Nakkiah and Miranda talk to acclaimed stage and screen actor Shari Sebbens about code switching, why Taika Waititi is the mentor aspiring filmmakers of colour need, and why accents are such strong signifiers of race. They each have funny and confronting personal stories regarding assumptions made about race and cultural identity on the basis of accent. They’ll discuss what accents tell us about current societal hierarchies in Australia. Is the ability to change one’s accent a source of freedom? And what do you risk losing if you can and do sink into another voice?