RRR Song Naatu Naatu’s Oscars Performance Dubbed Racist; Know Why

New Delhi: India’s Oscar 2023 win for RRR’s song ‘Naatu Naaty’ has become historic for more reasons than one. Naatu Naatu was also performed at the prestigious 95th Academy Awards. While singers Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava performed their hit tune from the film, they were not joined on stage by a single dancer of South Asian heritage, reported Variety. This has left several people disappointed.

Many in the South Asian dance community are dismayed by the astonishing dearth of South Asian representation in the ‘Naatu Naatu’ performance at the Academy Awards, according to a report by IANS.

“(The 2009 Oscars) had Indian singers and it was a multi-racial group of dancers and musicians,” explained Shilpa Dave, an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia who specialises in the history of representations of race and gender in the media. “They were really showing that music has this global force. That’s why people didn’t have an issue at that time,” she was quoted as saying.

“Some people say, ‘just be happy with what we got,’ and that’s part of [the problem] – this idea of just accepting the scraps that are thrown to you,” McDaniel, the founder and artistic director of the Los Angeles-based Dance Company told Variety.

McDaniel’s agent put her forward to serve as an associate consultant for the performance two weeks before the Oscars, but her rep was told that the AMPAS-selected choreographers Tabitha and Napoleon D’uomo, the Los Angeles-based duo known as NappyTabs, had already hired their team.

“(Equity is) a big part of what I’m interested in, and this has galvanised so many of my colleagues in the field,” McDaniel added.

Meanwhile, Dave, who authored the 2013 book ‘Indian Accents: Brown Voice and Racial Performance in American Television and Film’ also shared that the ‘next step’ is to include South Asian entertainers in the prestigious ceremony. “It’s about thinking of representation and advocacy for not just directors, writers and actors, but also performers on the larger scale as well,” he said and further added, “I think dancers have been left out of this conversation. So when we’re looking at casting agencies and talent agencies, (we need to ask) where are the agents that are advocating to the establishment?”

Initially, it was said that RRR stars Ram Charan and Jr NTR will only be performing on Naatu Naatu at the Oscars. However, it was later reported that the two actors declined because of time constraints, the report added.