No.
What part of black/brownface is never OK don’t people understand?
Black/Brown people straightening, dyeing, etc their hair is another discussion entirely. When you live in a culture that pushes nordic beauty standards as the be-all, end-all, changing your looks to fit these standards (which society as a whole has reinforced for centuries in this country) is not appropriation.
Two completely different things that have precisely zero to do with each other. Don’t move the goalposts.
That may be the root of the gripes from non-white actors. Basically, they are already largely restricted to playing characters which are of a specific racial/ethnic appearance which they are or resemble, as opposed to also being able to play characters that could (theoretically) be of any racial/ethnic appearance. So it may be more annoying to them that they have to face additional competition for that limited set of characters, but not be able to compete for “generic” character roles.
But then if those making casting decisions assume that many viewers of the shows are racist and will prefer to see the “generic” characters be white, that will continue to go on.
On a lighter note, here is a good story just yesterday, worthy of a laugh:
“Gucci ‘deeply apologizes’ and removes from the shelves its $890 balaclava knit top after thousands on Twitter branded it ‘blackface for millennials’”
I grew up in the deep south, and graduated from a southern state flagship university in 1978. Every white child in my white middle class, suburban bubble was taught the n word and blackface were unacceptable, rude and offensive. When fraternity boys at my university had blackface events, they knew it wasn’t okay. It was deliberately subversive and provocative. They got away with it because “(white) boys will be boys”. It wasn’t a naive lapse of judgement. They understood this wasn’t an acceptable norm. They also understood they would probably never be called to account.
I’m sure some of these young men grew up to be decent, maybe even admirable individuals, but all things being equal I’d rather have someone from my generation that didn’t put on blackface representing me in state or national government. That was probably 99% of the white campus population.
The Klan outfit… I can’t remember anyone ever using a Klan robe as a joke. Not the wildest frats went there.
ETA… The Klan was active in my state during the 70s and 80s. The membership wasn’t huge. No one was joking about it.
This thread is supposed to be about blackface and it’s repercussions/fall out. It’s not about abortion or whitewashing (casting white actors in minority roles). Those discussions detract from this discussion.
As for Joy Behar, IMO the repercussions should be less than those of a politician and that of someone who was obviously and intentionally mockingly racist. I think it would be fantastic if she could say that at the time she dressed as a beautiful black woman, as well as when she discussed it on The View, she didn’t see it as a problem. She thought because she didn’t use it mockingly or in an exaggerated way, that it wouldn’t have been hurtful. That her intentions were racist. But with all of these discussions, she can see that it would have have hurtful to many people. That using ethnicity or race as a costume can easily be taken as making light of something others view as important to their identity. She should say she is sorry that she didn’t realize that before.
Again, that’s my personal opinion of how I think I would handle something like that. I’ve never really been a costume type person, so I am only imagining what my reaction would be based on how I would have thought of a costume like that in the past vs how I would think of it now.
Why should Joy Behar keep her job if Megyn Kelly got canned for suggesting that what Joy did might be ok?
Ok, we all know that NBC wanted to fire Kelly and they found an excuse, but shouldn’t it now be ok to say out loud that it was just an excuse?
NBC and ABC are not the same company.
Megyn Kelly’s show was awful, she was unlikeable even aside from this, she hadn’t been on NBC very long, she was losing them money. There was much more to it than her saying she doesn’t see the problem with blackface, which wasn’t by far her only racist statement.
Joy Behar hasn’t addressed this yet as far as I am aware.
What about Fallon and Kimmel? Let’s burn those late nite witches.
^^^^they were portraying specific characters on their comedy shows. They probably dressed in wigs and other attire that is similar to other specific characters they were playing on SNL and late night TV.
Do people of color consider this the same as minstrel type blackface gags? I’d like to know.
Most people learn as children that it’s not nice to make fun of people. These people ignored that. It pains me to see jokes made at the expense of anyone, black, white, fat, skinny, those who aren’t intelligent, those not blessed with physical beauty.
I wish all of it would stop.
Even Tom Hanks performed in a skit with a man in blackface.
Are you saying that it is wrong for little girls to wear general Native American costume? Surely it’s fun and harmless to dress up as all sorts of different cultures and characters or occupations.
True. I am guilty of appearing as a Japanese girl, one of the three little maids in The Mikado. That Gilbert and Sullivan musical would likely be condemned today as racist and me a Caucasian playing Japanese as cultural appropriation. But I loved wearing the kimono and the big wig. I was in middle school. Don’t hold it against me.
@TatinG LOL! I am reminded of "White Girls, Take Off Your Hoops’ (suggesting, cultural appropriation) painted on a wall at Pitzer a few years ago!
Anybody who talks about cultural appropriation should start with giving up pizza and burritos.
Sigh… and the Swedes should give up Sankta Lucia.
I grew up in the 80s in a very small, rural midwest town. Our k-12 school of 250 had one minority kid who was Korean. My parents literally “cut the cord” and we had no tv - I read books & went to school with farm kids. As I look back on it all, I was completely out of what was going on in the world around us. My dad was a starving-artist-conservative-hippie from California; I remember once he punched someone after church because that guy used the “n” word. I never really met a black person until college.
BUT - my point - even with that very simplistic upbringing, this I knew - blackface is mocking and cruel.
Better tell my kid to destroy any evidence of his AP Euro project-it was a video and he wore a Hakenkreuz armband. As well as a brown shirt.
I’m 59 years old. Most of my friends are +/- 5 years. In all our years of breathing on this planet I can guarantee each and everyone of them, if judge by today’s standards, has done something that would be considered racist, offensive, sexist, classist and whatever other ‘ist’ I may as of yet be unaware.
So that’s it. In order to be a fully moral and upstanding and virtuous person I clearly must cut all of them out of my life. Same goes for all elderly relatives. Not a chance in this universe they didn’t do something ‘wrong’.
DH - who is a few years older has had even more time to be horribly inappropriate at some split second in time. Guess he needs to go too.
Can I keep the dog? He is a a rescue from an Asian country that happens to eat that particular type of creature. I probably took the food out of some family’s mouth. I should send him back. Who am I to deny anyone food based on my own perceived moral superiority.
Wow, I’m going to be one heck of a lonely person.
But, one must do what is right by what is considered right today. No excuses for the past.
Sigh
@Hamurtle Prince Harry wore that costume to a fancy dress party when he was 19; I recall there was a big furor over it at the time, however, he survived the scandal and is now one of the most popular royals!