Lotta blackface lately. I see this stuff, and I don't so much get upset, as I don't really get it. Like, I have no desire at all to dress like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast As Tiffany's, or put on a sombrero and fake a Speedy Gonzales accent. I'm not even sure why that would be funny.
I have no problem with Darrell Hammond's Jesse Jackson. He actually tried to look like Jesse Jackson, and imitate Jesse Jackson. If you look at most of the other examples--even the guys imitating the Jackson 5--they're basically just smearing shoe-polish on and seeing. The implicit message is a kind of invisibility--the notion that black people all look the same, and are the same.
I read something years ago that essentially every race thinks the same thing. I suppose it makes sense after I'd given it some thought. When you are more used to interacting with people of your own race, you notice the things that make them different much easier than you notice the things that make them similar.
I have a Korean friend whose parents moved over here when they about 25. He swears that to this day, she has a very, very hard time telling his white friends apart. He says that the rest of his extended family that was born in Korea are the same way.
I am always the odd one in these conversations because I can't tell anyone apart-- I get confused in movies with too many similar-built white guys because I don't know who they are. I am always afraid I'll do this with a random person of color and they'll think it's because I'm racist. No, ma'am, I'm just an idiot.
I like to think the perception that black people are stereotyped in this way is stronger than the reality. But then I hear how Will Smith was mistaken for Barack Obama, and I begin to wonder.
I actually thought that Larry Wilmore put it best: "Blackface is part of a long tradition of mocking and de-humanizing Black people while appropriating [Black] culture."
But as I hear you suggesting here: Surely there is a difference between that, and performing political satire through the fine art of imitation.
The fact that the line is so thin as to be almost translucent at times does complicate matters, though, and I for one am all for erring on the side of caution. Which is code for: Fred Armisen is cool and all (and hey, congrats on marrying Peggy! Whoot!), but really. Couldn't SNL have found even one Black man capable of playing the Black President?
I really wish I had the ability to watch these links at work. Double that desire when it's a Daily Show clip.
That said, I see nothing wrong with Darrell Hammond playing Jesse Jackson - particularly because he is so damn good at it. No worse than Sean Penn playing Harvey Milk. Now, Darrell Hammond doing black face and playing random black stereotype or Sean Penn playing random gay stereotype - that changes things.
Why in God's name is it Darrell Hammond doing Jesse Jackson acceptable just because it's based on a real person? Is it acceptable if some suburban white douche does a spot-on impression of the homeless man who begs him for change every time he gets off the subway? Even if he's really, really good at it?
And yeah, those idiots doing the Jackson 5 on Australian television were beyond reprehensible, and no, Australia, I don't care if you think you have much more enlightened views on race than we do.
Well, Darrell Hammond is doing a specific impression of a specific black person. And he's doing it quite well. He's not doing anything that would be considered derogatory to black people. Fred Armisan does an impression of a Gov. Patterson that is certainly more offensive to blind people than it is to black people. Is he allowed to impersonate a black person because Fred Armisan can 'pass?' He's not black, yet does the impression of Obama. Does that offend you?
@Bill Rutherford, you said "and no, Australia, I don't care if you think you have much more enlightened views on race than we do."
The thing is, white Australia has a terrible history on race and aboriginal rights and status. Sometimes I'm amazed any aboriginal people survived with even pieces of their culture intact.
I feel stupid now. I was leaning toward thinking it was ok so long as you're dressing as an actual famous person. A friend of mine wanted to do a group Halloween group costume as TLC, but we eventually decided against it (at least this year, and at least using black makeup - we may revisit it next year, with just the costumes, but then I'm not sure that would work...), since we do know the history of blackface and didn't want to do anything remotely controversial.
And I don't think she wanted to do because she thought it would be funny for three white girls to go as black people. We just like TLC and have fond memories from growing up, not to mention their outfits were pretty awesome.
I've often wondered if hammond's jackson invokes minstrelsy more than keenan thompson's frequent bugeyed asides to the camera? bing crosby casually prescribing blackface for a number in 'holiday inn' strikes me differently than a light skinned fred armisen darkening up to play obama. eddie murphy's buckwheat played to a predominantly white audience- was he bamboozled or did he make an individual decision to go for the funny? does artist intent have any traction in this question?
Like, I have no desire at all to dress like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast As Tiffany's, or put on a sombrero and fake a Speedy Gonzales accent. I'm not even sure why that would be funny.
There are a lot of theories on what makes something funny.
I suspect humor springs from cognitive dissonance.
You probably wouldn't think "coolie" and "Mexican" stereotypes are funny because the equal worth of Asians and Latinos is a settled fact in your mind.
Fans of black-face and its analogues are deeply conflicted on the social worth of minorities and this internal conflict is expressed through humor.
What's dangerous is that we know that stereotypes have cognitive effects on those who witness them, particularly uncritically.
Hence the attitude that "it's all harmless" is actually what makes these things so dangerous.
Makes sense and i feel this better describes the context issue. When Eddie Murphy did the skit "White Like Me", it wasn't about a black man in white face but about the logical inconsistency of what he discovers (although exaggerated) that is: the gap between what we believe about the ideals of our societal organization and the actual influencers (e.g. white privilege) of our societal organization.
Eddie Murphy SNL Skit
and
Wayans Brothers movie "White Chicks"
but those are the only ones I know about
I think I'm following the thinking here:
Its ok for us to do it to them but I'm offended when they do it to me
If white people put on blackface for Halloween nowadays, we'll sit around and talk about how racist and demeaning it is, but when Dave Chappelle is the white news anchor "Chuck Taylor" its some funny shit.
The double standard is sickening.
I'm not saying its right, but if these people meant it to be mean and offensive, the KKK would be all over it, right?
Um, I personally don't think White Chicks or Chappelle's Chuck Taylor are funny, I'm with TNC on that, but that doesn't mean the two acts are equivalent. Blackface has a particular history and meaning in a society in which white supremacy has been the dominant mode of social and economic organization. That means blackface carries a completely different meaning than black people dressing up as white and the folks who find it funny, might find it funny because they judge it a subversive inversion of traditional power relations rather than an aggressive, humiliating and mocking attempt to clown stereotypes of the supposedly monolithic group characteristics of the oppressed.
If white people put on blackface for Halloween nowadays, we'll sit around and talk about how racist and demeaning it is, but when Dave Chappelle is the white news anchor "Chuck Taylor" its some funny shit.
The double standard is sickening.
I make no brief for White Chicks, but the fact that you think those two instances constitute a sickening "double standard" says a lot.
Also, "Eddie Murphy SNL Skit" was a lot deeper than White Chicks, doesn't belong on that list, and, as TNC pointed out, doesn't constitute a "sickening double standard"
I wouldn't let Murphy totally off the hook, because he has also imitated other racial or ethnic minorities (with the help of Rick Baker's makeup magic). As a Jew, I never found his Jewish Old Man in Coming to America remotely offensive (I loved it, in fact), but his Chinese bigot in Norbit (which I admit I have only seen from clips) was a different matter.
His "gay-face" in Raw is pretty bad too. I think he apologized for that one. I liked the old Jewish guy. But I was so unexposed as a kid that I thought it was just an old white guy.
Man, the gay stuff in Raw made it seem REALLY dated the last time I saw it. Even more so than the leather jump suit. Still hilarious, but that stuff is kind of hard to watch...
Oh dear. Man. I hate to say it, context is key. They do it to us? Eddie Murphy's making fun of white people? Yes, I guess. But he's also making fun of the dicotomy between black and white communities. The sort of impenetrableness of the two communities. It's a joke about racial ignorance. The joke is as much on black people as it is on white people. And the audience is black as well as white. There's no real ridicule. He's not doing it to us.
The white to black mirror of that is the Robert Downey performance from Tropic Thunder.
At any rate, in my experience, the white people complaining about not being able to make fun of black people are precisely the kind of white people who this double-standard, as you call it, is set up to protect.
The joke is as much on black people as it is on white people. And the audience is black as well as white. There's no real ridicule. He's not doing it to us.
Right. That's the point of "White people GIVE each other things" in the bank. It's a joke about how we, black people, perceive "WhiteLand."
Also, I thought Downey was joking about a particular kind of Hollywood actor.
Yeah. The cover for the Downey thing was essentially that he was making fun of method actors, but I think it works on a similar plane as the Murphy bit (especially when you have Brandon Jackson there reminding the viewer that, even in this other reality, this white dude's interpretation of black people is terribly flawed).
In other words: it's funny when it's about US. It's cruel when it's about THEM. It can even be funny when it's about YOU, although that can get a little hairy. When the presumption is that the people you're mimicking are in the audience and will find it funny, and when it's clear you've at least considered multiple reads of the bit, then you're on your way to being able to having the credibility to do these bits and tell these jokes.
White people ceded their (manufactured) moral authority over minorities when they at least nominally gave in to the demands of the Civil Rights movement 45 years ago. That's the source of the double standard. Non-white people in this country now possess that moral authority (that's about it, though) so we get to do those things and it's "cool", so to speak.
Dave Chappelle doing 'Chuck Taylor' IS funny. But not as funny as when he portrayed the white husband from the Wife Swap parody. I also think Darrell Hammond doing Jesse Jackson is funny. And I wouldn't mind other talented white comedians doing certain impressions of black people.
I don't know why stuff like the Racial Draft is funny and Eddie Murphy doing yellowface in Norbit isn't. Maybe it's the writing - the latter just isn't funny.
Yeah, I love bitching about double standards and all, but the white husband on wife swap was comedic gold. The whole skit was great.
As far as white guys doing black impressions, I really do wish Robin Williams would just stop. Though I rarely find him funny no matter what bit he is doing.
This stuff is to me like pornography was to Potter Stewart. I can't define exactly when crosses the line from good satire to to racistm, but I know it when I see it.
Context is everything. I know in your mind blackface and whiteface are weighted morally equal, but without understanding context it's an incomplete thought. I'll let the others lecture you about the specifics of this context, but consider this:
Would you let a stranger call your wife or girlfriend "Baby" and slap her on the ass? Why not?
That's the power of context. It's not some vague explanatory other. Especially when it comes to race and racism, it's EVERYTHING.
I understand that blackface has a bad history in this country but the "sickening" part is that black comedians in the public eye are getting a "pass" to put on whiteface because of said history.
My point is that that act is as morally reprehensible as white people in blackface.
Sure comedians will do things for a laugh and many actors are known to not make the smartest decisions, but let's be fair.
I believe that the (I'll call them) growing pains of racial equality comes when both sides realize that being an ass is being an ass no matter what color it is and should be held responsible as such.
Dude you could only think of two examples of "White-Face," each of them more than two decades apart. Who are all these black comedians putting on white-face? Examples, please.
Do you honestly not see a difference between say, a group of Australian men putting on Afro wigs and shoe polish on themselves to mimick the Jackson Five and the bit you referenced above in which Eddie Murphy purported to be dressing as a white man to learn what it's like to be white (and finds that, when we're alone, we're always having parties and giving each other money and stuff)? You don't see the difference between who the butt of the joke is? Or who the assumed audience is? Does one of those bits seem designed to be viewed by a majority white audience while the other seems designed to be viewed by a diverse audience? I mean, these two bits are so dramatically different from one another that it offends my comedic sensibilities to feel compelled to compare them.
I don't think whiteface is as morally reprehesible as blackface precisely because it has no history. Blackface has a terrible history, and that is the key.
There's nothing inherently wrong with imitating someone else- see Saturday Night Live's entire run. It's the history surrounding blackface that makes it so problematic. To ignore that and say that playing off-race is "sickening" is to miss the entire point.
I believe that the (I'll call them) growing pains of racial equality comes when both sides realize that being an ass is being an ass no matter what color it is and should be held responsible as such.
A better understanding of history might change your attitude.
In the '70s and '80s, the attitude seemed to change from "Look how funny black people are" to "Look how funny white people are trying to imitate black people." At least that was the excuse, but it was implicit in a lot of the blackface and jive-talking routines at the time.
In the early days of The Muppet Show all the special guests received a muppet version of themselves. I think this is an excellent tradition we could revive for Michael Steele's doppelganger.
oh man i was worried that Steele's Muppet doppelganger was going to be put in the blackface category looking at the still before i actually played it because
Problem with blackface is its history with the 19th century minstrel shows, and the stereotypes that the minstrel shows promoted (the Sambo and Mammy types for example). The clowning and buffonery was part of the act, but you had and still have people in the audiences NOT GETTING IT, and thinking that ALL blacks (and/or other minorities) were always like that.
Early media (movies, radio, tv) always relied on stereotypes and cliches to simplify the plots, working with time constraints that denied creators room for character development that literature and novels allowed (it also kinda hurt that there were those in charge of those media who didn't care). As a result, complex characters such as Uncle Tom were Sambo-fied in early film, which stained the characters' actual archetypal role and why being called an "Uncle Tom" by the 60s got to be an insult.
(Wasn't there a Spike Lee joint Bamboozled that covered some of this?)
Apologies. I got Stephen Foster somewhere in my bloodlines, and some of my studies in college covered American Popular Culture and Reconstruction/Jim Crow era Southern History.
One other thing: I know there's arguments about whether Speedy Gonzales was a racist Mexican stereotype, but as a white kid growing up for me Speedy was smart, clever, fast with his brain as well as feet, and good with the ladies: in short, he was COOL. What the hell was wrong with that (other than cat lovers hating how Sylvester kept getting screwed)?
I originally refused to see Tropic Thunder when I heard Downey was doing blackface in it...after seeing a couple of clips from the movie, I decided to give it a chance and I think you have to give them credit for handling that perfectly.
I think a movie like that shows that it's not one of those blanket cases where there is no case that it can ever be acceptable, but instead more of the type of thing that is damaged by its historical context. As enjiex notes above, it's all about context, but I would also add intent and execution to it as well.
Basically, it ends up being the kind of thing you can get away with if you know exactly what you're doing, you're damn good at doing it, and your intent is definitely not malicious. I think the difference is as clear as the difference between Joe Rogan's use of the N-word on stage, and Michael Richards' use.
I thought Downey was brilliant in that part, but he wasn't making fun of black people or even a particular black person, but method actors, Hollywood, racial stereotypes and the ridiculous implications of racial translation. He wasn't playing a black man, but an aging white method actor playing a what he thinks is an "authentic" black character who ended up being a familiar 70s troupe. It was complex, meta, and perfectly executed. And therefore funny.
I've been reading all of the Little House books to my six year old daughter -- these are books that stand at the very center of my growing up and continue to shape how I look at the world today, and for me, it's sharing a piece of my heart with her.
We've just finished "Little Town on the Prairie," in which, to my stunned I-had-no-memory-of-this-whatsoever surprise, I discovered a scene wherein Pa and some gentlemen from the town perform a minstrel show (play "darkies") at a town Literary.
I hemmed, I hawed, I thought about it overnight, and then I - skipped it. Flat out lied to the child, by skipping riiiight past it.
All of the "Ma hates Indians" things I've dealt with honestly -- people used to think this way, it's no longer acceptable, see, even back then, Pa is arguing with her, and Laura feels uncomfortable with it -- but the entire town turning out to laugh their fool heads off over Pa et al putting on blackface? Behavior that is today absolutely beyond the Pale? (no, uh, pun intended)
I couldn't begin to figure out how to explain it to a six year old. If she had been ten, like her brother, I would have taken it on, but at six? I just caved.
Boy is she in for a surprise when she re-reads them all in a few years...!
Oytate.org has a really depressing rundown of the anti-Indian sentiment in the Little House books (I understand your attachment to them and am not trying to attack you, just thought you'd want to read it). If she likes those, you might want to try Louise Erdrich's Birchbark House, which is set in an Indian community. We just started reading it and my daughter adores it.
Thank you for these, and I will look into both (though I admit I seem to be the only woman in America who doesn't like Louise Erdrich's writing! Maybe I just need to try these books instead of whatever it was I read...).
I guess there's a point at I'm trying to be comfortable in owning the mistakes of our past and presenting them in context, and the anti-Indian sentiment -- which amounts to about three sentences per book (with one exception), and they are always balanced with Laura's clear discomfort and Pa's disagreement -- is presented as part of a much larger picture, one in which I can draw connections and explain how it might be that these people, in particular, might have this particular social struggle, at this particular point in history.
(responding to Smilyy124 above)
Smilly,
do you really think there is a double standard? Because to me your examples exist among very few instances where white-face has happened. That seems a little light on the white-face side for any kind of a double standard to be established. The black face thing on the the other hand belongs to a long history of mocking and marginalizing from a "You are people that don't have to be respected and we're putting on this black-face because we are laughing at you" sensibility. So I don't think it's a double standard.
When I was a kid, my all white elementary school had a 50's dress up day. For us, our only idea of the 50's came from Happy Days characters like Fonzie. I skipped that day because I didn't think I could be Fonzie (or anyone else on the show) because there was the "you can't be Fonzie, because he's not black" limitation. Besides, where would I have got the white-face make up?
I do think however that an artist like Darrel Hammond should be able to show his ability to morph into anyone. If there is any issue here, it is that SNL doesn't have enough black performers to take on the task. But, even if there were enough, Hammond should still be able to do his thing because he is so good at it. There's no question that he is actually trying to be Jesse Jackson.
If the attempt to impersonate someone suffers from sloppy execution, it looks like you don't care about your subject at all. And that not caring can be easily perceived as racism.
Maybe the problem with talking about the racism of black people toward white people is that, at the end of the day, the white racism has been and continues to be far for damaging. That doesn't make the racism of black people Ok, but really, how many white people suffer from its effect? Other than being annoyed by being confronted by it, of course.
I think the problem is that for a lot of white people, merely being made to feel annoyed and/or offended by something constitutes abject oppression in their minds.
One more thing, in the Stewart piece, he misses the point the presence of a black person is so unfamiliar to many white people, the encounter is unsettling to the point of causing fear. Either fear of violence, or fear of having to acknowledge or accept that which is different from you. I think that was Steele's point.
Steele is also 6'4". Did you know that? It makes sense that some old white Republicans might get a little nervous around him. But Stewart's put-down was hilarious, you gotta admit.
The only iteration of "blackface" that Stewart and Wilmore discussed that seemed possibly OK was the German guy who wanted to learn (and presumably relate) how it felt to be black in day to day interaction. It reminds me of the book (and movie) "Black Like Me" from the early 60s. In that book, a Southern journalist ingested some chemicals and may have applied some sort of darkener so that he "became" black. His book was very impactful at the time, and was one of many cultural influences that turned white opinion in favor of racial equality. The author was something like James Howard Griffin.
That was similar to the idea in The Gentleman's Agreement, though of course the reporter in that story did not need to change himself physically to pass as a Jew.
FWIW, it surprised me too. The Daily Show doesn't usually go there, and I thought it was done really badly. (I assume you're talking about the DS leering segment, not the general depersonalization/objectification of women in fashion/magazines/the world.)
Yeah, I think that's what they were going for, but I don't think it worked. I can't tell you exactly why. Partly, I think on a comic level, it just wasn't funny (the trope is deeply lame, more 2 1/2 Men than Daily Show, frankly). And because it wasn't funny, it just became gross and offensively tone-deaf. I wouldn't put it at horribly offensive (in my book -- I mean, there's WAY worse sexist shit on TV), more like eye-rollingly stupid.
I took the very blatant sexism as part of the satire. I.e., Larry is supposed to be focused on blackface but gets derailed by his own sexism... But maybe I'm being overly charitable.
Okay, so I watched the thing again. Going along about the blackface, and then, rather abruptly, veers off into some joke about leering at Vogue models. Then rather abruptly I get it about what TNC says above:
I see this stuff, and I don't so much get upset, as I don't really get it. Like, I have no desire at all to dress like [a woman on a magazine cover]. I'm not even sure why that would be funny.
Just saying that I was so personally struck, on this occasion, at how I myself reacted to something that I generally simply tune out altogether. Because it's pervasive. If I were to become offended every time some guys make some lame reference to, well, their own prurient response to some anonymous women of whatever color, well, then I would have never have lived this long. Best not to get upset.
But so pervasive that it's utterly invisible. Why is this funny?
I'm surprised to see no mention of the 1970 film "Watermelon Man," in which a black actor plays a white suburban insurance salesman who inexplicably turns black overnight. It stars the great Godfrey Cambridge--who was just such a fixture of television in my childhood that it's strange never to hear his name mentioned any more--and has to part of the well Eddie Murphy dipped into for "White Like Me."
Cambridge (via screenwriter Raucher and director van Peebles) presents a white bigot who gains humanity after turning black. The whiteface portion is brief but powerful. It never even occurred to me, as a white person (and I was, like, 12 when the movie came out), to find the whiteface offensive, or evidence of an "okay" double standard, while being perfectly aware that blackface was--as someone put it higher up, hilariously--beyond the Pale.
I love the Simpson's episode where Homer is sitting on the couch watching tv. A black stand-up comedian is making fun of white drivers, Homer is buckled in laughter as he gasps; "It's true, it's true..we're so lame"
Here's a piece no one cared about. Meh, whatever, probably the most enjoyable article I did during my stint at TIME. Premiered a month before I got laid-off. The nail in the coffin? Ya think?
Here's me going after Al. I didn't so much have a problem with him, as I had a problem with media acting like this dude was the go-to guy for everything black.
This was my first real story at time. I was writing for the Business section, a real change of direction for me. At any rate, it's about Wal-Mart's attempts to colonize the inner-city. As much as I enjoyed this piece, I mostly enjoyed going out to Chicago, which is a beautiful, beautiful city.
This a piece I did about the cops just outside our nation capitol, in Prince George's County, a few years back. I wanted to offer a counter to the dumb, conventional wisdom that if you paint your police force black, you could eradicate police brutality. In fact, Prince George's--one of the richest, blackest counties in the country--also had one of the most brutal police force's in the country.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I blame Ted Danson.
Darrell Hammond playing Jessie Jackson on SNL doesn't help matters at all.
Especially since the "it's not blackface if you're imitating a specific person" seems to have gained traction.
I have no problem with Darrell Hammond's Jesse Jackson. He actually tried to look like Jesse Jackson, and imitate Jesse Jackson. If you look at most of the other examples--even the guys imitating the Jackson 5--they're basically just smearing shoe-polish on and seeing. The implicit message is a kind of invisibility--the notion that black people all look the same, and are the same.
"the notion that black people all look the same, and are the same."
Which I've always filed under the "stereotypes/slanders I didn't even know existed until I was in my late teens" drawer of my mental filing cabinet.
That one is just supremely bizarre to me and always has been. We're probably the most diverse looking group of people here.
Teknontheou,
I read something years ago that essentially every race thinks the same thing. I suppose it makes sense after I'd given it some thought. When you are more used to interacting with people of your own race, you notice the things that make them different much easier than you notice the things that make them similar.
I have a Korean friend whose parents moved over here when they about 25. He swears that to this day, she has a very, very hard time telling his white friends apart. He says that the rest of his extended family that was born in Korea are the same way.
"X as in 'I'll take Charlie Weaver... to block!'" (around the 4-minute mark)
I am always the odd one in these conversations because I can't tell anyone apart-- I get confused in movies with too many similar-built white guys because I don't know who they are. I am always afraid I'll do this with a random person of color and they'll think it's because I'm racist. No, ma'am, I'm just an idiot.
A while back, I did a little post on the subject of people thinking everyone of a particular race looks the same:
http://kylopod.blogspot.com/2008/06/yall-look-alike-to-me.html
I like to think the perception that black people are stereotyped in this way is stronger than the reality. But then I hear how Will Smith was mistaken for Barack Obama, and I begin to wonder.
I actually thought that Larry Wilmore put it best: "Blackface is part of a long tradition of mocking and de-humanizing Black people while appropriating [Black] culture."
But as I hear you suggesting here: Surely there is a difference between that, and performing political satire through the fine art of imitation.
The fact that the line is so thin as to be almost translucent at times does complicate matters, though, and I for one am all for erring on the side of caution. Which is code for: Fred Armisen is cool and all (and hey, congrats on marrying Peggy! Whoot!), but really. Couldn't SNL have found even one Black man capable of playing the Black President?
I really wish I had the ability to watch these links at work. Double that desire when it's a Daily Show clip.
That said, I see nothing wrong with Darrell Hammond playing Jesse Jackson - particularly because he is so damn good at it. No worse than Sean Penn playing Harvey Milk. Now, Darrell Hammond doing black face and playing random black stereotype or Sean Penn playing random gay stereotype - that changes things.
Why in God's name is it Darrell Hammond doing Jesse Jackson acceptable just because it's based on a real person? Is it acceptable if some suburban white douche does a spot-on impression of the homeless man who begs him for change every time he gets off the subway? Even if he's really, really good at it?
And yeah, those idiots doing the Jackson 5 on Australian television were beyond reprehensible, and no, Australia, I don't care if you think you have much more enlightened views on race than we do.
Well, Darrell Hammond is doing a specific impression of a specific black person. And he's doing it quite well. He's not doing anything that would be considered derogatory to black people. Fred Armisan does an impression of a Gov. Patterson that is certainly more offensive to blind people than it is to black people. Is he allowed to impersonate a black person because Fred Armisan can 'pass?' He's not black, yet does the impression of Obama. Does that offend you?
@Bill Rutherford, you said "and no, Australia, I don't care if you think you have much more enlightened views on race than we do."
The thing is, white Australia has a terrible history on race and aboriginal rights and status. Sometimes I'm amazed any aboriginal people survived with even pieces of their culture intact.
I feel stupid now. I was leaning toward thinking it was ok so long as you're dressing as an actual famous person. A friend of mine wanted to do a group Halloween group costume as TLC, but we eventually decided against it (at least this year, and at least using black makeup - we may revisit it next year, with just the costumes, but then I'm not sure that would work...), since we do know the history of blackface and didn't want to do anything remotely controversial.
And I don't think she wanted to do because she thought it would be funny for three white girls to go as black people. We just like TLC and have fond memories from growing up, not to mention their outfits were pretty awesome.
Don't do it.
You could, IMO, easily do that with just the costumes and Left Eye's under-the-eye makeup.
I've often wondered if hammond's jackson invokes minstrelsy more than keenan thompson's frequent bugeyed asides to the camera? bing crosby casually prescribing blackface for a number in 'holiday inn' strikes me differently than a light skinned fred armisen darkening up to play obama. eddie murphy's buckwheat played to a predominantly white audience- was he bamboozled or did he make an individual decision to go for the funny? does artist intent have any traction in this question?
I will pay you $100 if you'll dress as a Hasidic Jew and do a blogging heads episode with Matt Yglesias.
I'll throw in $5 to see that.
http://bitcast-a.v1.iad1.bitgravity.com/minyanville/assets/FCK_Aug2007/Image/nico3/woody%20amapp.jpg
& Matt in full Mohammad Chatami persian mullah regalia
I suspect humor springs from cognitive dissonance.
You probably wouldn't think "coolie" and "Mexican" stereotypes are funny because the equal worth of Asians and Latinos is a settled fact in your mind.
Fans of black-face and its analogues are deeply conflicted on the social worth of minorities and this internal conflict is expressed through humor.
What's dangerous is that we know that stereotypes have cognitive effects on those who witness them, particularly uncritically.
Hence the attitude that "it's all harmless" is actually what makes these things so dangerous.
Makes sense and i feel this better describes the context issue. When Eddie Murphy did the skit "White Like Me", it wasn't about a black man in white face but about the logical inconsistency of what he discovers (although exaggerated) that is: the gap between what we believe about the ideals of our societal organization and the actual influencers (e.g. white privilege) of our societal organization.
Let's not forget:
Eddie Murphy SNL Skit
and
Wayans Brothers movie "White Chicks"
but those are the only ones I know about
I think I'm following the thinking here:
Its ok for us to do it to them but I'm offended when they do it to me
If white people put on blackface for Halloween nowadays, we'll sit around and talk about how racist and demeaning it is, but when Dave Chappelle is the white news anchor "Chuck Taylor" its some funny shit.
The double standard is sickening.
I'm not saying its right, but if these people meant it to be mean and offensive, the KKK would be all over it, right?
Um, I personally don't think White Chicks or Chappelle's Chuck Taylor are funny, I'm with TNC on that, but that doesn't mean the two acts are equivalent. Blackface has a particular history and meaning in a society in which white supremacy has been the dominant mode of social and economic organization. That means blackface carries a completely different meaning than black people dressing up as white and the folks who find it funny, might find it funny because they judge it a subversive inversion of traditional power relations rather than an aggressive, humiliating and mocking attempt to clown stereotypes of the supposedly monolithic group characteristics of the oppressed.
I make no brief for White Chicks, but the fact that you think those two instances constitute a sickening "double standard" says a lot.
Also, "Eddie Murphy SNL Skit" was a lot deeper than White Chicks, doesn't belong on that list, and, as TNC pointed out, doesn't constitute a "sickening double standard"
I wouldn't let Murphy totally off the hook, because he has also imitated other racial or ethnic minorities (with the help of Rick Baker's makeup magic). As a Jew, I never found his Jewish Old Man in Coming to America remotely offensive (I loved it, in fact), but his Chinese bigot in Norbit (which I admit I have only seen from clips) was a different matter.
His "gay-face" in Raw is pretty bad too. I think he apologized for that one. I liked the old Jewish guy. But I was so unexposed as a kid that I thought it was just an old white guy.
I'm not, I'm just pointing out that the White Like Me skits didn't belong in that category.
Also, his Jewish Old Man character was a pretty tender tribute, and brilliantly executed.
But my God is it depressing to think that there's a clear line between CTA and the Nutty Professor movies, Norbit, etc.
Man, the gay stuff in Raw made it seem REALLY dated the last time I saw it. Even more so than the leather jump suit. Still hilarious, but that stuff is kind of hard to watch...
Yeah, there's a lot in Raw that I laugh at without being entirely comfortable about doing so.
Basically the Rocky bit and the story about the fight at the club.
>But I was so unexposed as a kid that I thought it was just an old white guy.
And you're from Baltimore?!
I know, looking back on it now, it was all there for me to see...
Obviously, you're right, because the KKK are the only racists in this country.
Oh dear. Man. I hate to say it, context is key. They do it to us? Eddie Murphy's making fun of white people? Yes, I guess. But he's also making fun of the dicotomy between black and white communities. The sort of impenetrableness of the two communities. It's a joke about racial ignorance. The joke is as much on black people as it is on white people. And the audience is black as well as white. There's no real ridicule. He's not doing it to us.
The white to black mirror of that is the Robert Downey performance from Tropic Thunder.
At any rate, in my experience, the white people complaining about not being able to make fun of black people are precisely the kind of white people who this double-standard, as you call it, is set up to protect.
Right. That's the point of "White people GIVE each other things" in the bank. It's a joke about how we, black people, perceive "WhiteLand."
Also, I thought Downey was joking about a particular kind of Hollywood actor.
Yeah. The cover for the Downey thing was essentially that he was making fun of method actors, but I think it works on a similar plane as the Murphy bit (especially when you have Brandon Jackson there reminding the viewer that, even in this other reality, this white dude's interpretation of black people is terribly flawed).
In other words: it's funny when it's about US. It's cruel when it's about THEM. It can even be funny when it's about YOU, although that can get a little hairy. When the presumption is that the people you're mimicking are in the audience and will find it funny, and when it's clear you've at least considered multiple reads of the bit, then you're on your way to being able to having the credibility to do these bits and tell these jokes.
White people ceded their (manufactured) moral authority over minorities when they at least nominally gave in to the demands of the Civil Rights movement 45 years ago. That's the source of the double standard. Non-white people in this country now possess that moral authority (that's about it, though) so we get to do those things and it's "cool", so to speak.
Dave Chappelle doing 'Chuck Taylor' IS funny. But not as funny as when he portrayed the white husband from the Wife Swap parody. I also think Darrell Hammond doing Jesse Jackson is funny. And I wouldn't mind other talented white comedians doing certain impressions of black people.
I don't know why stuff like the Racial Draft is funny and Eddie Murphy doing yellowface in Norbit isn't. Maybe it's the writing - the latter just isn't funny.
Whether or not it's 'funny' definitely plays a major role. No doubt.
In addition to funny, I think stuff gets a pass if it's social commentary and/or satire. Racial Draft is satire, Downey in Tropic Thunder is satire.
Eddie Murphy on SNL was social satire, him in Norbit was not.
Yeah, I love bitching about double standards and all, but the white husband on wife swap was comedic gold. The whole skit was great.
As far as white guys doing black impressions, I really do wish Robin Williams would just stop. Though I rarely find him funny no matter what bit he is doing.
I wish I could remember the exact lines...
"Do you mind if I turn the music off? I like to just hear you breathing..."
"Do you mind if I just pull it through the hole?"
"Do you mind if I just pull it through the hole?"
That is the line that always kills me. And when Leonard Washington drops the white kid off in the hood.
This stuff is to me like pornography was to Potter Stewart. I can't define exactly when crosses the line from good satire to to racistm, but I know it when I see it.
This all reminds me of the great Jerry Seinfeld line:
Priest: And this offends you as a Jewish person?
Jerry: No! It offends me as a comedian!
It's just not funny.
smilly124
Context is everything. I know in your mind blackface and whiteface are weighted morally equal, but without understanding context it's an incomplete thought. I'll let the others lecture you about the specifics of this context, but consider this:
Would you let a stranger call your wife or girlfriend "Baby" and slap her on the ass? Why not?
That's the power of context. It's not some vague explanatory other. Especially when it comes to race and racism, it's EVERYTHING.
I understand that blackface has a bad history in this country but the "sickening" part is that black comedians in the public eye are getting a "pass" to put on whiteface because of said history.
My point is that that act is as morally reprehensible as white people in blackface.
Sure comedians will do things for a laugh and many actors are known to not make the smartest decisions, but let's be fair.
I believe that the (I'll call them) growing pains of racial equality comes when both sides realize that being an ass is being an ass no matter what color it is and should be held responsible as such.
Dude you could only think of two examples of "White-Face," each of them more than two decades apart. Who are all these black comedians putting on white-face? Examples, please.
Do you honestly not see a difference between say, a group of Australian men putting on Afro wigs and shoe polish on themselves to mimick the Jackson Five and the bit you referenced above in which Eddie Murphy purported to be dressing as a white man to learn what it's like to be white (and finds that, when we're alone, we're always having parties and giving each other money and stuff)? You don't see the difference between who the butt of the joke is? Or who the assumed audience is? Does one of those bits seem designed to be viewed by a majority white audience while the other seems designed to be viewed by a diverse audience? I mean, these two bits are so dramatically different from one another that it offends my comedic sensibilities to feel compelled to compare them.
I don't think whiteface is as morally reprehesible as blackface precisely because it has no history. Blackface has a terrible history, and that is the key.
There's nothing inherently wrong with imitating someone else- see Saturday Night Live's entire run. It's the history surrounding blackface that makes it so problematic. To ignore that and say that playing off-race is "sickening" is to miss the entire point.
A better understanding of history might change your attitude.
It's just so damn unfair that people consider historical context for things, isn't it?
In the '70s and '80s, the attitude seemed to change from "Look how funny black people are" to "Look how funny white people are trying to imitate black people." At least that was the excuse, but it was implicit in a lot of the blackface and jive-talking routines at the time.
And then it changed to black comics doing 30 minutes of "Black people drive like this, but white people drive like THIS," which was pretty bad too.
People still do bits like this. I find it depressing, pathetic, and most of all completely unfunny.
Blackface sucks, true. I'm more interested in Steele's Muppet doppelganger, which is pure genius.
GENIUS, it is. Cracks me up everytime I see it.
That's the wrong Muppet! Steele is the blue Muppet with the oval head and nose, not the round ones.
In the early days of The Muppet Show all the special guests received a muppet version of themselves. I think this is an excellent tradition we could revive for Michael Steele's doppelganger.
oh man i was worried that Steele's Muppet doppelganger was going to be put in the blackface category looking at the still before i actually played it because
a: i love the muppets
b: that muppet is a dead ringer for steel
Problem with blackface is its history with the 19th century minstrel shows, and the stereotypes that the minstrel shows promoted (the Sambo and Mammy types for example). The clowning and buffonery was part of the act, but you had and still have people in the audiences NOT GETTING IT, and thinking that ALL blacks (and/or other minorities) were always like that.
Early media (movies, radio, tv) always relied on stereotypes and cliches to simplify the plots, working with time constraints that denied creators room for character development that literature and novels allowed (it also kinda hurt that there were those in charge of those media who didn't care). As a result, complex characters such as Uncle Tom were Sambo-fied in early film, which stained the characters' actual archetypal role and why being called an "Uncle Tom" by the 60s got to be an insult.
(Wasn't there a Spike Lee joint Bamboozled that covered some of this?)
Apologies. I got Stephen Foster somewhere in my bloodlines, and some of my studies in college covered American Popular Culture and Reconstruction/Jim Crow era Southern History.
One other thing: I know there's arguments about whether Speedy Gonzales was a racist Mexican stereotype, but as a white kid growing up for me Speedy was smart, clever, fast with his brain as well as feet, and good with the ladies: in short, he was COOL. What the hell was wrong with that (other than cat lovers hating how Sylvester kept getting screwed)?
Re: Speedy Gonzales, cue Family Guy's hilarious white version: Rapid Dave.
I originally refused to see Tropic Thunder when I heard Downey was doing blackface in it...after seeing a couple of clips from the movie, I decided to give it a chance and I think you have to give them credit for handling that perfectly.
I think a movie like that shows that it's not one of those blanket cases where there is no case that it can ever be acceptable, but instead more of the type of thing that is damaged by its historical context. As enjiex notes above, it's all about context, but I would also add intent and execution to it as well.
Basically, it ends up being the kind of thing you can get away with if you know exactly what you're doing, you're damn good at doing it, and your intent is definitely not malicious. I think the difference is as clear as the difference between Joe Rogan's use of the N-word on stage, and Michael Richards' use.
Note that there are actually black cast members in Tropic Thunder, which helps.
I thought Downey was brilliant in that part, but he wasn't making fun of black people or even a particular black person, but method actors, Hollywood, racial stereotypes and the ridiculous implications of racial translation. He wasn't playing a black man, but an aging white method actor playing a what he thinks is an "authentic" black character who ended up being a familiar 70s troupe. It was complex, meta, and perfectly executed. And therefore funny.
Full disclosure:
I've been reading all of the Little House books to my six year old daughter -- these are books that stand at the very center of my growing up and continue to shape how I look at the world today, and for me, it's sharing a piece of my heart with her.
We've just finished "Little Town on the Prairie," in which, to my stunned I-had-no-memory-of-this-whatsoever surprise, I discovered a scene wherein Pa and some gentlemen from the town perform a minstrel show (play "darkies") at a town Literary.
I hemmed, I hawed, I thought about it overnight, and then I - skipped it. Flat out lied to the child, by skipping riiiight past it.
All of the "Ma hates Indians" things I've dealt with honestly -- people used to think this way, it's no longer acceptable, see, even back then, Pa is arguing with her, and Laura feels uncomfortable with it -- but the entire town turning out to laugh their fool heads off over Pa et al putting on blackface? Behavior that is today absolutely beyond the Pale? (no, uh, pun intended)
I couldn't begin to figure out how to explain it to a six year old. If she had been ten, like her brother, I would have taken it on, but at six? I just caved.
Boy is she in for a surprise when she re-reads them all in a few years...!
Oytate.org has a really depressing rundown of the anti-Indian sentiment in the Little House books (I understand your attachment to them and am not trying to attack you, just thought you'd want to read it). If she likes those, you might want to try Louise Erdrich's Birchbark House, which is set in an Indian community. We just started reading it and my daughter adores it.
Thank you for these, and I will look into both (though I admit I seem to be the only woman in America who doesn't like Louise Erdrich's writing! Maybe I just need to try these books instead of whatever it was I read...).
I guess there's a point at I'm trying to be comfortable in owning the mistakes of our past and presenting them in context, and the anti-Indian sentiment -- which amounts to about three sentences per book (with one exception), and they are always balanced with Laura's clear discomfort and Pa's disagreement -- is presented as part of a much larger picture, one in which I can draw connections and explain how it might be that these people, in particular, might have this particular social struggle, at this particular point in history.
Oh, absolutely. (Did you try The Crown of Columbus? That was pretty plodding.)
(responding to Smilyy124 above)
Smilly,
do you really think there is a double standard? Because to me your examples exist among very few instances where white-face has happened. That seems a little light on the white-face side for any kind of a double standard to be established. The black face thing on the the other hand belongs to a long history of mocking and marginalizing from a "You are people that don't have to be respected and we're putting on this black-face because we are laughing at you" sensibility. So I don't think it's a double standard.
When I was a kid, my all white elementary school had a 50's dress up day. For us, our only idea of the 50's came from Happy Days characters like Fonzie. I skipped that day because I didn't think I could be Fonzie (or anyone else on the show) because there was the "you can't be Fonzie, because he's not black" limitation. Besides, where would I have got the white-face make up?
I do think however that an artist like Darrel Hammond should be able to show his ability to morph into anyone. If there is any issue here, it is that SNL doesn't have enough black performers to take on the task. But, even if there were enough, Hammond should still be able to do his thing because he is so good at it. There's no question that he is actually trying to be Jesse Jackson.
If the attempt to impersonate someone suffers from sloppy execution, it looks like you don't care about your subject at all. And that not caring can be easily perceived as racism.
Maybe the problem with talking about the racism of black people toward white people is that, at the end of the day, the white racism has been and continues to be far for damaging. That doesn't make the racism of black people Ok, but really, how many white people suffer from its effect? Other than being annoyed by being confronted by it, of course.
I think the problem is that for a lot of white people, merely being made to feel annoyed and/or offended by something constitutes abject oppression in their minds.
One more thing, in the Stewart piece, he misses the point the presence of a black person is so unfamiliar to many white people, the encounter is unsettling to the point of causing fear. Either fear of violence, or fear of having to acknowledge or accept that which is different from you. I think that was Steele's point.
Steele is also 6'4". Did you know that? It makes sense that some old white Republicans might get a little nervous around him. But Stewart's put-down was hilarious, you gotta admit.
Yes very funny. Just an observation of what Stewart and many others overlook.
The only iteration of "blackface" that Stewart and Wilmore discussed that seemed possibly OK was the German guy who wanted to learn (and presumably relate) how it felt to be black in day to day interaction. It reminds me of the book (and movie) "Black Like Me" from the early 60s. In that book, a Southern journalist ingested some chemicals and may have applied some sort of darkener so that he "became" black. His book was very impactful at the time, and was one of many cultural influences that turned white opinion in favor of racial equality. The author was something like James Howard Griffin.
That was similar to the idea in The Gentleman's Agreement, though of course the reporter in that story did not need to change himself physically to pass as a Jew.
I submit that Billy Crystal's impersonation of Sammy Davis Jr. falls on the OK side of the line. Affection vs. contempt.
Might be a bit off topic for this blog, but maybe not. Along the lines of unbelievable what some people don't even get....
Does ANYBODY get the blatant sexism, or depersonalization of women, or whatever, that just sits there right in the middle of this clip?
Or maybe I'm just too sensitive.
FWIW, it surprised me too. The Daily Show doesn't usually go there, and I thought it was done really badly. (I assume you're talking about the DS leering segment, not the general depersonalization/objectification of women in fashion/magazines/the world.)
No, you're not the only one. It bothered me. I'd *like* to think that was part of the 'joke' but I'm not so sure it is.
Except for that part, Larry Wilmore slays.
Wasnt the joke on Wilmore, though? Isn't it supposed to show the shallowness of his pose? I could be missing it...
Yeah, I think that's what they were going for, but I don't think it worked. I can't tell you exactly why. Partly, I think on a comic level, it just wasn't funny (the trope is deeply lame, more 2 1/2 Men than Daily Show, frankly). And because it wasn't funny, it just became gross and offensively tone-deaf. I wouldn't put it at horribly offensive (in my book -- I mean, there's WAY worse sexist shit on TV), more like eye-rollingly stupid.
Well, ok, maybe Jon Stewart gets it when he says, "oh, yeah, the beautiful girl exception." Subtle.
Replying to Maya above:
Right, it's lame, but you have it backwards. It's not wrong because it's lame; it's lame because it's wrong.
So, blackface, not ok, and therefore not funny. Sexism, not ok, and therefore not funny.
As far as the general depersonalization/objectification of women in the world, again so pervasive as to just about go unnoticed.
I took the very blatant sexism as part of the satire. I.e., Larry is supposed to be focused on blackface but gets derailed by his own sexism... But maybe I'm being overly charitable.
Okay, so I watched the thing again. Going along about the blackface, and then, rather abruptly, veers off into some joke about leering at Vogue models. Then rather abruptly I get it about what TNC says above:
I see this stuff, and I don't so much get upset, as I don't really get it. Like, I have no desire at all to dress like [a woman on a magazine cover]. I'm not even sure why that would be funny.
Just saying that I was so personally struck, on this occasion, at how I myself reacted to something that I generally simply tune out altogether. Because it's pervasive. If I were to become offended every time some guys make some lame reference to, well, their own prurient response to some anonymous women of whatever color, well, then I would have never have lived this long. Best not to get upset.
But so pervasive that it's utterly invisible. Why is this funny?
I'm surprised to see no mention of the 1970 film "Watermelon Man," in which a black actor plays a white suburban insurance salesman who inexplicably turns black overnight. It stars the great Godfrey Cambridge--who was just such a fixture of television in my childhood that it's strange never to hear his name mentioned any more--and has to part of the well Eddie Murphy dipped into for "White Like Me."
Cambridge (via screenwriter Raucher and director van Peebles) presents a white bigot who gains humanity after turning black. The whiteface portion is brief but powerful. It never even occurred to me, as a white person (and I was, like, 12 when the movie came out), to find the whiteface offensive, or evidence of an "okay" double standard, while being perfectly aware that blackface was--as someone put it higher up, hilariously--beyond the Pale.
I love the Simpson's episode where Homer is sitting on the couch watching tv. A black stand-up comedian is making fun of white drivers, Homer is buckled in laughter as he gasps; "It's true, it's true..we're so lame"
ebogjonson settled the question years ago, at least for bloggers