Yeah, that’s true. I’m personally still not a fan, but I get that it’s conveying a positive message.
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My family did Teen Titans GO! -themed costumes last Halloween and for a while I was strongly considering making a Cyborg costume (I ended up going as Trigon, which was easier to do and fit with my daughter dressing up as Raven). Had I gone with my original plan I wouldn’t have even considered doing blackface because duh, and also pretty sure Teen Titans fans would have gathered I was Cyborg from all the robot parts.
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I woulda gone as beast boy … but then again I’m furry.
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We decided to let our dog stand in for Beast Boy.
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Ok, that’s awesome.
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Hence “possibly”. It was a stretch.
The worst thing with the Olivier Othello thing is he did it again a year later playing a Sudanese rebel leader in Khartoum. Its fucking terrible but the only time you see Charlton Heston and Laurence Oliver in the same film. No scenery was left unmasticated
Some people don’t learn their lesson.
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There’s a Mitchell and Webb skit where David Mitchell wears blackface that I find hilarious, but like Tropic of Thunder there is a meta-level to understand the skit on where Mitchell is playing a person who is wearing blackface because they are clueless (though Mitchell is playing themself in the skit and the cluelessness takes the form of an apparent belief that they are transracial).
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Hey, @Melz2 agrees with you on it, so there’s that!
As for Othello, I’d much prefer the take of Patrick Stewart as Othello - the other cast members were all black!
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Never that.
There are two examples of blackface I recall have gotten a conspicuous (but not universal) pass in the 21st century. Robert Downey Jr in Tropic Thunder and Reece Shearsmith’s “Papa Lazarou” character in League of Gentlemen. Both are very carefully-written attacks on white people’s bullshit. The bar is higher now.
A third, Mighty Boosh’s Spirit of Jazz (Noel Fielding) was Baron Samedi and given a pass at the time, but in retrospect is wayyyy into blackface and I wouldn’t put it on at parties.
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well…she is married to a stupid fucking racist. so, maybe this makes him more attractive?
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There we go. Sir Patrick is always classy.
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Also, maybe the character Rudi?
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I’m seriously struggling with this. My white, Dutch, non-affected head has difficulties getting to understand it. Where is the boundary between racism and distasteful and over-sensitivity? I’m handicapped. Does that mean you can’t make jokes about me anymore? Is that different then mocking Mike Tyson using black paint to impersonate him?
I’m probably to ignorant/uneducated/unaware to even realize where the gravity is.
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I somehow managed to never see Rudi but I’m not fancying its chances.
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I’d say the same thing that I’d say to someone who really likes Swastikas but doesn’t want to be affiliated with Nazis. Too bad things worked out this way, but people have to weigh their priorities. Just realize that if you don’t want to be read by others as racist, you shouldn’t wear blackface. If a person decides their halloween costume looking a certain way is more important than whether other people think they are racist, they can deal with the fact that people think they are racist.
Maybe this isn’t cross-cultural and universal, but it’s definitely true in North America.
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If YOU make a joke about your handicap that’s one thing, or a close friend or family member who knows how you feel about such things. Additionally jokes that are by or about handicapped or different abled people that seeks to help an audience better understand their struggles can also be helpful and that’s usually jokes made BY people with disabilities - even then, as Hannah Gadsby noted in her stand up concert, that she herself had gotten sick of making jokes that only punched back at herself, which only worked to keep her marginalized instead of empowering her. Jokes made to mock or belittle people with disabilities… not really that cool.
There are plenty of ways that one can mock mike tyson that doesn’t also mock and belittle literally millions and millions of other people. If him being black is what makes me funny to someone, rather than something specific to HIM (the ear thing, the pigeons, etc), then it’s just racist.
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Making fun of you because you’re handicapped would be a pretty big dick move.
We’ve already explained much better ways of impersonating Mike Tyson than wearing black paint (and in any case, his skin is a medium brown). At this point “not understanding how blackface is racist” is a conscious choice.
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I remember feeling all cringy watching that. Not their finest episode, frankly.
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