The Hollywood Walk of Fame which is situated in Los Angeles is an internationally-recognized Hollywood icon. It honours personalities belonging to the music, film and television industry. It has the names of the biggest stars embedded in sidewalks with brass stars.
Inspired by the same, Mumbai now has a ‘Walk of Shame’ in Malad. Street artist Tyler decided to start this idea. On 15th August, he published a post on his Instagram account named Tyler Street Art, asking people to suggest the names for the Walk of Shame. He said that these figures will be from the Journalism, Politics, Bollywood and other industries who were earlier supported by the people but now have become mouthpieces of the political parties and have been spreading propaganda that has caused widespread destruction, violence and stupidity.
He added saying that calling out these public figures through art may help shine a light on this pattern. It may make these turncoats realise that their actions do have consequences and may help put an end to the vicious cycle of spreading false propaganda.
Tyler in an interview with Mid-Day said, “Walk of Shame is an Antithesis of Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. We celebrate the most notorious personalities which have promoted ideologies that are detrimental to the society’s growth. On Independence Day, we celebrate freedom. As an artist, I want to honour freedom of expression.”
He also said that art is among the greatest forms of expression and that cultural diversity is being exploited because of peoples personal gains. “It is not just vital for artists to express but also for people to observe and realise the true nature of events around them. To unite during such times is often the only path to bring change much like what our freedom fighters hoped for.”
Tyler declared that the names which are repeated in the comments would be entitled to the voting list. More than 3000 people have commented on his post and the frequent names mentioned were Arnab Goswami, Sudhir Chaudhry, Akshay Kumar, Kapil Mishra, Salman Khan, Amish Devgn, Anjana Om Kashyap, Kangana Ranaut and others.
And one of the first people to grace it was the Republic TV anchor’s, Arnab Goswami. His name has now been painted on the road along with a poop emoji.
The success of the first one led to the second person in the list which was Zee News editor-in-chief, Sudhir Chaudhary.
Adding to the list, the third person to be painted on the Walk of Shame was Kangana Ranaut.
Tyler doesn’t have a count on how many tiles is he going to paint but he is aiming for almost 25 of them. He is confident that he’s not going to run out of names because of the wonderful nature of politics, entertainment and media in India. Looking at the current scenario he might have to paint more than 25 tiles.
