ferretchucker
12-10-2013, 05:35 PM
Been a while since the discussion on women drew to a natural close (that is, the topic will never be dead but the thread ran its course). A recent clip from the beautifully uplifting What Would You Do reminded me to revisit these discussions. In it, the stooge is a black hairdresser giving grief to a black male with a white girlfriend. Alas, I can't find it to link so here's a similar one.
qGiVX9uVB3I
Just gonna preface this with the usual stuff. Hopefully everyone is mature enough that we can discuss this frankly. Don't feel the need to tiptoe around the subject or start each point with "no offence". If you think your comment is offensive, probably best to rephrase it. Just be respectful, you know?
Race is an interesting one in film history. Obviously we have the early works in which black actors weren't even used; Birth of a Nation immediately comes to mind, infamous for it's appalling racism and factual errors. But this is an extreme example from a century ago. Whilst the stereotypes in it have remained in cultural representations for worryingly long (big black buck, mammy etc.) I think we can all agree that 99% people can recognise the depictions of race in this film as ridiculous.
I would have probably similarly disregarded The Jazz Singer from this conversation a few months ago - an important point yet less relevant to today. Then this happened;
http://www.thewrap.com//images/2013/10/julianne-hough-614x400.jpg
For those of you who don't know, The Jazz Singer is the first feature film to include the use of synchronised sound. It also revolves around a Jewish entertainer-cum-Minstrel in pursuit of a Jazz career. Whilst the character does not overtly express racist views, Minstrelsy is of course imbued with white power and the propagation of stereotypes. A product of it's time, one could argue.
And yet here we are in 2013 seeing numerous scandals involving Black Face, particularly around Halloween. Despite immediate uproar and outrage people continue to do it.
Now, I'm going to play devil's advocate here and try to see the arguments in favour of this behaviour. Obviously, there is a difference between black-face and minstrelsy. Whilst the former refers to the particular theatrical activity that treated issues of slavery and inequality with an offensively comical attitude, Black-Face is the banner term. It can be used as a tool, as in the BBC Sitcom Come Fly With Me, in which Walliams and Lucas adopt black, south asian, east asian and middle-eastern roles - none of which were met with the uproar of this year's Halloween activities.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/comeflywithme/images/iconic_974.jpg
However, they were in a television show portraying characters...very VERY stereotypical characters - I point towards the black coffee-vendor "Precious" who slacks off work to relax and frequently uses gospel phrases. Hmm.
So what makes this different to Julianne Hough dressing as Crazy-Eyes for Halloween? To be specific - darkening her skin, as many opined that the costume would have been acceptable save for that specific act. She was, after all, portraying a specific character as opposed to using the blackface to propagate stereotypes as a general "black" character. Of course, the costumes in which people dressed as Trayvon Martin are offensive for much more obvious reasons. But the Hough case did fascinate me.
In all honesty, I'm not sure...and I worry that that's because even now we fail to build racial understanding. I accept that it is highly offensive to some people, I respect that and agree that Hough should have realised it would be, but do I really understand why it is? Can I really empathise with how black people witnessing it felt, or am I so wrapped up in white privilege that I'll never really see it?
There are a whole host of other issues I'd like to get to, such as the prevalence of casual racism towards Asians in mainstream cinema, the meta-stereotype of the "black man dying first" and of course...this guy.
http://www.richardcrouse.ca//wp-content/uploads/2013/09/imgHappy-Feet3.jpg
But for now let's stick with this topic - the issue of contemporary blackface. Thoughts?
qGiVX9uVB3I
Just gonna preface this with the usual stuff. Hopefully everyone is mature enough that we can discuss this frankly. Don't feel the need to tiptoe around the subject or start each point with "no offence". If you think your comment is offensive, probably best to rephrase it. Just be respectful, you know?
Race is an interesting one in film history. Obviously we have the early works in which black actors weren't even used; Birth of a Nation immediately comes to mind, infamous for it's appalling racism and factual errors. But this is an extreme example from a century ago. Whilst the stereotypes in it have remained in cultural representations for worryingly long (big black buck, mammy etc.) I think we can all agree that 99% people can recognise the depictions of race in this film as ridiculous.
I would have probably similarly disregarded The Jazz Singer from this conversation a few months ago - an important point yet less relevant to today. Then this happened;
http://www.thewrap.com//images/2013/10/julianne-hough-614x400.jpg
For those of you who don't know, The Jazz Singer is the first feature film to include the use of synchronised sound. It also revolves around a Jewish entertainer-cum-Minstrel in pursuit of a Jazz career. Whilst the character does not overtly express racist views, Minstrelsy is of course imbued with white power and the propagation of stereotypes. A product of it's time, one could argue.
And yet here we are in 2013 seeing numerous scandals involving Black Face, particularly around Halloween. Despite immediate uproar and outrage people continue to do it.
Now, I'm going to play devil's advocate here and try to see the arguments in favour of this behaviour. Obviously, there is a difference between black-face and minstrelsy. Whilst the former refers to the particular theatrical activity that treated issues of slavery and inequality with an offensively comical attitude, Black-Face is the banner term. It can be used as a tool, as in the BBC Sitcom Come Fly With Me, in which Walliams and Lucas adopt black, south asian, east asian and middle-eastern roles - none of which were met with the uproar of this year's Halloween activities.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/comeflywithme/images/iconic_974.jpg
However, they were in a television show portraying characters...very VERY stereotypical characters - I point towards the black coffee-vendor "Precious" who slacks off work to relax and frequently uses gospel phrases. Hmm.
So what makes this different to Julianne Hough dressing as Crazy-Eyes for Halloween? To be specific - darkening her skin, as many opined that the costume would have been acceptable save for that specific act. She was, after all, portraying a specific character as opposed to using the blackface to propagate stereotypes as a general "black" character. Of course, the costumes in which people dressed as Trayvon Martin are offensive for much more obvious reasons. But the Hough case did fascinate me.
In all honesty, I'm not sure...and I worry that that's because even now we fail to build racial understanding. I accept that it is highly offensive to some people, I respect that and agree that Hough should have realised it would be, but do I really understand why it is? Can I really empathise with how black people witnessing it felt, or am I so wrapped up in white privilege that I'll never really see it?
There are a whole host of other issues I'd like to get to, such as the prevalence of casual racism towards Asians in mainstream cinema, the meta-stereotype of the "black man dying first" and of course...this guy.
http://www.richardcrouse.ca//wp-content/uploads/2013/09/imgHappy-Feet3.jpg
But for now let's stick with this topic - the issue of contemporary blackface. Thoughts?