Performance borrows elements from reality, but it cannot be mistaken for reality. This digression is important because we have to realize that performance is an end in itself. Such was his screen presence that even while playing an evil character, SV Ranga Rao could move his audience through the power of his acting skills. Strangely, when the evil Kamsa was killed on screen by the god Krishna, the audience were in tears remembering that their favorite star was no more. Apparently in his last film SV Ranga Rao played the role of the demon king Kamsa who is determined to kill the infant god Krishna. When the popular Telugu actor of yesteryears SV Ranga Rao (1918-1974) died of a heart attack, his death was mourned by South Indian masses from the 1950s and 60s who grew up watching his films. It is important to recognize the autonomy of performance. I am personally opposed to the idea that everything can be reduced to politics, whether of race, religion, region, caste or language. However, despite the fact that in the Key & Peele sketch comedy series they are self-identified as blacks, rather than as from a mixed background, it needs to be noted that they are half-white or not completely black. Incidentally, both the actors Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Haworth Peele are children of white mothers, while their fathers happen to be black. ![]() That unfortunately comes in the way of talent being wedded to opportunity, rather than privilege. Garvey does that, successfully.Īmericans are obsessed with race in the same way that Indians are obsessed with caste and religion. If s/he does not find respect, s/he is going to demand it and make sure s/he gets it too. The hyperbole is reminding the viewer that the inner city school teacher is not afraid to be him or herself even in a classroom of white kids. In fact, the exaggerated portrait of the black teacher from the inner city school who pronounces names the way they are written, is mocking the stereotype that inner city teachers cannot even pronounce names correctly. ![]() The teacher is clearly a misfit in any school on this planet. Or that black kids cannot be passive and receptive in the same sense that we see with the white kids in the classroom. It would only mean that black teachers and students from the inner city schools are normally aggressive and hostile. I don’t agree with the fashionable reading that this skit reflects disparities between inner city schools where poor black kids go, and suburban schools, which have a greater number of white kids. While much has been said about the performance of the teacher as a nutjob, something needs to be said for the actors who gave a convincing and representative portrait of white students in a classroom. Garvey, who earlier taught at a school from the inner city, is simply one of its kind more so, because it contrasts the backgrounds of the teacher and the white students in the classroom.
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