no. 92 - Blackface
Even as a kid, before they started censoring the cartoons I watched, blackface made me feel ill. It would be disingenuous to portray myself as an enlightened kid regarding race, but when I saw those characters it felt strange and troubling, even without my having a grasp on race.Because of this I'm forced to call "Bullshit" on anyone who wants to pass blackface off as a phenomenon offensive only to Americans. It's a degrading stereotype, and a repulsive aesthetic no matter who or where you are. There is no way to make it pretty when you "exaggerate" and define an entire race in this manner. It is loathsome, irrespective of geography or even history.
But there is history. Some might wish to divorce blackface from any kind of context, but to do so is willfully ignorant. It would be like showing up to a party with a big swastika on your T-shirt and then holding your hand over your mouth in mock shame, saying "oh, that's right, some people get offended by these."
Finally and specifically, to the Australian act and variety show who thought it would be entertaining to present a Jackson Five "tribute" in blackface: I insist you know better.
The central "funny"
point of your sketch was to present the Michael Jackson character in "whiteface" to poke postmortum fun at a human being who in all likelihood felt so terrible about his "blackness", that he bleached his flesh. And if you didn't believe that — if you took Mr. Jackson at his word and believed he had a rare skin disorder, then you choose to make fun of his medical condition? I can't wait to see your next bit of work on how hilarious you find those cue-ball headed cancer patients!
Update: French Vogue has decided one blackface controversy deserves another. They have gone ahead and painted Dutch model Lara Stone a darker shade of pale. The issue is reported to include no Black or Asian models apparently because they are so difficult to locate. Personally I would not have looked to the Netherlands to solve this particular deficit.Not traditional blackface, but, French Vogue, all the make-up in the world isn't going to cover up your problem.
Labels: blackface, French Vogue, harry connick, Lara Stone
posted by Katsoulis | 7:18 AM
4 Comments:
Er zijn wel zwarte mensen in Nederland, hoor!
Ja, er zijn zwarte mensen in Nederland, maar heeft u merken dat ze NIET selecteert die IEMAND?!?
(thanks google translator! and thanks random Dutch person for thinking me worldly enough to understand you!)
American, actually.
"Personally I would not have looked to the Netherlands to solve this particular deficit." implies that you think there aren't any black folks over here. Granted, most Dutch folks are the wonderbreadiest of white.
And there's *plenty* of folks of African descent and Africans in France as well, so Vogue's whole story is fishy.
Derek,
You're American? Why are you posting in Dutch on a blog you obviously read in your native language?
As for French Vogue and it's many disfuntcions, I think the broader problem is that the issue purports to showcase the greatest models in the WORLD, which, last time I checked, included an enormous continent called Africa.
Perhaps they missed it.
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