In The Heights, from Crazy Rich Asians director Jon Chu and based on Lin Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’ Tony-award winning musical, is a slice of summer joy with a colourism problem. The glaring omission of Afro Latinx cast members in a film set in the New York neighbourhood of Washington Heights, which has a predominantly Dominican Republican population, has been called out as erasure. The filmmakers say they’re aware of it and discussed it, so why this outcome?

BW+BL debrief on the latest revelations out of Britney Spears ongoing challenge to her 13-year conservatorship. “This conservatorship in abuse,” Spears told a Los Angeles court. “I want my life back.”

And ABC sport broadcaster, former AFL footballer and audience favourite Tony Armstrong joins SE for a 360 conversation on sport, media, race and representation, and his current cultural preoccupations.

Also: a look at allegations of toxic workplace culture at Sony Music Australia

Show notes:

Britney Spears speaks: www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-24/britney-spears-tells-judge-conservatorship-abusive/100239606

Guardian Australia investigation of Sony Music Australia: www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jun/21/sony-music-australia-allegations-toxic-work-culture

In The Heights colourism: www.theroot.com/lets-talk-about-in-the-heights-and-the-erasure-of-dark-1847064126

Tony’s Terrible News: www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3rRBof81TU