Kantara fans or cultural offenders?

From Coachella’s headdresses to Kantara’s Daiva costumes — where does admiration end and appropriation begin?

Transcript

00:00I think we lost with grace.

00:02That's a Pakistani cricket team supporter wearing what looks like a Native American headgear.

00:09And this here is a man dressed up as a daiva for the screening of Kantara chapter 1.

00:14What's common between them? I will tell you in a bit.

00:16Because this video is really about how these Kantara fan clips with people painting their faces

00:21and showing up in elaborate costumes are flooding our timelines.

00:24And there is a problem. One that Rishabh Shetty himself had to flag immediately.

00:30The daiva attire originates from Tullu Nadu in coastal Karnataka, the home of the Tullu-speaking community.

00:36Here, for centuries, people have practiced Bhuta Kola or Daiva Kola,

00:40a ritual in which devotees invoke guardian spirits known as daivas.

00:49The performer, believed to be possessed by the spirit, wears elaborate makeup, vibrant costumes,

00:54and a sacred headgear symbolizing divine power called moody.

00:58Its religious ceremony passed down through generations and the daiva's words are treated as the will of the gods.

01:04So when fans imitate this look for fun or virality, it feels like turning worship into cosplay.

01:09And for the Tullu community, that is deeply disrespectful.

01:13Shetty and the makers of Kantara have asked people to stop these acts as these are not costumes,

01:18but sacred symbols of the Tullu community.

01:20However, this kind of cultural insensitivity is not new or limited to just India.

01:25Remember when influencers wore Native American feathered headdresses at Coachella?

01:29Now, those headdresses are sacred too.

01:31Traditionally, worn only by warriors or chiefs who've earned each feather through acts of honor.

01:36So in Faryal Vakar, the girl who was compared to actress Deepika Padukone,

01:40showed up to an India-Pakistan match wearing a feathered headgear.

01:43It was what we call cultural appropriation.

01:45A similar issue comes up when white people wear cornrows, a hairstyle with deep roots in African culture.

01:51Cornrows were a symbol of identity.

01:54In some cases, enslaved women braided intricate patterns into each other's hair,

01:58used to indicate locations of safe houses or meeting points along escape routes.

02:03Some even hid seeds, coal dust or rice grains in their braids to ensure they had to have food and essentials if they escaped.

02:10So when the same hairstyle is labeled trendy on white celebrities but unprofessional on black people,

02:16it becomes a painful reminder of inequality and erasure.

02:19The same goes here.

02:20The daiva attire is not just an outfit and face paint,

02:23it's what connects the Tullu people to their ancestors, their gods and their identity.

02:28Tell us what you think.

02:29I'm Manish Adhikari.

02:30Thank you for watching The Culture Project On More.