Music For a Cause

In the last few years, countless children have died and suffered in conflict-ridden zones such as Gaza, Sudan and Yemen and, most recently, Iran. In 1995, the British and Irish artists’ album Help highlighted the plight of children in war-stricken areas such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and aimed to raise funds for them. Help 2 has been released recently with a similar admirable goal. It has around 24 tracks and features musicians from all over the world, including Arctic Monkeys, Oasis, Olivia Rodrigo, Depeche Mode and Damon Albarn. One of the tracks, Lilac Wine, features our very own Arooj Aftab, who collaborated with Beck. We pray that children and the rest of humanity are spared the horrors of war unleashed by savages.

A Sour Split

Recently, YouTuber Rajab Butt announced that he is ending his marriage to social media influencer Emaan Fatima and has sent her divorce papers. The couple tied the knot in 2024 and the split has taken place on a sour note. Rajab B said that Emaan F accused his mother of stealing, made fun of his friends, and that there were even more factors that led to their parting ways, which he cannot share. He also said that no one can stop him from meeting his only son, Kivan. Emaan F responded on Instagram: “I have stayed silent to save this relationship. But first, the false allegations… and now his legal notice… what is the fault of my son and me in all of this?” We hope that both can move forward and find happiness eventually.

Minnelli’s Scandals

Actress and vocalist Liza Minnelli’s memoir, Kids,Wait Till You Hear This!, is out, and, boy, is it making tongues wag and jaws drop! Among the many celebs that Minnelli recounts stories about in the book, one is acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese. According to Minnelli, she cheated on her husband, director and producer Jack Haley Jr with Martin S, during the shooting of the film New York, New York in the 1970s. “Our love affair had more layers than lasagne. We were both Italian. Passionate. Intense. Committed to our craft. We both had volcanic tempers… He was a diabolically handsome man who shared my love for film.” Martin S’ PR team hasn’t responded to Liza M’s passionate, intense and volcanic claims so far.

Rihanna Under Fire

On March 9, a woman called Ivanna Lisette Ortiz opened fire on pop star Rihanna’s Beverly Hills home. The 35-year-old had an AR-15-style weapon that she used in an alleged attempt to murder Rihanna. The singer was in her mansion at the time, along with her boyfriend, rapper and record producer A$AP Rocky, and their three children. Luckily, no one was hurt. When the police reached Rihanna’s house, they arrested Ivanna L O and booked her for attempted murder, and her bail is set at $10.2m. In hindsight, it seems that Ivanna L O was completely off-track. After all, it was Rihanna’s house she was attacking. Didn’t she realise that she has a security Umbrella-aa-aa-aa?

A Pulpy Riposte

A few weeks ago, actress Rosanna Arquette criticised filmmaker Quentin Tarantino — with whom she worked in Pulp Fiction — for using the ‘N’ word frequently in his films and said, “It’s not art, it’s just racist and creepy.” The director recently responded, “I hope the publicity you’re getting from 132 different media outlets writing your name and printing your picture was worth disrespecting me and a film I remember quite clearly you were thrilled to be a part of… After I gave you a job, and you took the money, to trash it for what I suspect [are] very cynical reasons, shows a decided lack of class.” Quentin T, now that was a pulpy riposte. But we didn’t expect anything more from you!

Break Time

A significant number of cine-goers disliked Varun Dhawan’s performance in Border 2, despite the film being a box office hit. Apparently, he was seen smiling in scenes where he wasn’t supposed to, among other blunders. (While on the subject of Varun D, who can forget his repeating his character’s proclamation that “This time, we will not just cross the border — we will change the border itself”, which earned the wrath of Pakistanis.) The latest news is that he has decided to take a break from acting to spend some quality time with his family. We think it’s a wise decision on Varun D’s part. It will give everyone a respite from his bad acting too.

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 19th, 2026

In War Machine, a Netflix original, not one but two war machines collide. The first is an unstoppable killing engine from another world, and the second is a US Army staff sergeant who just wants his unit to make it home alive. Since this is an action film, we know that won’t happen.

Alan Ritchson (perfectly cast) plays the unnamed human war machine. Two years before the main action of the movie takes place, he and his brother’s unit were ambushed in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Wounded, he tried to carry his brother back to base. The brother died, but he received a Silver Star. However, the honour continues to gnaw at him.

Physically recovered, he pursues entry into an elite ranger programme as a way to cope and redeem himself, because it was the last dream the two brothers shared. On his final attempt, he gets in and is assigned the number 81. (Rangers are not called by name, we learn.)

Though he aces every drill and outperforms every trainee, his superiors, Sergeant Major Sheridan (Dennis Quaid) and First Sergeant Torres (Esai Morales), aren’t impressed, as 81 isn’t a team player. He doesn’t bond, barely speaks, can’t sleep, and pushes himself until he collapses mid-drill.

Director Patrick Hughes keeps Netflix’s War Machine taut and entertaining and it is thoroughly recommended

Nearly dismissed by his superiors, he and his fellow trainees are sent on the final wilderness exercise, where an extra-terrestrial meteor crashes, carrying the alien machine. As the unit is cut down, 81 — wary of leadership and burdened by PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) — becomes the only one capable of keeping the survivors moving — and alive.

Surprisingly, for a military man, 81 is a pacifist in terms of his instincts and a reluctant combatant. Unlike most action heroes, his reflex is to protect and evade to keep casualties low. That restraint becomes his most effective ammunition.

Ritchson, known for his work in and as Jack Reacher, is literally the hero of the film in every meaning of the word. Tall and rugged, he has the physicality of any 1980s or 1990s action hero, albeit with an inverted persona. Built like a tank, he plays 81 with a fragile soul. His voice is soft, unsteady, his hands tremble continuously and the viewer realises that this man is geared for defence, not offence. This is a masterstroke.

Director Patrick Hughes (The Hitman’s Bodyguard) keeps the pace taut. The screenplay, co-written with James Beaufort and Hughes, channels the no-nonsense drive of Predator and Aliens, though the sheen is updated with sleeker, new-age filmmaking tools.

That is where the film slips.

War Machine’s colour grading defaults to the bleached, teal-grey-leaning palette that has been standardised since Saving Private Ryan (1998). The look all but flattens its otherwise premium tool set. The film is shot on the top-of-the-line Arri Alexa 35 cinema camera with top-tier Angenieux, Cooke and Cauldwell lenses — believe me, this is as good as it gets, quality-wise.

The second problem is the alien machine’s design. The angular, humanoid design, with machine-gun turrets, missile launchers, and a laser cannon in the middle, looks like the generic version of battle mechs from video games, toys, and Saturday morning cartoons from my youth.

Still, like its opposing forces — one driven by grief and duty, the other programmed for annihilation — War Machine doesn’t stop, nor does it let the viewer flinch. Although it has a hopeful open ending, one wishes that the film doesn’t become a movie series, as things will only go downhill from here, because the good ammo is all used up in this fine, thoroughly recommended action film.

Streaming on Netflix, War Machine is rated suitable for ages 18 and over, because of the fatalities

The writer is Icon’s primary film reviewer

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 19th, 2026

The race of Heathcliff, the brooding antihero of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights, is a much-discussed element of the classic tale.

Brontë variously describes him as “a little lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway”, “that gypsy brat”, not “a regular black”, the offspring of the “Emperor of China”, and the son to an “Indian queen.”

But in her recent film adaptation, director Emerald Fennell has cast white Australian actor Jacob Elordi in the role. What does this mean for our understanding of the story?

Is Heathcliff white?

Scholars, especially since the late 20th century, have debated Heathcliff’s racial identity without forming a consensus. They continue to examine the text for evidence. He has been variously identified as Irish, a migrant fleeing famine; African, found at the Liverpool docks (then England’s largest slave-trading port); or Romani, often shorthand for a racially ambiguous and “threatening” outsider.

I do not feel the novel invites us to identify Heathcliff with a fixed racial identity. The book’s strange, otherworldly and almost hallucinogenic nature resists clear interpretation.

Emily Brontë’s Heathcliff wasn’t white. In the new film adaption of Wuthering Heights, Jacob Elordi is. Is that a problem?

In 19th-century Britain, post-Enlightenment Europe and the United States, the concept of race was categorised and studied, and exerted a strong influence on government policies and popular culture. People were placed into hierarchies of humanity to justify slavery, colonialism and genocide.

This system of “scientific racism” — as it has come to be known — placed “whiteness” at the top. But this notion of whiteness was different to the one we hold today, which explains Heathcliff’s racial “otherness” as being associated with Irishness. Brontë’s novel, and Gothic fiction of the age more broadly, depicts race as something more malleable and fantastical.

In the case of Brontë’s Heathcliff, his racial identity seems to shift and morph, sometimes rendered supernatural and demonic in the eyes of other characters. His darkness and inhumanity are emphasised and seem to intensify in moments of brooding anger and villainy.

His complexion darkens and his eyes become, in the words of the maid Nelly, “black fiends” that glint and lurk “like the devil’s spies” with “a half-civilised ferocity.” Heathcliff’s inhumanity, as tied to his non-whiteness, seemingly rises to the surface, as if the stain of his moral degradation seeps through his soul to appear on his face.

Critics of the casting

The casting of Elordi as Heathcliff has come under scrutiny. Some readers and critics have interpreted Brontë’s book as a critique of British institutional racism in the late 18th century, when the novel is set, and the Victorian era (1837-1901), when it was written.

One such reading is that the novel links the oppression of white women to that of non-white subjects of the British Empire, to critique social structures of violence, cruelty and inequality. This reading sees the novel’s representation of female subjugation as a mirror image of the oppression that people of colour faced at the time.

Many critics of the film have said it isn’t an accurate adaptation, and it misunderstands what Brontë’s text is really about. But an argument around “intent” is hard to make, since we can never really know what a novel “is about.” We can only guess.

And there are limitless interpretations of a text, especially one as strange and enigmatic as this one. As such, though race is a part of the original Wuthering Heights, assigning a singular, definitive meaning to the novel’s representation of race is complicated.

In Brontë’s novel, nothing is as it seems. The ever-shifting image of Heathcliff — at once appearing to be a lascar, a Native American, Spanish and black — would be difficult to depict effectively on film. Film lacks the imaginative malleability of the reader’s mind’s eye, which can hold all these descriptions of Heathcliff’s image at once, allowing this Gothic strangeness to occur.

Race in Fennell’s film

While Heathcliff is cast as white, Fennell casts people of colour in other roles.

Fennell’s film is not interested in the racial commentary many critics have found in Brontë’s novel. The characters in Fennel’s created world do not appear to engage with race the same way people do in our world.

American-Vietnamese actor Hong Chau plays Nelly Dean (a housemaid in the novel, but an illegitimate daughter to a nobleman in the film), and English/Scottish-Pakistani actor Shazad Latif portrays Edgar Linton, Cathy’s wealthy and respected husband. The casting of Edgar, a man of wealth and status, as a person of colour undermines the intersections of oppression and race that existed at the time.

I think Fennell’s decision to ignore race is a missed opportunity to foster a more nuanced discussion of race in the late 18th century and Victorian Britain.

Victorian Britain was shaped by the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, the presence of black people on its soil (who in some instances, had in the past been enslaved), and its colonies in Asia and the Middle East.

While it would not have been common to find people of colour in the Yorkshire moors in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Britain (including Yorkshire) wasn’t as white as is widely believed. Fennell had an opportunity to highlight this fact.

Instead, in the film’s casting of Elordi as Heathcliff and Latif as Linton, we see a reticence to engage with the question of racial oppression at all. While this doesn’t make the adaptation “wrong”, it adds to the film’s almost complete lack of depth.

The writer is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Wollongong in Australia

Republished from The Conversation

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 19th, 2026