The huge bow ties and white gloves make it clear that this is not a flattering portrayal, no matter who it is they’re making fun of. Not sure this is a distinction with a difference.
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Japanese-Korean relations are not great, but so far as race relations go, the black-white divide in the US is somewhat unusual in its toxicity and pervasiveness, and blackface minstrelry is likewise an American practice. Blackface in other contexts, while objectionable, is usually not the same as blackface in the American tradition.
Take the Christmas-related black Piets in the Netherlands, for example. I think it’s really stupid, racist, and completely objectionable, but at the same time it’s true that the practice has different meanings, implications, than it would if it were happening in the USA: context does matter. And in the this example, there’s a whole other layer of context going on isn’t easily encapsulated in “OMG blackface” style commentary.
Looks like a DeHavilland Dash 8 to me. So it’s a turboprop. Definitely has propellers, anyway, even if it is a jet.
Edit:
You decide if it’s ‘tiny’ or not; holds ~70 people, I guess it’s technically ‘regional’. The ones I’ve flown on felt plenty small enough to me. Luckily the undercarriage never collapsed, even though they were SAS ones (wonder if they thought about that before they filled one full of sumo wrestlers?).
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And yet whiteface continues in America, albeit with yellow gloves. This is not who I am, and this is not okay!
Of course I’m not offended, but I like the idea that any instances of Ronald McDonald are actually black people caricaturing white people and having no idea why white people would mind being depicted in this way.
Ronald McDonald embodies another layer of stereotype as well, the fat american too distracted to cook for themselves. And whenever I see the donation box for RMD house, all I can see is a creepy pedo image of a clown leading a small kid away…
JP Patches is right on the edge of acceptable hobo clown for me, and he still makes me squirm a bit.
Wow, and I was just beginning to wrap my head around Krampus!
I agree with you that in the US. blackface is in a badness category not that far removed from burning crosses on a lawn… I think it represents the deliberate rollback of civil rights at this point. So yeah, it wouldn’t be fair to heap all that baggage on the Japanese. But there’s a reputation for xenophobia and misogyny among the Japanese that (in my view) they haven’t earned their way out of- even though my culture’s got a long way to go still- and talking about nuance where that caricature comes from, is kind of like saying you have to be Jewish before you can criticize Israel’s behaviour.
As far as blackface goes, I’ve no reason to think that Japanese Sumo wrestlers have it out for the American black man in particular- but these pictures don’t look like good wholesome fun, either. It makes me think of the Goldman Sachs Halloween costumes of homeless people more than Amos 'n Andy.
I mean, in my initial comment I acknowledged Japan’s racism and xenophobia, and the relationship with Korea is a particular source of difficulty. Newspapers there really play things up when foreigners commit crimes, and “zainichi” Koreans get an especially bad rap, not least because they are marginalized and are over-represented in industries like pachinko if for no other reason than they have difficulty getting good jobs (kind of like Jews and money-lending, historically speaking). But even though Koreans are institutionally discriminated against via things like family registers (which will reveal name changes), it’s also true that most Koreans can (and do) physically pass for Japanese in ways that blacks cannot pass for white… and that alone is a major difference, and one that makes the interpretation of blackface in this context rather puzzling.
Here’s the Japanese and Google translations of the offending photos. Anyone care to give a better translation or summary? It looks like they were having some kind of karaoke contest and these three wrestlers were singing an old song from the 20s (either with black singers or with singers in blackface). Aoto was considered to have darker skin and didn’t need blackface. If that’s a relatively accurate summary, it’s hard to know if they were caricaturing black people or just getting into a popular song that involved people in blackface. If it’s the second, it’s not impossible that they were copying an American cultural relic that is no longer acceptable without actually realising how offensive people consider it nowadays. In any case, I don’t think it has anything to do with Koreans.
墨を落とすのが一苦労。
２０代とは思えない懐メロを
結構知ってる北勝花でした。
It is hard time dropping the ink.
The once popular song that I do not think 20’s
It was KitaMasaruhana you know very well.
南国系色黒の青砥は
顔に黒墨塗る必要なし
Aoto tropical system is Black
No need to paint black ink on the face
懐かしのシャネルズ
ボーカルは北勝花
バックダンサーは青砥と隠岐の岩
Chanels of nostalgia
Vocal KitaMasaruhana
Backup dancer rocks Aoto Metropolitan Oki
顔に黒色塗って準備してる力士
Wrestler you are ready to paint in black face
After that expose on the amount of corruption and abuse of wrestlers in Sumo, the sport and institution has lost mist of its luster for me.
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