![Minstrel PosterBillyVanWare edit](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Minstrel_PosterBillyVanWare_edit.jpg)
Blackface is a form of
theatrical makeup
Theatrical makeup is makeup that is used to assist in creating the appearance of the characters that actors portray during a theater production.
Background
In Greek and Roman theatre, makeup was unnecessary. Actors wore various masks, allowing ...
used predominantly by non-
Black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...
people to portray a
caricature of a Black person.
In the United States, the practice became common during the 19th century and contributed to the spread of
racial stereotypes
An ethnic stereotype, racial stereotype or cultural stereotype involves part of a system of beliefs about typical characteristics of members of a given ethnic group, their status, societal and cultural norms. A national stereotype, or nation ...
such as the "happy-go-lucky
darky on the plantation" or the "
dandified coon". By the middle of the century, blackface
minstrel show
The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of racist theatrical entertainment developed in the early 19th century.
Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people spec ...
s had become a distinctive American artform, translating formal works such as opera into popular terms for a general audience. Early in the 20th century, blackface branched off from the minstrel show and became a form in its own right. In the United States, blackface declined in popularity beginning in the 1940s and into the
civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
of the 1950s and 1960s,
[Clark, Alexis.]
How the History of Blackface Is Rooted in Racism
. ''History''. A&E Television Networks, LLC. 2019. and was generally considered highly offensive, disrespectful, and racist by the turn of the 21st century,
though the practice (or similar-looking ones)
continues in other countries.
Early history
![1923 “FLIT” ad - Seuss-cartoon-racist (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/1923_%E2%80%9CFLIT%E2%80%9D_ad_-_Seuss-cartoon-racist_%28cropped%29.jpg)
There is no consensus about a single moment that constitutes the origin of blackface. The journalist and cultural commentator
John Strausbaugh
John Strausbaugh (born 1951, in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American author, cultural commentator, and host of ''The New York Times'' ''Weekend Explorer'' video podcast series on New York City. Among other topics, he is an authority on the history ...
places it as part of a tradition of "displaying Blackness for the enjoyment and edification of white viewers" that dates back at least to 1441, when captive West Africans were displayed in Portugal.
White people routinely portrayed the black characters in the
Elizabethan and
Jacobean theater (see
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as Renaissance English theatre and Elizabethan theatre, refers to the theatre of England between 1558 and 1642.
This is the style of the plays of William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson ...
), most famously in ''
Othello'' (1604).
However, ''Othello'' and other plays of this era did not involve the emulation and caricature of "such supposed innate qualities of Blackness as inherent musicality, natural athleticism", etc. that Strausbaugh sees as crucial to blackface.
History within the United States
![Dreadnought hoax](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Dreadnought_hoax.png)
Blackface was a performance tradition in the
American theater for roughly 100 years beginning around 1830. It was practised in Britain as well, surviving longer than in the U.S.; ''
The Black and White Minstrel Show
''The Black and White Minstrel Show'' was a British light entertainment show that ran for twenty years on BBC prime-time television. Running from 1958 to 1978, it was a weekly variety show that presented traditional American minstrel and count ...
'' on television lasted until 1978.
In both the United States and Britain, blackface was most commonly used in the minstrel performance tradition, which it both predated and outlasted. Early white performers in blackface used burnt cork and later
greasepaint
Foundation is a liquid, cream, or powder makeup applied to the face and neck to create an even, uniform color to the complexion, cover flaws and, sometimes, to change the natural skin tone. Some foundations also function as a moisturizer, sunscre ...
or shoe polish to blacken their skin and exaggerate their lips, often wearing woolly wigs, gloves, tailcoats, or ragged clothes to complete the transformation. According to a 1901 source: "Blackface is best prepared by burning an ordinary cork on some wood shavings for best texture, while storing it on some sheet iron to keep it clean. Then they must be cracked open and kept dry until you wet your hands and rub it on your face. This to be repeated until thoroughly blackened. After which, you are to take some baby brushes and wipe off the dirt to give your hands a polish." Later, black artists also performed in blackface. The famous
Dreadnought hoax
The ''Dreadnought'' hoax was a prank pulled by Horace de Vere Cole in 1910. Cole tricked the Royal Navy into showing their flagship, the battleship HMS ''Dreadnought'', to a fake delegation of " Abyssinian royals". The hoax drew attention in ...
involved the use of blackface and costume for a group of high profile authors to gain access to a Military vessel.
Stereotypes embodied in the stock characters of blackface minstrels not only played a significant role in cementing and proliferating racist images, attitudes, and perceptions worldwide, but also in popularizing black culture. In some quarters, the caricatures that were the legacy of blackface persist to the present day and are a cause of ongoing controversy. Another view is that "blackface is a form of
cross-dressing in which one puts on the insignias of a sex, class, or race that stands in opposition to one's own."
By the mid-20th century, changing attitudes about race and racism effectively ended the prominence of blackface makeup used in performance in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Blackface in contemporary art Blackface in contemporary art covers issues from stage make-up used to make non-black performers appear black (the traditional meaning of blackface), to non-black creators using black personas. Blackface is generally considered an anachronistically ...
remains in relatively limited use as a theatrical device and is more commonly used today as social commentary or satire. Perhaps the most enduring effect of blackface is the precedent it established in the introduction of
African-American culture to an international audience, albeit through a distorted lens.
[.][.] Blackface's
appropriation,
exploitation
Exploitation may refer to:
*Exploitation of natural resources
*Exploitation of labour
** Forced labour
*Exploitation colonialism
*Slavery
** Sexual slavery and other forms
*Oppression
*Psychological manipulation
In arts and entertainment
*Exploi ...
, and
assimilation of African-American culture – as well as the inter-ethnic artistic collaborations that stemmed from it – were but a prologue to the lucrative packaging, marketing, and dissemination of African-American cultural expression and its myriad derivative forms in today's world popular culture.
19th century
Lewis Hallam, Jr., a white blackface actor of
American Company fame, brought blackface in this more specific sense to prominence as a theatrical device in the United States when playing the role of "Mungo", an inebriated black man in ''
The Padlock
''The Padlock'' is a two-act 'afterpiece' opera by Charles Dibdin. The text was by Isaac Bickerstaffe. It debuted in 1768 at the Drury Lane Theatre in London as a companion piece to '' The Earl of Warwick''. It partnered other plays before a run ...
'', a British play that premiered in New York City at the
John Street Theatre
John Street Theatre, situated at 15–21 John Street, sometimes called "The Birthplace of American Theatre", was the first permanent theatre in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York.''The Oxford Companion to the Theatre'' (Fourth Editio ...
on May 29, 1769. The play attracted notice, and other performers adopted the style. From at least the 1810s, blackface
clowns were popular in the United States. British actor
Charles Mathews
Charles Mathews (28 June 1776, London – 28 June 1835, Devonport) was an English theatre manager and comic actor, well known during his time for his gift of impersonation and skill at table entertainment. His play ''At Home'', in which he pl ...
toured the U.S. in 1822–23, and as a result added a "black" characterization to his repertoire of British regional types for his next show, ''A Trip to America'', which included Mathews singing "Possum up a Gum Tree", a popular slave freedom song.
[ Burrows, Edwin G. & Wallace, Mike. '' Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. p. 489.] Edwin Forrest
Edwin Forrest (March 9, 1806December 12, 1872) was a prominent nineteenth-century American Shakespearean actor. His feud with the British actor William Macready was the cause of the deadly Astor Place Riot of 1849.
Early life
Forrest was born i ...
played a plantation black in 1823,
and
George Washington Dixon
George Washington Dixon (1801?Many biographies list his birth year as 1808, but Cockrell, ''Demons of Disorder'', 189, argues that 1801 is the correct date. This is based on Dixon's records at a New Orleans hospital, which list him as 60 years ol ...
was already building his stage career around blackface in 1828, but it was another white comic actor,
Thomas D. Rice, who truly popularized blackface. Rice introduced the song "
Jump Jim Crow" accompanied by a dance in his stage act in 1828 and scored stardom with it by 1832.
Rice traveled the U.S., performing under the stage name "Daddy Jim Crow". The name ''Jim Crow'' later became attached to
statutes that codified the reinstitution of
segregation Segregation may refer to:
Separation of people
* Geographical segregation, rates of two or more populations which are not homogenous throughout a defined space
* School segregation
* Housing segregation
* Racial segregation, separation of humans ...
and
discrimination after
Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
*Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...
.
In the 1830s and early 1840s, blackface performances mixed skits with comic songs and vigorous dances. Initially, Rice and his peers performed only in relatively disreputable venues, but as blackface gained popularity they gained opportunities to perform as ''
entr'acte
(or ', ;Since 1932–35 the French Academy recommends this spelling, with no apostrophe, so historical, ceremonial and traditional uses (such as the 1924 René Clair film title) are still spelled ''Entr'acte''. German: ' and ', Italian: ''inte ...
s'' in theatrical venues of a higher class. Stereotyped blackface characters developed: buffoonish, lazy, superstitious, cowardly, and lascivious characters, who stole, lied pathologically, and mangled the English language. Early blackface minstrels were all male, so cross-dressing white men also played black women who were often portrayed as unappealingly and grotesquely mannish, in the matronly
mammy mold, or as highly sexually provocative. The 1830s American stage, where blackface first rose to prominence, featured similarly comic stereotypes of the clever Yankee and the larger-than-life Frontiersman; the late 19th- and early 20th-century American and British stage where it last prospered
[.] featured many other, mostly
ethnically
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
-based, comic stereotypes: conniving, venal Jews;
[.] drunken brawling
Irishmen
The Irish ( ga, Muintir na hÉireann or ''Na hÉireannaigh'') are an ethnic group and nation native to the island of Ireland, who share a common history and culture. There have been humans in Ireland for about 33,000 years, and it has bee ...
with
blarney
Blarney () is a suburban town within the administrative area of Cork City in Ireland. It is located approximately north-west of the city centre. It is the site of Blarney Castle, home of the legendary Blarney Stone. Blarney is part of the Dáil ...
at the ready;
oily Italians;
stodgy Germans;
and gullible rural rubes.
1830s and early 1840s blackface performers performed solo or as duos, with the occasional trio; the traveling troupes that would later characterize blackface minstrelsy arose only with the minstrel show. In New York City in 1843,
Dan Emmett and his
Virginia Minstrels
The Virginia Minstrels or Virginia Serenaders was a group of 19th-century American entertainers who helped invent the entertainment form known as the minstrel show. Led by Dan Emmett, the original lineup consisted of Emmett, Billy Whitlock, ...
broke blackface minstrelsy loose from its novelty act and ''entr'acte'' status and performed the first full-blown minstrel show: an evening's entertainment composed entirely of blackface performance. (
E. P. Christy did more or less the same, apparently independently, earlier the same year in
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...
.) Their loosely structured show with the musicians sitting in a semicircle, a
tambourine
The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...
player on one end and a
bones
A bone is a rigid organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals, provide structure and support for the body, a ...
player on the other, set the precedent for what would soon become the first act of a standard three-act minstrel show. By 1852, the skits that had been part of blackface performance for decades expanded to one-act farces, often used as the show's third act.
The songs of
Northern composer
Stephen Foster
Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826January 13, 1864), known also as "the father of American music", was an American composer known primarily for his parlour and minstrel music during the Romantic period. He wrote more than 200 songs, inc ...
figured prominently in blackface minstrel shows of the period. Though written in dialect and certainly
politically incorrect
''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...
by today's standards, his later songs were free of the ridicule and blatantly racist caricatures that typified other songs of the genre. Foster's works treated
slaves and the
South in general with an often cloying sentimentality that appealed to audiences of the day.
White minstrel shows featured white performers pretending to be black people, playing their versions of 'black music' and speaking
ersatz
An ersatz good () is a substitute good, especially one that is considered inferior to the good it replaces. It has particular connotations of wartime usage.
Etymology
''Ersatz'' is a German word literally meaning ''substitute'' or ''replaceme ...
black dialects. Minstrel shows dominated popular show business in the U.S. from that time through into the 1890s, also enjoying massive popularity in the UK and in other parts of Europe. As the minstrel show went into decline, blackface returned to its novelty act roots and became part of
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
.
Blackface featured prominently in film at least into the 1930s, and the "aural blackface"
[.] of the ''
Amos 'n' Andy
''Amos 'n' Andy'' is an American radio sitcom about black characters, initially set in Chicago and later in the Harlem section of New York City. While the show had a brief life on 1950s television with black actors, the 1928 to 1960 radio show ...
'' radio show lasted into the 1950s.
Meanwhile, amateur blackface minstrel shows continued to be common at least into the 1950s. In the UK, one such blackface popular in the 1950s was Ricardo Warley from
Alston, Cumbria
Alston is a town in Cumbria, England, within the civil parish of Alston Moor on the River South Tyne. It shares the title of the 'highest market town in England', at about above sea level, with Buxton, Derbyshire. Despite its altitude, the tow ...
who toured around the North of England with a monkey called Bilbo.
As a result, the genre played an important role in shaping perceptions of and prejudices about black people generally and African Americans in particular. Some social commentators have stated that blackface provided an outlet for white peoples' fear of the unknown and the unfamiliar, and a socially acceptable way of expressing their feelings and fears about race and control. Writes
Eric Lott in ''Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class'': "The black mask offered a way to play with the collective fears of a degraded and threatening – and male – Other while at the same time maintaining some symbolic control over them."
Blackface, at least initially, could also give voice to an oppositional dynamic that was prohibited by society. As early as 1832, a blacked-up
Thomas D. Rice was singing: "An' I caution all white dandies not to come in my way, / For if dey insult me, dey'll in de gutter lay." It also on occasion equated lower-class white and lower-class black audiences; while parodying Shakespeare, Rice sang, "Aldough I'm a black man, de white is call'd my broder."
20th century
![Al Jolson in Mammy](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Al_Jolson_in_Mammy.jpg)
In the
early years of film, black characters were routinely played by white people in blackface. In
the first filmic adaptation of ''
Uncle Tom's Cabin
''Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly'' is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U ...
'' (1903), all of the major black roles were white people in blackface. Even the 1914 ''Uncle Tom'' starring African-American actor
Sam Lucas
Sam Lucas (August 7, 1840 – January 10, 1916) was an American actor, comedian, singer, and songwriter. Sam Lucas's exact date of birth is disputed. Lucas's year of birth, to freed former slaves, has also been cited as 1839, 1841, 1848 and 1850 ...
in the title role had a white male in blackface as Topsy.
D. W. Griffith's ''
The Birth of a Nation
''The Birth of a Nation'', originally called ''The Clansman'', is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 novel and play ''The Clan ...
'' (1915) used white people in blackface to represent all of its major black characters, but reaction against the film's racism largely put an end to this practice in dramatic film roles. Thereafter, white people in blackface would appear almost exclusively in broad comedies or "ventriloquizing" blackness in the context of a vaudeville or minstrel performance within a film. This stands in contrast to made-up white people routinely playing Native Americans, Asians, Arabs, and so forth, for several more decades.
From the 1910s up until the early 1950s, many well-known entertainers of stage and screen also
performed in blackface. White people who performed in blackface in film included
Al Jolson
Al Jolson (born Eizer Yoelson; June 9, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-American Jewish singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. He was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, and was self-billed ...
,
[Smith, Rj,]
Pardon the Expression
(book review), ''Los Angeles Magazine'', August 2001. Accessed online February 2, 2008. Eddie Cantor,
Bing Crosby,
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz; May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) was an American dancer, choreographer, actor, and singer. He is often called the greatest dancer in Hollywood film history.
Astaire's career in stage, film, and tele ...
,
Buster Keaton,
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur; March 23, ncertain year from 1904 to 1908was an American actress. She started her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway theatre, Broadway. Crawford was si ...
,
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne (born Irene Marie Dunn; December 20, 1898 – September 4, 1990) was an American actress who appeared in films during the Golden Age of Hollywood. She is best known for her comedic roles, though she performed in films of other gen ...
,
Doris Day,
Milton Berle,
William Holden
William Holden (born William Franklin Beedle Jr.; April 17, 1918 – November 12, 1981) was an American actor, and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the film ''Stalag 17'' (1953) ...
,
Marion Davies
Marion Davies (born Marion Cecilia Douras; January 3, 1897 – September 22, 1961) was an American actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Educated in a religious convent, Davies fled the school to pursue a career as a chorus girl ...
,
Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy (born Myrna Adele Williams; August 2, 1905 – December 14, 1993) was an American film, television and stage actress. Trained as a dancer, Loy devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. ...
,
Betty Grable
Elizabeth Ruth Grable (December 18, 1916 – July 2, 1973) was an American actress, pin-up girl, dancer, model, and singer.
Her 42 films during the 1930s and 1940s grossed more than $100 million; for 10 consecutive years (1942–1951) she reign ...
,
Dennis Morgan,
Laurel and Hardy,
Betty Hutton
Betty Hutton (born Elizabeth June Thornburg; February 26, 1921 – March 11, 2007)
was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedian, dancer, and singer.
Early life and education
Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg on February 2 ...
,
The Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical farce and slapstick. Six Stooges appeared ...
,
The Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) ...
,
Mickey Rooney,
Shirley Temple,
Judy Garland
Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. While critically acclaimed for many different roles throughout her career, she is widely known for playing the part of Dorothy Gale in '' The ...
,
Donald O'Connor
Donald David Dixon Ronald O'Connor (August 28, 1925 – September 27, 2003) was an American dancer, singer and actor. He came to fame in a series of films in which he co-starred with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule.
His b ...
and
Chester Morris
John Chester Brooks Morris (February 16, 1901 – September 11, 1970) was an American stage, film, television, and radio actor. He had some prestigious film roles early in his career, and received an Academy Awards, Academy Award nomination ...
and
George E. Stone in several of the ''Boston Blackie'' films.
In 1936, when
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
was touring his ''
Voodoo Macbeth
The Voodoo ''Macbeth'' is a common nickname for the Federal Theatre Project's 1936 New York production of William Shakespeare's ''Macbeth''. Orson Welles adapted and directed the production, moved the play's setting from Scotland to a fictional ...
''; the lead actor, Maurice Ellis, fell ill, so Welles stepped into the role, performing in blackface.
Blackface makeup was largely eliminated even from live-action film comedy in the U.S. after the end of the 1930s, when public sensibilities regarding
race
Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to:
* Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species
* Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...
were beginning to change and blackface became increasingly associated with racism and
bigotry
Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, rel ...
.
As late as the 1940s,
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
used blackface in ''
Yankee Doodle Dandy
''Yankee Doodle Dandy'' is a 1942 American biographical musical film about George M. Cohan, known as "The Man Who Owned Broadway". It stars James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston, and Richard Whorf, and features Irene Manning, George To ...
'' (1942), a
minstrel show
The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of racist theatrical entertainment developed in the early 19th century.
Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people spec ...
sketch in ''
This Is the Army
''This Is the Army'' is a 1943 American wartime musical comedy film produced by Hal B. Wallis and Jack L. Warner, and directed by Michael Curtiz, adapted from a wartime stage musical with the same name, designed to boost morale in the U.S. duri ...
'' (1943) and by casting
Flora Robson
Dame Flora McKenzie Robson (28 March 19027 July 1984) was an English actress and star of the theatrical stage and cinema, particularly renowned for her performances in plays demanding dramatic and emotional intensity. Her range extended from q ...
as a
Haitian maid in ''
Saratoga Trunk
''Saratoga Trunk'' is a 1945 American Western film (or historical romance film, per the American Film Institute) directed by Sam Wood and starring Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, and Flora Robson. Written by Casey Robinson, based on the novel '' ...
'' (1945).
In ''
The Spoilers'' (1942),
John Wayne appeared in blackface and bantered in a mock accent with a black maid who mistook him for an authentic black man.
Still, the tradition did not end all at once. The radio program ''
Amos 'n' Andy
''Amos 'n' Andy'' is an American radio sitcom about black characters, initially set in Chicago and later in the Harlem section of New York City. While the show had a brief life on 1950s television with black actors, the 1928 to 1960 radio show ...
'' (1928–60) constituted a type of "oral blackface", in that the black characters were portrayed by white people and conformed to stage blackface stereotypes. The conventions of blackface also lived on unmodified at least into the 1950s in animated theatrical cartoons. Strausbaugh estimates that roughly one-third of late 1940s
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
cartoons "included a blackface, coon, or mammy figure."
Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny is an animated cartoon character created in the late 1930s by Warner Bros. Cartoons, Leon Schlesinger Productions (later Warner Bros. Cartoons) and Voice acting, voiced originally by Mel Blanc. Bugs is best known for his starring role ...
appeared in blackface at least as late as ''
Southern Fried Rabbit'' in 1953.
Singer
Grace Slick
Grace Slick (born Grace Barnett Wing; October 30, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter, artist, and painter. Slick was a key figure in San Francisco's early psychedelic music scene in the mid-1960s. With a music career spanning four decades, ...
was wearing blackface when her band
Jefferson Airplane performed "Crown of Creation" and "
Lather" at ''
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
''The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour'' was an American comedy and variety show television series hosted by the Smothers Brothers and initially airing on CBS from 1967 to 1969.
The series was a major success, especially considering it was sc ...
'' in 1968. A clip is included in a 2004 documentary ''Fly Jefferson Airplane'', directed by
Bob Sarles
Bob Sarles is an American documentary filmmaker, film editor and radio host based in San Francisco.
Biography
Bob Sarles is an American documentary filmmaker and a Primetime Emmy nominated film and television editor.
In the early 1970s, as a tee ...
. In 1980, an
underground film
An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre or financing.
Notable examples include:
John Waters' ''Pink Flamingos'',
David Lynch's ''Eraserhead'',
Andy Warhol's '' Blue Movie'',
Rosa von Praunheim's '' ...
, ''
Forbidden Zone
''Forbidden Zone'' is an American absurdist musical fantasy comedy film produced and directed by Richard Elfman, and co-written by Elfman and Matthew Bright. Shot in 1977 and 1978, the film premiered in 1980 and was distributed in 1982. Origi ...
'', was released, directed by
Richard Elfman
Richard Elfman (born March 6, 1949) is an American actor, musician, director, producer, screenwriter, journalist, author and magazine publisher.
Early life
Richard Elfman was born in the Watts district of inner-city Los Angeles. His mother, B ...
and starring the band
Oingo Boingo
Oingo Boingo () was an American new wave band formed by songwriter Danny Elfman in 1979. The band emerged from a surrealist musical theatre troupe, The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, that Elfman had led and written material for in the ...
, which received controversy for blackface sequences.
In 1980, the white members of
UB40
UB40 are an English reggae and pop band, formed in December 1978 in Birmingham, England. The band has had more than 50 singles in the UK Singles Chart, and has also achieved considerable international success. They have been nominated for the ...
appeared in blackface in their "Dream a Lie" video, while the black members appeared in
whiteface to give the opposite appearance.
''
Trading Places
''Trading Places'' is a 1983 American comedy film directed by John Landis, with a screenplay by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod. Starring Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche, Denholm Elliott, and Jamie Lee Curtis, the ...
'' (1983) is a film telling the elaborate story of a commodities banker and street hustler crossing paths after being made part of a bet. The film features a scene between
Eddie Murphy,
Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis (born November 22, 1958) is an American actress, producer, children's author, and activist. She came to prominence with her portrayal of Lt. Barbara Duran on the ABC sitcom '' Operation Petticoat'' (1977–78). In 1978, she m ...
,
Denholm Elliott
Denholm Mitchell Elliott, (31 May 1922 – 6 October 1992) was an English actor, with more than 125 film and television credits. His well-known roles include the abortionist in '' Alfie'' (1966), Marcus Brody in ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' (19 ...
, and
Dan Aykroyd when they must don disguises to enter a train. Aykroyd's character puts on full blackface make-up, a
dreadlocked wig and a Jamaican accent to fill the position of a Jamaican
pothead
A pothead is a type of insulated electrical terminal used for transitioning between overhead line and underground high-voltage cable or for connecting overhead wiring to equipment like transformers. Its name comes from the process of potting o ...
. The film, being an obvious satire, has received little criticism for its use of racial and
ethnic stereotype
An ethnic stereotype, racial stereotype or cultural stereotype involves part of a system of beliefs about typical characteristics of members of a given ethnic group, their status, societal and cultural norms. A national stereotype, or nation ...
due to it mocking the ignorance of Aykroyd's character rather than black people as a whole, with
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
citing it as "featuring deft interplay between Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, ''Trading Places'' is an immensely appealing social satire."
''
Soul Man'' is a 1986 film featuring
C. Thomas Howell
Christopher Thomas Howell (born December 7, 1966) is an American actor. He has starred in the films '' Soul Man'', '' The Hitcher'', '' Grandview U.S.A.'', ''Red Dawn'', ''Secret Admirer'' and '' The Outsiders''. He has also appeared in '' Gett ...
as Mark Watson, a pampered rich white college graduate who uses 'tanning pills' to qualify for a scholarship to
Harvard Law
Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States.
Each class ...
only available to African American students. He expects to be treated as a fellow student and instead learns the isolation of 'being black' on campus. Mark Watson later befriends and falls in love with the original candidate of the scholarship, a single mother who works as a waitress to support her education. The character later 'comes out' as white, leading to the famous defending line: "Can you blame him for the color of his skin?". Unlike ''Trading Places'', the film was met with heavy criticism of a white man donning blackface to humanize white ignorance at the expense of African American viewers. Despite a large box office intake, it has scored low on every film critic platform. "A white man donning blackface is taboo," said Howell; "Conversation over – you can't win. But our intentions were pure: We wanted to make a funny movie that had a message about racism."
Parades
In the early 20th century, a group of African-American laborers began a
marching club in the
New Orleans Mardi Gras
The holiday of Mardi Gras is celebrated in all of Louisiana, including the city of New Orleans. Celebrations are concentrated for about two weeks before and through Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday (the start of lent in the Western ...
parade, dressed as
hobos and calling themselves "The Tramps". Wanting a flashier look, they renamed themselves "Zulus" and copied their costumes from a blackface vaudeville skit performed at a local black jazz club and cabaret. The result is one of the best known and most striking
krewe
A krewe (pronounced "crew") is a social organization that puts on a parade or ball for the Carnival season. The term is best known for its association with Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, but is also used in other Carnival celebrations ar ...
s of Mardi Gras, the
Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club. Dressed in
grass skirt
A grass skirt is a costume and garment made with layers of plant fibres such as grasses and leaves that is fastened at the waistline.
Pacific
Grass skirts were introduced to Hawaii by immigrants from the Gilbert Islands around the 1870s to 1880s a ...
s,
top hat
A top hat (also called a high hat, a cylinder hat, or, informally, a topper) is a tall, flat-crowned hat for men traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditional ...
and exaggerated makeup, the Zulus of New Orleans are controversial as well as popular. The group has, since the 1960s, argued that the black and white makeup they continue to wear is not blackface.
The wearing of blackface was once a regular part of the annual
Mummers Parade
The Mummers Parade is held each New Year's Day in Philadelphia. Local clubs (usually called "New Years Associations" or "New Years Brigades") compete in one of five categories (Comics, Wench Brigades, Fancies, String Bands, and Fancy Brigades). ...
in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
. Growing dissent from civil rights groups and the offense of the black community led to a 1964 city policy, ruling out blackface.
[John Francis Marion, ''Smithsonian Magazine'', January 1981]
"On New Year's Day in Philadelphia, Mummer's the word"
Archived version accessed January 4, 2008. Despite the ban on blackface, brownface was still used in the parade in 2016 to depict Mexicans, causing outrage once again among civil rights groups. Also in 1964, bowing to pressure from the interracial group Concern, teenagers in
Norfolk, Connecticut
Norfolk () is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 1,588 at the 2020 census. The urban center of the town is the Norfolk census-designated place, with a population of 553 at the 2010 census.
Norfolk is pe ...
, reluctantly agreed to discontinue using blackface in their traditional minstrel show that was a fundraiser for the
March of Dimes.
[Joseph A. O'Brien, ''The Hartford Courant'', January 30, 196]
Accessed February 3, 2011.
21st century
Commodities bearing iconic "darky" images, from tableware, soap and toy marbles to home accessories and T-shirts, continue to be manufactured and marketed. Some are reproductions of historical
Cultural artifact, artifacts ("
negrobilia"), while others are designed for today's marketplace ("fantasy"). There is a thriving
niche market for such items in the U.S., particularly. The value of the original examples of darky iconography (vintage negrobilia
collectable
A collectable (collectible or collector's item) is any object regarded as being of value or interest to a collector. Collectable items are not necessarily monetarily valuable or uncommon. There are numerous types of collectables and terms ...
s) has risen steadily since the 1970s.
There have been several inflammatory incidents of white college students donning blackface. Such incidents usually escalate around
Halloween, with students accused of perpetuating racial stereotypes.
Blackface and minstrelsy serve as the theme of African-American director
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films since 1983. He made his directorial debut ...
's film ''
Bamboozled
''Bamboozled'' is a 2000 American satirical dark comedy-drama film written and directed by Spike Lee about a modern televised minstrel show featuring black actors donning blackface makeup and the resulting violent fallout from the show's success ...
'' (2000). It tells of a disgruntled black television executive who reintroduces the old blackface style in a series concept in an attempt to get himself fired, and is instead horrified by its success.
In 2000,
Jimmy Fallon performed in blackface on ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock (streaming service), Peacock. ...
'', imitating former cast member
Chris Rock.
Jimmy Kimmel
James Christian Kimmel (born November 13, 1967) is an American television host, comedian, writer, and producer. He is the host and executive producer of ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'', a late-night talk show that premiered on ABC on January 26, 2003, ...
donned black paint over his body and used an exaggerated, accented voice to portray
NBA player
Karl Malone
Karl Anthony Malone (born July 24, 1963) is an American former professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "the Mailman", he is considered one of the greatest power forwards in NBA history. Malone sp ...
on ''
The Man Show
''The Man Show'' is an American comedy television show on Comedy Central that aired from 1999 to 2004. It was created in 1999 by its two original co-hosts, Adam Carolla and Jimmy Kimmel, and their executive producer Daniel Kellison. The pilot ...
'' in 2003. Kimmel repeatedly impersonated the NBA player on ''The Man Show'' and even made an appearance on
Crank Yankers
''Crank Yankers'' is an American adult puppet television show produced by Adam Carolla, Jimmy Kimmel and Daniel Kellison. It features actual crank calls made by show regulars and celebrity guests, while re-enacted onscreen by puppets for a visu ...
using his exaggerated
Ebonics/African-American Vernacular English to prank call about
Beanie Babies
Beanie Babies are a line of stuffed toys created by American businessman H. Ty Warner, who founded Ty Inc. in 1986. The toys are stuffed with plastic pellets ("beans") rather than conventional soft stuffing. They come in many different forms, ...
.
In November 2005, controversy erupted when journalist
Steve Gilliard posted a photograph on his blog. The image was of African American
Michael Steele
Michael Stephen Steele (born October 19, 1958) is an American political commentator, attorney, and Republican Party politician. Steele served as the seventh lieutenant governor of Maryland from 2003 to 2007; he was the first African-American ...
, a politician, then a candidate for
U.S. Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...
. It had been doctored to include bushy, white eyebrows and big, red lips. The caption read, "I's simple
Sambo
, aka = Sombo (in English-speaking countries)
, focus = Hybrid
, country = Soviet Union
, pioneers = Viktor Spiridonov, Vasili Oshchepkov, Anatoly Kharlampiev
, famous_pract = List of Practitioners
, oly ...
and I's running for the big house." Gilliard, also African-American, defended the image, commenting that the politically conservative Steele has "refused to stand up for his people." (See .)
In a 2006 reality television program, ''
Black. White.'', white participants wore blackface makeup and black participants wore whiteface makeup in an attempt to be better able to see the world through the perspective of the other race.
In 2007,
Sarah Silverman
Sarah Kate Silverman (born December 1, 1970) is an American comedian, actress, and writer.
Silverman was a writer and performer on ''Saturday Night Live'', and she starred in and produced '' The Sarah Silverman Program'', which ran from 2007 to ...
performed in blackface for a skit from ''
The Sarah Silverman Program
''The Sarah Silverman Program'' is an American television sitcom, which ran from February 1, 2007, to April 15, 2010, on Comedy Central starring comedian and actress Sarah Silverman, who created the series with Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab. ''The Sa ...
''.
''
A Mighty Heart
''A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Daniel Pearl'' (also subtitled ''A Mighty Heart: The Inside Story of the Al Qaeda Kidnapping of Danny Pearl'') (2003) is a memoir by Mariane Pearl, a freelance French journalist. She cove ...
'' is a 2007 American film featuring
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie (; born Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress, filmmaker, humanitarian and former Special Envoy to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award ...
playing
Mariane Pearl
Mariane van Neyenhoff Pearl (born 23 July 1967) is a French freelance journalist and a former reporter and columnist for '' Glamour'' magazine. She is the widow of Daniel Pearl, an American journalist who was the South Asia Bureau Chief for ''The ...
, the wife of the kidnapped ''
Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' reporter
Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl (October 10, 1963 – February 1, 2002) was an American journalist who worked for ''The Wall Street Journal.'' He was kidnapped and later decapitated by terrorists in Pakistan.'
Pearl was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and rais ...
. Mariane is of multiracial descent, born from an Afro-Chinese-Cuban mother and a Dutch Jewish father. She personally cast Jolie to play herself, defending the choice to have Jolie "sporting a spray tan and a corkscrew wig." Criticism of the film came in large part for the choice to have Jolie portraying Mariane Pearl in this manner. Defense of the casting choice was in large part due Pearl's mixed racial heritage, critics claiming it would have been impossible to find an Afro-Latina actress with the same crowd-drawing caliber of Jolie. Director
Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom (born 29 March 1961) is an English film director. He began his career working in British television before moving into features. Three of his films—''Welcome to Sarajevo'', ''Wonderland'' and ''24 Hour Party People''—h ...
defended his casting choice in an interview, "To try and find a French actress who's half-Cuban, quarter-Chinese, half-Dutch who speaks great English and could do that part better – I mean, if there had been some more choices, I might have thought, 'Why don't we use that person?'...I don't think there would have been anyone better."
A 2008 imitation of
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
by American comedian
Fred Armisen
Fereydun Robert Armisen (born December 4, 1966) is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician. With his comedy partner Carrie Brownstein, Armisen was the co-creator and co-star of the IFC sketch comedy series '' Portlandia''. ...
(of German, Korean, and Venezuelan descent) on the popular television program ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock (streaming service), Peacock. ...
'' caused some stir, with ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' commentator asking why ''SNL'' did not hire an additional black actor to do the sketch; the show had only one black cast member at the time.
Also in 2008,
Robert Downey Jr.
Robert John Downey Jr. (born April 4, 1965) is an American actor and producer. His career has been characterized by critical and popular success in his youth, followed by a period of substance abuse and legal troubles, before a resurgence of ...
's character Kirk Lazarus appeared in
brownface
Brownface is a social phenomenon in which a white or light-skinned person attempts to portray themselves as a "brown" person of color, but less overtly and with a lighter complexion than traditional blackface. This may include mimicry of Midd ...
in the
Ben Stiller
Benjamin Edward Meara Stiller (born November 30, 1965) is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is the son of the comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. Stiller was a member of a group of comedic actors colloquially known ...
-directed film ''
Tropic Thunder
''Tropic Thunder'' is a 2008 satirical action comedy film directed by Ben Stiller, who wrote the screenplay with Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen. The film stars Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Jay Baruchel, and Brandon T. Jackson as a ...
''. As with ''Trading Places'', the intent was satire; specifically, blackface was ironically employed to humorously mock one of the many
foibles of Hollywood rather than black people themselves. Downey was even nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal. According to Downey, "90 per cent of my black friends were like, 'Dude, that was great.' I can't disagree with
he other 10 per cent but I know where my heart lies."
In the November 2010 episode "
Dee Reynolds: Shaping America's Youth", the TV show ''
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
''It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia'' is an American sitcom created by Rob McElhenney and developed by McElhenney and Glenn Howerton that premiered on August 4, 2005 on FX and later FXX beginning with the ninth season in 2013. It stars Char ...
'' comically explored if blackface could ever be done "right". One of the characters, Frank Reynolds insists that
Laurence Olivier's blackface performance in
his 1965 production of ''Othello'' was not offensive, while Dennis claimed it "distasteful" and "never okay". In the same episode, the gang shows their
fan film
A fan film is a film or video inspired by a film, television program, comic book, book, or video game created by fans rather than by the source's copyright holders or creators. Fan filmmakers have traditionally been amateurs, but some of the mo ...
, ''
Lethal Weapon
''Lethal Weapon'' is a 1987 American buddy cop action comedy film directed and co-produced by Richard Donner, written by Shane Black, and co-produced by Joel Silver. It stars Mel Gibson and Danny Glover alongside Gary Busey, Tom Atkins, D ...
5'', in which the character Mac appears in blackface. In the season 9 episode "The Gang make Lethal Weapon 6", Mac once again dons black make-up, along with Dee, who plays his character's daughter in the film. Later in the series, the episode "
The Gang Makes ''Lethal Weapon 7''" addresses the topic again along with the removal of their films from
streaming.
A 2012
Popchips
Popchips is an American brand of popped potato and corn products marketed as similar to potato chips. They are manufactured by processing potato starch at high pressure and temperature, in a process similar to that used for puffed rice cakes.
Hi ...
commercial showing actor
Ashton Kutcher
Christopher Ashton Kutcher (; born February 7, 1978) is an American actor, producer, entrepreneur, and former model. He is the recipient of various accolades, including a People's Choice Award, and nominations for two Young Artist Awards, a ...
with brown make-up on his face impersonating a stereotypical Indian person generated controversy and was eventually pulled by the company after complaints of racism. In the TV series ''
Mad Men
''Mad Men'' is an American period drama television series created by Matthew Weiner and produced by Lionsgate Television. It ran on the cable network AMC from July 19, 2007, to May 17, 2015, lasting for seven seasons and 92 episodes. Its f ...
'', set in the 1960s in New York City, the character
Roger Sterling
Roger H. Sterling Jr. is a fictional character on the AMC television series '' Mad Men''. He formerly worked for Sterling Cooper, an advertising agency his father co-founded in 1923, before he became a founding partner at the new firm of Sterling ...
appears in blackface in the season 3 episode "My Old Kentucky Home".
Julianne Hough
Julianne Alexandra Hough (; born July 20, 1988) is an American dancer, actress, and singer. In 2007, she joined the cast of ABC's ''Dancing with the Stars'' as a professional dancer, winning two seasons with her celebrity partners. After leavin ...
attracted controversy in October 2013 when she donned blackface as part of a Halloween costume depicting the character of "Crazy Eyes" from ''
Orange Is the New Black''. Hough later apologized, stating on Twitter: "I realize my costume hurt and offended people and I truly apologize."
Billy Crystal
William Edward Crystal (born March 14, 1948)On page 17 of his book ''700 Sundays'', Crystal displays his birth announcement, which gives his first two names as "William Edward", not "William Jacob" is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. ...
impersonated
Sammy Davis Jr.
Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, dancer, actor, comedian, film producer and television director.
At age three, Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the ...
in the
2012 Oscars opening montage. The scene depicts Crystal in black face paint wearing an oiled wave wig while talking to
Justin Bieber
Justin Drew Bieber ( ; born March 1, 1994) is a Canadian singer. Bieber is recognized for his genre-melding musicianship and has played an influential role in modern-day popular music. He was discovered by American record executive Scooter ...
. In the scene Crystal leaves a parting remark to Bieber, "Have fun storming the
Führer
( ; , spelled or ''Fuhrer'' when the umlaut is not available) is a German word meaning "leader" or " guide". As a political title, it is strongly associated with the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Nazi Germany cultivated the ("leader princip ...
," a poor association to his famous line in ''
The Princess Bride The Princess Bride may refer to:
* ''The Princess Bride'' (novel), 1973 fantasy romance novel by American writer William Goldman
William Goldman (August 12, 1931 – November 16, 2018) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He ...
'', "Have fun storming the castle."
The skit was remarked as poor taste, considering he was chosen as the "safer" choice after
Eddie Murphy bowed out following producer and creative partner
Brett Ratner
Brett Ratner (born March 28, 1969) is an American film director and producer. He directed the ''Rush Hour'' film series, '' The Family Man'', '' Red Dragon'', '' X-Men: The Last Stand'', and ''Tower Heist''. He is also a producer of several film ...
's homophobic remarks.
Victoria Foyt
Victoria Foyt is an American author, novelist, screenwriter and actress, best known for her books ''The Virtual Life of Lexie Diamond'Valentine to Faith''and '' Save the Pearls: Revealing Eden''. Foyt has written articles for magazines such a ...
was accused of using blackface in the trailer for her
young adult
A young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages of human development significantly influencing the definition of ...
novel ''
Save the Pearls: Revealing Eden'' as well as in the book and its artwork.
[Today In Racism: YA Series "Save The Pearls" Employs Offensive Blackface And Bizarre Racist Stereotypes Plot](_blank)
The Frisky
Performer
Chuck Knipp
Chuck Knipp (born 1961) is a Canadian comedian and nurse best known for his controversial vocal characterizations heard on radio – the "Mammy Welfare Queen", Shirley Q. Liquor and the tragic searcher for any kind of spirituality, Betty Butterfi ...
(who is gay and white) has used drag, blackface, and broad racial caricature to portray a character named "Shirley Q. Liquor" in his cabaret act, generally performed for all-white audiences. Knipp's outrageously stereotypical character has drawn criticism and prompted demonstrations from black, gay and
transgender
A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...
activists.
The
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is oper ...
, based in New York City, used blackface in productions of the opera ''
Otello'' until 2015, though some have argued that the practice of using dark makeup for the character did not qualify as blackface.
On February 1, 2019, images from
Governor of Virginia
The governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia serves as the head of government of Virginia for a four-year term. The incumbent, Glenn Youngkin, was sworn in on January 15, 2022.
Oath of office
On inauguration day, the Governor-elect takes th ...
Ralph Northam
Ralph (pronounced ; or ,) is a male given name of English, Scottish and Irish origin, derived from the Old English ''Rædwulf'' and Radulf, cognate with the Old Norse ''Raðulfr'' (''rað'' "counsel" and ''ulfr'' "wolf").
The most common forms ...
's medical school yearbook were published on the far-right website
Big League Politics
''Big League Politics'' is a far-right American media website that promotes conspiracy theories. The website was founded by former ''Breitbart News'' employees. The site was announced in 2017 by one of its founders as an investigative outfit. In ...
.
The photos showed an image of an unidentified person in blackface and an unidentified person in a
Ku Klux Klan hood on Northam's page in the yearbook. A spokesman for
Eastern Virginia Medical School confirmed that the image appeared in its 1984 yearbook.
Shortly after the news broke, Northam apologized for appearing in the photo.
[Virginia governor confirms 1984 yearbook page with racist imagery](_blank)
(Associated Press)
Blackface performances are not unusual within the Latino community of Miami. As Spanish-speakers from different countries, ethnic, racial, class, and educational backgrounds settle in the United States, they have to grapple with being re-classified vis-a-vis other American-born and immigrant groups. Blackface performances have, for instance, tried to work through U.S. racial and ethnic classifications in conflict with national identities. A case in point is the representation of Latino and its popular embodiment as a stereotypical Dominican man.
In the wake of
protests over the treatment of African-Americans following the
murder of George Floyd
On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's ...
in 2020, episodes of popular television programs featuring characters in blackface were pulled from circulation. This includes ''
The Golden Girls'', ''
The Office
''The Office'' is a mockumentary sitcom created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, first made in the United Kingdom, then Germany, and subsequently the United States. It has since been remade in ten other countries.
The original series o ...
'', ''
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
''It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia'' is an American sitcom created by Rob McElhenney and developed by McElhenney and Glenn Howerton that premiered on August 4, 2005 on FX and later FXX beginning with the ninth season in 2013. It stars Char ...
'', ''
30 Rock'', ''
Community
A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, ...
'', and ''
Scrubs'', among others.
Stunt doubles
White men are overrepresented as
stunt double
In filmmaking, a double is a person who substitutes FOR another actor such that the person's face is not shown. There are various terms associated with a double based on the specific body part or ability they serve as a double for, such as stunt ...
s in American TV and film productions. The practice of a male performer portraying standing-in for a female actor is known as "wigging". When the stunt performer is made up to look like another race, the practice is called a "paint down". Stunt performers
Janeshia Adams-Ginyard
Janeshia Adams-Ginyard (born February 14, 1984) is an Emmy-nominated American actress, stunt woman and professional wrestler. She is best known for her role as Nomble, one of the Dora Milaje, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film ''Black Panther ...
and Sharon Schaffer have equated it in 2018 with blackface minstrelsy.
Digital media
Digital media provide opportunities to inhabit and perform Black identity without actually painting one's face, which, in a way, some critics have likened to blackface and minstrelsy. In 1999, Adam Clayton Powell III coined the term "high-tech blackface" to refer to stereotypical portrayals of
black characters in video games. David Leonard writes that "The desire to 'be Black' because of the stereotypical visions of strength, athleticism, power and sexual potency all play out within the virtual reality of sports games." Leonard's argument suggests that players perform a type of
identity tourism by controlling Black avatars in sports games. Phillips and Reed argue that this type of blackface "is not only about whites assuming Black roles, nor about exaggerated performances of blackness for the benefit of a racist audience. Rather, it is about performing a version of blackness that constrains it within the boundaries legible to white supremacy."
In addition, writers such as
Lauren Michele Jackson, Victoria Princewill and Shafiqah Hudson have criticized non-Black people sharing animated images, or
GIFs, of Black people or Black-skinned
emojis, calling the practice "digital blackface." Writers
Amanda Hess and Shane O'Neill have elaborated on their work, pointing out that GIFs of women of color, in particular, have been most frequently used to express user's emotions online. Hess and O'Neill also suggest that the emoji app
Bitmoji
Bitstrips was a media and technology company based in Toronto, Canada, and founded in 2007 by Jacob Blackstock, David Kennedy, Shahan Panth, Dorian Baldwin, and Jesse Brown. The company's web application, Bitstrips.com, allowed users to create co ...
uses "black emotional reactions and verbal expressions" and designs them to fit non-Black bodies and faces. Writer
Manuel Arturo Abreu refers to this phenomenon as "online imagined Black English," where non-Black users engage in
African American Vernacular English
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, ), also referred to as Black (Vernacular) English, Black English Vernacular, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term), is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urba ...
, or AAVE, on the internet without understanding the full context of the particular phrase being used.
Following these critiques, the term "digital blackface" has since evolved with the rise of other social media and digital media technologies. In 2020, writer Francesa Sobande wrote on the digital representations of Black people, defining digital blackface as "encompassing online depictions and practices that echo the anti-Black underpinnings of
minstrelsy shows involving non-Black people "dressing up" and "performing" as though they are Black." Sobande's argument suggests that this acts as a "digital expression of the oppression that Black people face" outside of the internet, where they can be viewed as an objectified type of "
commodity or labor tool."
Since the criticisms made by these writers, instances of digital blackface have varied in type across the internet. In 2016, a controversy emerged over social media app
Snapchat's
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981; baptised in 1980 as Berhane Selassie) was a Jamaican singer, musician, and songwriter. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, his musical career was marked by fusing elements o ...
filter, which allowed users to superimpose dark skin, dreadlocks, and a knitted cap over their own faces. A number of controversies have also emerged about students at American universities sharing images of themselves appearing to wear blackface makeup. In 2020, two high school students in Georgia were expelled after posting a "racially insensitive"
TikTok
TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes.
TikTok is an international version o ...
video that used racial slurs and
stereotypes
In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...
about Black people.
Senior writer
Jason Parham suggests that the social media app
TikTok
TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes.
TikTok is an international version o ...
, and its
viral trends and challenges, has become a new medium for 21st century minstrelsy. Parham argues that "unlike Facebook and Twitter, where instances of digital blackface are either text-based or image-based, TikTok is a video-first platform" where "creators embody Blackness with an auteur-driven virtuosity—taking on Black rhythms, gestures, affect, slang." Examples of these controversial trends and challenges have included "the Hot Cheeto Girl," which is said to mimic
stereotypes of Black and Latin women, the "#HowsMyForm" challenge, which plays on racist stereotypes of Black people and other racial groups, and other perceived instances of
cultural appropriation, such as "
blackfishing
Cultural appropriation is the inappropriate or unacknowledged adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from ...
."
In 2021, conversation around digital blackface gained further traction after
Oprah Winfrey's interview with
Meghan Markle
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (; born Rachel Meghan Markle; August 4, 1981) is an American member of the British royal family and former actress. She is the wife of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, the younger son of King Charles III.
Meghan was ...
and
Prince Harry
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, (Henry Charles Albert David; born 15 September 1984) is a member of the British royal family. He is the younger son of Charles III and his first wife Diana, Princess of Wales. He is fifth in the line of succ ...
, where Winfrey's reactions during the interview began to circulate the internet in the form of
memes. A widespread
Instagram post by the Slow Factory Foundation, an activist group founded by
Céline Semaan Vernon, calling attention to digital blackface led to many critiques and criticisms about whether or not it was appropriate for non-Black people to continue sharing these images of Winfrey.
Universities
In 2021, music professor
Bright Sheng
Bright Sheng ( Chinese: 盛宗亮 pinyin: ''Shèng Zōngliàng''; born December 6, 1955) is a Chinese-born American composer, pianist and conductor. Sheng has earned many honors for his music and compositions, including a MacArthur Fellowship in ...
stepped down from teaching a
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
musical composition class, where he says he had intended to show how
Giuseppe Verdi adapted
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's play ''
Othello'' into his opera ''
Otello'', after showing the
1965 British movie ''Othello'', whose actors received 4
Oscar nominations
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
, but in which the white actor
Laurence Olivier played
Othello in blackface, which caused controversy even at the time.
Sheng allegedly failed to give students any warning that the movie contained blackface, and his two subsequent apologies failed to satisfy his critics, with the wording of the second one causing further controversy.[ There was disagreement over whether showing the blackface performance constituted racism.] Evan Chambers, a professor of composition (as is Sheng), said "To show the film now, especially without substantial framing, content advisory and a focus on its inherent racism is in itself a racist act, regardless of the professor's intentions",[ while David Gier, dean of the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, said: "Professor Sheng's actions do not align with our School's commitment to anti-racist action, diversity, equity and inclusion"][ But Robert Soave, a senior editor at '']Reason
Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, ...
'' magazine, said that the university had violated the principle of academic freedom
Academic freedom is a moral and legal concept expressing the conviction that the freedom of inquiry by faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy as well as the principles of academia, and that scholars should have freedom to teac ...
, that showing the movie was neither a racist act nor approval of racism, and that the university owed Sheng an apology for unfairly maligning him, and he compared it to Sheng's earlier experience of surviving the Chinese Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...
.
Black performers in blackface
19th century
By 1840, black performers also were performing in blackface makeup. Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...
generally abhorred blackface and was one of the first people to write against the institution of blackface minstrelsy, condemning it as racist in nature, with inauthentic, northern, white origins. Douglass did, however, maintain: "It is something to be gained when the colored man in any form can appear before a white audience."
When all-black minstrel shows began to proliferate in the 1860s, they often were billed as "authentic" and "the real thing". These "colored minstrels" always claimed to be recently freed slaves (doubtlessly many were, but most were not) and were widely seen as authentic. This presumption of authenticity could be a bit of a trap, with white audiences seeing them more like "animals in a zoo" than skilled performers. Despite often smaller budgets and smaller venues, their public appeal sometimes rivaled that of white minstrel troupes. In March 1866, Booker and Clayton's Georgia Minstrels may have been the country's most popular troupe, and were certainly among the most critically acclaimed.[.]
These "colored" troupes – many using the name "Georgia Minstrels" – focused on "plantation" material, rather than the more explicit social commentary (and more nastily racist stereotyping) found in portrayals of northern black people. In the execution of authentic black music and the percussive
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...
, polyrhythm
Polyrhythm is the simultaneous use of two or more rhythms that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter. The rhythmic layers may be the basis of an entire piece of music ( cross-rhyt ...
ic tradition of '' pattin' Juba'', when the only instruments
Instrument may refer to:
Science and technology
* Flight instruments, the devices used to measure the speed, altitude, and pertinent flight angles of various kinds of aircraft
* Laboratory equipment, the measuring tools used in a scientific lab ...
performers used were their hands and feet, clapping and slapping their bodies and shuffling and stomping their feet, black troupes particularly excelled. One of the most successful black minstrel companies was Sam Hague
Sam Hague (1828 – 7 January 1901) was a British people, British blackface minstrel show, minstrel dancer and troupe owner. He was a pioneering white owner of a minstrel troupe composed of black members, and the success he saw with this troupe ...
's Slave Troupe of Georgia Minstrels, managed by Charles Hicks. This company eventually was taken over by Charles Callendar. The Georgia Minstrels toured the United States and abroad and later became Haverly's Colored Minstrels.
From the mid-1870s, as white blackface minstrelsy became increasingly lavish and moved away from "Negro subjects", black troupes took the opposite tack. The popularity of the Fisk Jubilee Singers
The Fisk Jubilee Singers are an African-American '' a cappella'' ensemble, consisting of students at Fisk University. The first group was organized in 1871 to tour and raise funds for college. Their early repertoire consisted mostly of traditio ...
and other ''jubilee singers'' had demonstrated northern white interest in white religious music as sung by black people, especially spirituals
Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, African American spirituals, Black spirituals, or spiritual music) is a genre of Christian music that is associated with Black Americans, which merged sub-Saharan African cultural heritage with the ex ...
. Some jubilee troupes pitched themselves as quasi-minstrels and even incorporated minstrel songs; meanwhile, blackface troupes began to adopt first jubilee material and then a broader range of southern black religious material. Within a few years, the word "jubilee", originally used by the Fisk Jubilee Singers to set themselves apart from blackface minstrels and to emphasize the religious character of their music, became little more than a synonym for "plantation" material. Where the jubilee singers tried to "clean up" Southern black religion for white consumption, blackface performers exaggerated its more exotic aspects.
African-American blackface productions also contained buffoonery and comedy, by way of self-parody. In the early days of African-American involvement in theatrical performance, black people could not perform without blackface makeup, regardless of how dark-skinned they were. The 1860s "colored" troupes violated this convention for a time: the comedy-oriented endmen "corked up", but the other performers "astonished" commentators by the diversity of their hues. Still, their performances were largely in accord with established blackface stereotypes.
These black performers became stars within the broad African-American community, but were largely ignored or condemned by the black bourgeoisie
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...
. James Monroe Trotter – a middle-class African American who had contempt for their "disgusting caricaturing" but admired their "highly musical culture" – wrote in 1882 that "few ... who condemned black minstrels for giving 'aid and comfort to the enemy'" had ever seen them perform. Unlike white audiences, black audiences presumably always recognized blackface performance as caricature, but took pleasure in seeing their own culture observed and reflected, much as they would half a century later in the performances of Moms Mabley
Loretta Mary Aiken (March 19, 1894 – May 23, 1975), known by her stage name Jackie "Moms" Mabley, was an American stand-up comedian and actress. Mabley began her career on the theater stage in the 1920s and became a veteran entertainer of the ...
.
Despite reinforcing racist stereotypes, blackface minstrelsy was a practical and often relatively lucrative livelihood when compared to the menial labor to which most black people were relegated. Owing to the discrimination of the day, "corking (or blacking) up" provided an often singular opportunity for African-American musicians, actors, and dancers to practice their crafts. Some minstrel shows, particularly when performing outside the South, also managed subtly to poke fun at the racist attitudes and double standards of white society or champion the abolitionist
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
cause. It was through blackface performers, white and black, that the richness and exuberance of African-American music
African-American music is an umbrella term covering a diverse range of music and musical genres largely developed by African Americans and their culture. Their origins are in musical forms that first came to be due to the condition of slaver ...
, humor, and dance first reached mainstream, white audiences in the U.S. and abroad. It was through blackface minstrelsy that African American performers first entered the mainstream of American show business. Black performers used blackface performance to satirize white behavior. It was also a forum for the sexual double entendre
A double entendre (plural double entendres) is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to have a double meaning, of which one is typically obvious, whereas the other often conveys a message that would be too socially ...
gags that were frowned upon by white moralists. There was often a subtle message behind the outrageous vaudeville routines:
20th century
With the rise of vaudeville, Bahamian-born actor and comedian Bert Williams
Bert Williams (November 12, 1874 – March 4, 1922) was a Bahamian-born American entertainer, one of the pre-eminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He is credited as being ...
became Florenz Ziegfeld's highest-paid star and only African-American star.
In the Theater Owners Booking Association Theatre Owners Booking Association, or T.O.B.A., was the vaudeville circuit for African American performers in the 1920s. The theaters mostly had white owners, though there were exceptions, including the recently restored Morton Theater in Athens, ...
(TOBA), an all-black vaudeville circuit organized in 1909, blackface acts were a popular staple. Called "Toby" for short, performers also nicknamed it "Tough on Black Actors" (or, variously, "Artists" or "Asses"), because earnings were so meager. Still, TOBA headliners like Tim Moore and Johnny Hudgins could make a very good living, and even for lesser players, TOBA provided fairly steady, more desirable work than generally was available elsewhere. Blackface served as a springboard for hundreds of artists and entertainers – black and white – many of whom later would go on to find work in other performance traditions. For example, one of the most famous stars of Haverly's European Minstrels was Sam Lucas, who became known as the "Grand Old Man of the Negro
In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...
Stage". Lucas later played the title role in the 1914 cinematic production of Harriet Beecher Stowe's ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''.
From the early 1930s to the late 1940s, New York City's famous Apollo Theater in Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...
featured skits in which almost all black male performers wore the blackface makeup and huge white painted lips, despite protests that it was degrading from the NAACP. The comics said they felt "naked" without it.
The minstrel show was appropriated by the black performer from the original white shows, but only in its general form. Black people took over the form and made it their own. The professionalism of performance came from black theater. Some argue that the black minstrels gave the shows vitality and humor that the white shows never had. As the black social critic LeRoi Jones has written:
The black minstrel performer was not only poking fun at himself but in a more profound way, he was poking fun at the white man. The cakewalk
The cakewalk was a dance developed from the "prize walks" (dance contests with a cake awarded as the prize) held in the mid-19th century, generally at get-togethers on Black slave plantations before and after emancipation in the Southern Uni ...
is caricaturing white customs, while white theater companies attempted to satirize the cakewalk as a black dance. Again, as LeRoi Jones notes:
Puerto Rico
It wasn't unusual for people to wear a blackface at carnivals in Puerto Rico in the 20th century. In 2019, when blackface was prominently featured at a carnival in San Sebastián, Puerto Rico
San Sebastián (, ) is a town and municipality of Puerto Rico located in the northwestern region of the island, south of Isabela, Quebradillas and Camuy; north of Las Marías; east of Moca and Añasco; and west of Lares. San Sebastián is sp ...
, the town immediately faced backlash and criticism.
Authenticity
The degree to which blackface performance drew on authentic black culture and traditions is controversial. Black people, including slaves, were influenced by white culture, including white musical culture. Certainly this was the case with church music from very early times. Complicating matters further, once the blackface era began, some blackface minstrel songs unquestionably written by New York-based professionals (Stephen Foster, for example) made their way to the plantations in the South and merged into the body of black folk music.
It seems clear, however, that American music by the early 19th century was an interwoven mixture of many influences, and that blacks were quite aware of white musical traditions and incorporated these into their music.
Early blackface minstrels often said that their material was largely or entirely authentic black culture; John Strausbaugh, author of ''Black Like You'', said that such claims were likely to be untrue. Well into the 20th century, scholars took the stories at face value. Constance Rourke
Constance Mayfield Rourke (November 14, 1885 – March 29, 1941) was an American author and educator. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended Sorbonne and Vassar College. She taught at Vassar from 1910 to 1915. She died in Grand Rapids, ...
, one of the founders of what is now known as cultural studies, largely assumed this as late as 1931. In the Civil Rights era there was a strong reaction against this view, to the point of denying that blackface was anything other than a white racist counterfeit. Starting no later than Robert Toll's ''Blacking Up'' (1974), a "third wave" has systematically studied the origins of blackface, and has put forward a nuanced picture: that blackface did, indeed, draw on black culture, but that it transformed, stereotyped, and caricatured that culture, resulting in often racist representations of black characters.
As discussed above, this picture becomes even more complicated after the Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
, when many blacks became blackface performers. They drew on much material of undoubted slave origins, but they also drew on a professional performer's instincts, while working within an established genre, and with the same motivation as white performers to make exaggerated claims of the authenticity of their own material.
Author Strausbaugh summed up as follows: "Some minstrel songs started as Negro folk songs, were adapted by White minstrels, became widely popular, and were readopted by Blacks." "The question of whether minstrelsy was white or black music was moot. It was a mix, a mutt – that is, it was American music."
"Darky" iconography
The darky icon itself – googly-eyed, with inky skin, exaggerated white, pink or red lips, and bright, white teeth – became a common motif in entertainment, children's literature, mechanical banks, and other toys and games of all sorts, cartoons and comic strips, advertisements, jewelry, textiles, postcards, sheet music, food branding and packaging, and other consumer goods.
In 1895, the Golliwog
The golliwog, also spelled golliwogg or shortened to golly, is a doll-like character – created by cartoonist and author Florence Kate Upton – that appeared in children's books in the late 19th century, usually depicted as a type of rag ...
surfaced in Great Britain, the product of children's book illustrator Florence Kate Upton
Florence Kate Upton (22 February 1873 – 16 October 1922) was an American-born English cartoonist and author most famous for creating the Golliwog character, featured in a series of children's books.
Early life
Upton was born in Flushing, New ...
, who modeled her rag doll character after a minstrel doll from her American childhood. "Golly", as he later affectionately came to be called, had a jet-black face, wild, woolly hair, bright, red lips, and sported formal minstrel attire. The generic British golliwog later made its way back across the Atlantic as dolls, toy tea sets, ladies' perfume, and in a myriad of other forms. The word "golliwog" may have given rise to the ethnic slur
The following is a list of ethnic slurs or ethnophaulisms or ethnic epithets that are, or have been, used as insinuations or allegations about members of a given ethnicity or racial group or to refer to them in a derogatory, pejorative, or ot ...
"wog
''Wog'' is a racial slur in Australian English and British English applied to people from the Mediterranean region such as Southern Europeans and North Africans. In British English, it more typically refers to people from the Indian subcontinen ...
".
U.S. cartoons from the 1930s and 1940s often featured characters in blackface gags as well as other racial and ethnic
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
caricatures. Blackface was one of the influences in the development of characters such as Mickey Mouse. The United Artists
United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stud ...
1933 release " Mickey's Mellerdrammer" – the name a corruption of " melodrama" thought to harken back to the earliest minstrel shows – was a film short based on a production of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' by the Disney characters. Mickey, of course, was already black, but the advertising poster for the film shows Mickey with exaggerated, orange lips; bushy, white sidewhiskers; and his now trademark white gloves.
In the U.S., by the 1950s, the NAACP had begun calling attention to such portrayals of African Americans and mounted a campaign to put an end to blackface performances and depictions. For decades, darky images had been seen in the branding of everyday products and commodities such as '' Picaninny Freeze'', the Coon Chicken Inn
Coon Chicken Inn was an American chain of three restaurants that was founded by Maxon Lester Graham and Adelaide Burt in 1925, which prospered until the late 1950s. The restaurant's name contained the word ''Coon'', considered a racial slur, a ...
restaurant chain
A chain store or retail chain is a retail outlet in which several locations share a brand, central management and standardized business practices. They have come to dominate the retail and dining markets and many service categories, in many pa ...
, and Nigger Hair Tobacco. With the eventual successes of the modern day Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
, such blatantly racist branding practices ended in the U.S., and blackface became an American taboo
A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...
.
Continued use in Asia
However, blackface-inspired iconography continue in popular media in Asia. In Japan, in the early 1960s, a toy called Dakkochan became hugely popular. ''Dakkochan'' was a black child with large red lips and a grass skirt. There were boy and girl dolls, with the girls being distinguished by a bow. The black skin of the dolls was said to have been significant and in-line with the rising popularity of jazz. Novelist Tensei Kawano went as far as to state, "We of the younger generation are outcasts from politics and society. In a way we are like Negroes, who have a long record of oppression and misunderstanding, and we feel akin to them."
Japanese manga and anime
is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...
continue to prominently feature characters inspired by "darky" iconography, which includes Mr. Popo
is a fictional character from the ''Dragon Ball'' manga series created by Akira Toriyama. Within the series, he is a genie who serves as the assistant to Earth's guardian deity and the caretaker of their residence, which is located high above ...
from the '' Dragon Ball'' series and the design of the Pokémon character Jynx
Jynx, known in Japan as , is a Pokémon species in Nintendo and Game Freak's ''Pokémon'' franchise. Created by Ken Sugimori, Jynx first appeared in the video games ''Pokémon Red'' and ''Blue'' and subsequent sequels, later appearing in variou ...
. Both Mr. Popo and Jynx have been censored on American broadcasting. An American licensing company, 4 Licensing Company had Dragon Ball Z on their anime block 4Kids. The character Mr. Popo was turned bright blue and given orange-yellow lips In 2011, a television drama in the Philippines titled Nita Negrita
''Nita Negrita'' (International title: ''Nita'') is a 2011 Philippine television drama series broadcast by GMA Network. Directed by Gil Tejada Jr., it stars Barbie Forteza in the title role. It premiered on February 14, 2011 on the network's Dra ...
was widely criticized in the media and by academics.
Prominent brands continue to use the iconography, including Chinese toothpaste brand Darlie
Darlie (originally known as Darkie) is an oral care brand owned and manufactured by the Hawley & Hazel Company with focus on Chinese and Southeast Asian markets. The company is headquartered in Hong Kong with manufacturing facilities in Zhongsh ...
, which was renamed from "Darkie", and "Black Man" in Thailand. Vaudeville-inspired blackface remains frequently used in commercials..
Notable instances outside the United States
Over time, blackface and "darky" iconography became artistic and stylistic devices associated with Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
and the Jazz Age. By the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in Europe, where it was more widely tolerated, blackface became a kind of '' outré'', camp
Camp may refer to:
Outdoor accommodation and recreation
* Campsite or campground, a recreational outdoor sleeping and eating site
* a temporary settlement for nomads
* Camp, a term used in New England, Northern Ontario and New Brunswick to descri ...
convention in some artistic circles. ''The Black and White Minstrel Show
''The Black and White Minstrel Show'' was a British light entertainment show that ran for twenty years on BBC prime-time television. Running from 1958 to 1978, it was a weekly variety show that presented traditional American minstrel and count ...
'' was a popular British musical variety show that featured blackface performers, and remained on British television until 1978 and in stage shows until 1989. Many of the songs were from the music hall, country and western and folk traditions. Actors and dancers in blackface appeared in music videos such as Grace Jones's " Slave to the Rhythm" (1985, also part of her touring piece ''A One Man Show''), Culture Club's "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me
"Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" is a song written and performed by English new wave band Culture Club. Released as a single in September 1982 from the group's platinum-selling debut album, '' Kissing to Be Clever'' (1982), it was the band's fir ...
" (1982) and Taco
A taco (, , ) is a traditional Mexican food consisting of a small hand-sized corn- or wheat-based tortilla topped with a filling. The tortilla is then folded around the filling and eaten by hand. A taco can be made with a variety of fillin ...
's " Puttin' On the Ritz" (1983).
When trade and tourism produce a confluence of cultures, bringing differing sensibilities regarding blackface into contact with one another, the results can be jarring. When Japanese toymaker Sanrio
is a Japanese entertainment company. It designs, licenses, and produces products focusing on the ''kawaii'' ("cute") segment of Japanese popular culture. Their products include stationery, school supplies, gifts, and accessories which are sold ...
Corporation exported a darky-icon character doll (the doll, Bibinba, had fat, pink lips and rings in its ears) in the 1990s, the ensuing controversy prompted Sanrio to halt production.
Trademark for Conguitos, a confection manufactured by the LACASA Group features a tubby, little brown character with full, red lips. It became a topic of controversy after a Manchester City player compared his black teammate to the character. In Britain, "Golly", a golliwog
The golliwog, also spelled golliwogg or shortened to golly, is a doll-like character – created by cartoonist and author Florence Kate Upton – that appeared in children's books in the late 19th century, usually depicted as a type of rag ...
character, fell out of favor in 2001 after almost a century as the trademark of jam producer James Robertson & Sons, but the debate still continues whether the golliwog should be banished in all forms from further commercial production and display, or preserved as a treasured childhood icon. In France, the chocolate powder Banania
Banania is a popular chocolate drink found most widely distributed in France. It is made from cocoa, banana flour, cereals, honey and sugar. There are two types of Banania available in French supermarkets: 'traditional' which must be cooked with ...
still uses a little black boy with large red lips as its emblem. The licorice brand Tabu, popularized by Perfetti in the middle of the 20th century, introduced in the 1980s a cartoon minstrel mascot inspired by Al Jolson
Al Jolson (born Eizer Yoelson; June 9, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-American Jewish singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. He was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, and was self-billed ...
's blackface performance in ''The Jazz Singer
''The Jazz Singer'' is a 1927 American musical drama film directed by Alan Crosland. It is the first feature-length motion picture with both synchronized recorded music score as well as lip-synchronous singing and speech (in several isolate ...
'', which is still in use today.
The influence of blackface on branding and advertising, as well as on perceptions and portrayals of black people, generally, can be found worldwide.
Australia
In October 2009, a talent-search skit on Australian TV's '' Hey Hey It's Saturday'' reunion show featured a tribute group for Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...
, the "Jackson Jive", in blackface, with the Michael Jackson character in whiteface. American performer Harry Connick, Jr.
Joseph Harry Fowler Connick Jr. (born September 11, 1967) is an American singer, pianist, composer, actor, and television host. He has sold over 28million albums worldwide. Connick is ranked among the top60 List of best-selling music artists i ...
was one of the guest judges and objected to the act, stating that he believed it was offensive to black people, and gave the troupe a score of zero. The show and the group later apologised to Connick, with the troupe leader of Indian descent stating that the skit was not intended to be offensive or racist.
In 1999 Sam Newman wore blackface to impersonate legendary Indigenous Australian Football League footballer Nicky Winmar
Neil Elvis "Nicky" Winmar (born 25 September 1965) is a former Australian rules footballer, best known for his career for and the in the Australian Football League (AFL), as well as in the West Australian Football League.
Growing up in ...
after Winmar did not attend a scheduled appearance on the program
Belgium and Netherlands
Christian traditions: Sinterklaas
In the Netherlands and Belgium, people annually celebrate St. Nicolas Eve with ''Sinterklaas
Sinterklaas () or Sint-Nicolaas () is a legendary figure based on Saint Nicholas, patron saint of children. Other Dutch names for the figure include ''De Sint'' ("The Saint"), ''De Goede Sint'' ("The Good Saint") and ''De Goedheiligman'' ("The ...
'', the Dutch version of Saint Nicholas, accompanied by multiple helpers or ''Zwarte Pieten'' (Black Petes). The first is typically an older white man similar to the American Santa, while the latter are usually adolescent boys and girls, and men and women in make-up and attire similar to the American blackface. The task of the ''Pieten'' is generally to entertain the children with jokes and pranks, and to help ''Sinterklaas'' distribute presents and dole out candy. The ''Pieten'' wear Moorish page boy costumes and partake in parades.
The Moorish ''Zwarte Piet'' character has been traced back to the middle of the 19th century when Jan Schenkman, a popular children's book author, added a black servant to the ''Sinterklaas'' story. The Dag Sinterklaas series written by Hugo Matthysen
Hugo Matthysen (born 30 January 1956, in Ekeren) is a Belgian (Flemish) singer, guitarist, columnist, writer, Master in Philosophy and actor. He lives in the municipality of Hove in Antwerp.
Biography
In 1978, he played with Bart Peeters and Ja ...
gave children in Flanders, Belgium since the early 1990s a view on the daily life of the holy man. Also, it explained some of the questions children have around the event: why Zwarte Piet
Zwarte Piet (; lb, Schwaarze Péiter, fy, Swarte Pyt), also known in English by the translated name Black Pete, is the companion of Saint Nicholas ( nl, Sinterklaas, fy, Sinteklaas, lb, Kleeschen) in the folklore of the Low Countries. The ...
(Black Peter) is black (not his original skin colour, but because of sliding through the chimney) and how Sinterklaas acquires the presents (with a special kind of money). 20 years later, Bart Peeters (the main roll in the series) stated it is thanks to Matthysen that in Belgium the Sinterklaas event has not been subject of a racism discussion as it has been in the Netherlands, because the series explains the figure of Zwarte Piet has nothing to do with slavery. However, the original and archetypal Zwarte Piet is believed to be a continuation of a much older custom in which people with blackface appeared in Winter Solstice rituals. In other parts of Western Europe and in Central Europe, black-faced and masked people also perform the role of companions of Saint Nicholas, who is known as Nikolo in Austria, Nikolaus in Germany and Samichlaus in Switzerland. Also on Saint Martin's Eve, black-faced men go around in processions through Wörgl
Wörgl () is a city in the Austrian state of Tyrol, in the Kufstein district. It is from the international border with Bavaria, Germany.
Population
Transport
Wörgl is an important railway junction between the line from Innsbruck to Munich, an ...
and the Lower Inn
Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accommo ...
Valley, in Tyrol
Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...
.
Due to ''Zwarte Piet'' strong aesthetic resemblance to the archetypal US blackface, as well as the dynamics between the blackface servants and the white ''Sinterklaas'', there has been international condemnation of the practice since the 1960s. Some of the stereotypical elements have been toned down in recent decades as a result of increasing protests within the nation. For example, there has been a transition towards applying only a few smears of 'soot' to the ''Piet'' cheeks, rather than apply a full blackface. The public support for changing the character was at 5% (versus 89% opposed to such changes) in 2013, which increased to 26% (versus 68% opposed to such changes) in 2017. However, in 2019, support for changing the character of ''Zwarte Piet'' underwent a slight decline, with opposition to changes increasing.
In 2020, following the murder of George Floyd
On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's ...
and worldwide protests against racism, the Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte
Mark Rutte (; born 14 February 1967) is a Dutch politician who has served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands since 2010 and Leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) since 2006.
After a business career working for Unileve ...
(who previously, since 2013, had strongly supported ''Zwarte Piet'' and condemned protests against ''Zwarte Piet'' and suggestions for change) stated he had changed his mind on the matter and hoped the tradition would die out. Yet, he emphasized not intending to impose an official ban and noted he too retains sympathy towards those who do not want to let go of ''Zwarte Piet''.
Christian traditions: Driekoningen
On the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany
Epiphany ( ), also known as Theophany in Eastern Christian traditions, is a Christian feast day that celebrates the revelation (theophany) of God incarnate as Jesus Christ.
In Western Christianity, the feast commemorates principally (but not ...
, children go door to door in threes wearing paper crowns (to commemorate the Biblical Magi), carrying a lantern and singing songs. They are dressed in adult clothing (to commemorate the Massacre of the Innocents) and one of the three may be in blackface to depict Balthazar.
Canada
Up until the early 2000s, white comedians sometimes used makeup to represent a black person, most often as a parody of an actual person. Many of these segments have been aired during the annual New Year's Eve TV special " Bye Bye." For instance, the 1986 edition features three such skits:
* a multi-ethnic version of the series "Le temps d'une paix" ( fr), in which comedienne Michèle Deslauriers played the character Mémère Bouchard as if she hailed from Africa;
* a reference to a joint concert by Quebec rocker Marjo and U.S. diva Eartha Kitt, in which Deslauriers and comic Dominique Michel Dominique Michel, OC, CQ (born ''Aimée Sylvestre''; September 24, 1932 in Sorel-Tracy, Quebec) is a Quebec comedian, actress, singer and artist.
Biography
She began her career in cabarets performing songs written by Raymond Lévesque and sub ...
alluded to Kitt spilling wine on Marjo during the show's press conference;
* a mock American Express commercial spoofing president Ronald Reagan's foreign policy, in which Deslauriers, Michel and actor Michel Côté played Middle-Eastern arms buyers.
The Montreal-based satiric group Rock et Belles Oreilles
Rock et Belles Oreilles (RBO) was a Canadian radio, television and stage comedy group that was very popular in the primarily French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec during the 1980s and 1990s. Its name was a pun on the name of the famous Hann ...
did its own blackface sketches, for instance when comedian Yves Pelletier disguised himself as comedian and show host Gregory Charles
Gregory Charles, OC (born February 12, 1968) is a Quebec performing artist of Trinidadian and French Canadian origin.
Biography
Charles' father Lennox was a black anglophone of Trinidadian origin; his mother was a white francophone Canadian. Cha ...
, making fun of his energetic personality (not of his racial background) on his television game show "Que le meilleur gagne". RBO also did a parody of a talk show where a stereotypical Haitian man (Pelletier again) was easily offended, as well as a group parody of the Caribbean band La Compagnie Créole and a sketch about the lines of African-American actors that were mangled in movie translations. Pelletier did another parody of Gregory Charles for the New Year's Eve TV special "Le Bye Bye de RBO" in 2006 (as an homage to Charles who had had a particularly successful year), along with a parody of Governor General Michaëlle Jean
Michaëlle Jean (; born September 6, 1957) is a Canadian stateswoman and former journalist who served from 2005 to 2010 as governor general of Canada, the 27th since Canadian Confederation. She is the first Haitian Canadian and black person ...
. And in RBO's 2007 "Bye Bye", Guy A. Lepage impersonated a black Quebecer testifying during the Bouchard-Taylor hearings on cultural differences, while in another sketch, Lepage, Pelletier and Bruno Landry
Bruno Landry is a Québécois comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting foolish (as in slapstick), or employing prop co ...
impersonated injured Darfur residents.
In September 2011, HEC Montréal
HEC Montréal (french: École des hautes études commerciales de Montréal) is a public Canadian business school located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1907, HEC Montréal is the graduate business school of the Université de Montréa ...
students caused a stir when using blackface to "pay tribute" to Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt
Usain St. Leo Bolt, , (; born 21 August 1986) is a retired Jamaican sprinter, widely considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time. He is the world record holder in the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 4 × 100 metres relay.
An eight-ti ...
during Frosh Week. The story went national, and was even covered on CNN. The university students were filmed in Jamaican flag colours, chanting "smoke weed" in a chorus. The University later apologized for the lack of consciousness of its student body.
In May 2013, comedian Mario Jean Mario Jean (born February 10, 1965) is a comedian and actor who has appeared in movies and television shows produced in Quebec, Canada. He first became known for his performance in ''l'ombre de l'épervier''. He played in eleven television shows, fo ...
( fr) took part in an award show to imitated several fellow comics, donning blackface when he came to Boucar Diouf ( fr), a Senegalese-born story-teller. Many Quebec pundits defended the practice and Diouf himself praised Jean for his open-mindedness.
In December 2013, white actor Joel Legendre ( fr) performed in blackface in "Bye Bye 2013", in yet another parody of Gregory Charles, this time as host of the variety show "Le choc des générations".
Halloween of 2014, Brock University's Student's Union awarded first prize at their costume contest to several white students in blackface, dressed as the Jamaican bobsled team from the film Cool Runnings. No disciplinary action was taken against the Student Union.
In December 2014, the satirical end-of-year production by Théâtre du Rideau Vert
The Théâtre du Rideau Vert is a theatre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 4664 Saint Denis Street in the borough of Le Plateau-Mont-Royal.
Founded in 1949 by Yvette Brind'Amour and Mercedes Palomino, the Théâtre du Rideau Vert wa ...
, a mainstream theatre company, included a blackface representation of hockey player P.K. Subban by actor Marc Saint-Martin. Despite some criticism the sketch was not withdrawn.
In March 2018, comedian of the year Mariana Mazza ( fr), whose parents are Arab and Uruguayan, celebrated International Women's Day by posting a message on her Facebook page which read "Vive la diversité" (Hurrah for diversity) and was accompanied by a picture of herself surrounded by eight ethnic variations, including one in a wig and makeup that showed what she'd look like if she were black. She immediately received a flurry of hate messages and death threats, and two days later, posted another message in which she apologized to whoever had been offended, but argued that she had been "naively" trying to "express her support for all these communities."
In June 2018, theatre director Robert Lepage
Robert Lepage (born December 12, 1957) is a Canadian playwright, actor, film director, and stage director.
Early life
Lepage was raised in Quebec City. At age five, he was diagnosed with a rare form of alopecia, which caused complete hair l ...
was accused of staging scenes that were reminiscent of blackface["Moses Sumney Quits Montreal Jazz Fest Over Show on Slavery."](_blank)
Billboard, July 4, 2018. Retrieved July 7, 2018. when he put together the show " SLĀV" at the Montreal Jazz Festival, notably because white performers were dressed as slaves as they picked cotton. After two initial performances, lead singer Betty Bonifassi
Betty or Bettie is a name, a common diminutive for the names Bethany and Elizabeth. In Latin America, it is also a common diminutive for the given name Beatriz, the Spanish and Portuguese form of the Latin name Beatrix and the English name Bea ...
broke an ankle and the rest of the summer run was canceled, but later performances were nevertheless scheduled in other venues. The controversy prompted further protests about the play "Kanata" that Lepage was to stage in Paris about the Canadian Indian residential school system
In Canada, the Indian residential school system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples. The network was funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs and administered by Christian churches. The school s ...
– without resorting to any indigenous actors. The project was briefly put on hold when investors pulled out, but the production eventually resumed as planned.
Justin Trudeau blackface controversy
In 2019, ''Time'' published a photograph of the Prime Minister of Canada
The prime minister of Canada (french: premier ministre du Canada, link=no) is the head of government of Canada. Under the Westminster system, the prime minister governs with the confidence of a majority the elected House of Commons; as su ...
, Justin Trudeau
Justin Pierre James Trudeau ( , ; born December 25, 1971) is a Canadian politician who is the 23rd and current prime minister of Canada. He has served as the prime minister of Canada since 2015 and as the leader of the Liberal Party since 2 ...
, wearing brownface
Brownface is a social phenomenon in which a white or light-skinned person attempts to portray themselves as a "brown" person of color, but less overtly and with a lighter complexion than traditional blackface. This may include mimicry of Midd ...
makeup in the spring of 2001. The photograph, which had not been previously reported, was taken at an " Arabian Nights"-themed gala. The photograph showed Trudeau, wearing a turban and robes with his face, neck and hands completely darkened. The photograph appeared in the 2000–2001 yearbook of the West Point Grey Academy
West Point Grey Academy is an independent, co-educational, day school founded in 1996. Located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It delivers the British Columbia Ministry of Education curriculum from Junior-Kindergarten to Grade 12.
Histor ...
, where Trudeau was a teacher. A copy of the yearbook was obtained by ''Time'' earlier in the month from Vancouver businessman Michael Adamson, who was part of the West Point Grey Academy community. Adamson said that he first saw the photograph in July and felt it should be made public. On September 19, 2019, Global News
Global News is the news and current affairs division of the Canadian Global Television Network. The network is owned by Corus Entertainment, which oversees all of the network's national news programming as well as local news on its 21 owned- ...
obtained and published a video from the early 1990s showing Trudeau in blackface. The video showed Trudeau covered in dark makeup and raising his hands in the air while laughing, sticking his tongue out and making faces. The video showed his arms and legs covered in makeup as well.
Cape Verde
There are some occurrences of blacking up (completely covering the entire exposed body) with afro wigs and stereotypical grass skirts and costume at festivals in this African country.
China
On February 15, 2018, a comedy sketch titled "Same Joy, Same Happiness" intending to celebrate Chinese-African ties on the CCTV New Year's Gala
The ''CCTV New Year's Gala'', also known as the ''Spring Festival Gala'', and commonly abbreviated in Chinese as ''Chunwan'', is a Chinese New Year special produced by China Media Group (CMG). It is broadcast annually on the eve of Chinese ...
, which draws an audience of up to 800 million, showed a Chinese actress in blackface makeup with a giant fake bottom playing an African mother, while a performer only exposing black arms playing a monkey accompanied her. At the end of the skit, the actress shouted, "I love Chinese people! I love China!" After being broadcast, the scene was widely criticized as being "disgusting", "awkward" and "completely racist" on Twitter and Sina Weibo. According to the street interviews by the Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...
in Beijing on February 16, some Chinese people believed this kind of criticism was overblown. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, who also watched the skit, said that China had consistently opposed any form of racism, and added, "I want to say that if there are people who want to seize on an incident to exaggerate matters, and sow discord in China's relations with African countries, this is a doomed futile effort" at a daily news briefing on February 22, 2018.
In 2021 CCTV's New Year's Gala show once again featured performers in blackface wearing approximations of African clothing. Like in 2018 it received criticism both within China and internationally. The Chinese foreign ministry responded to criticism by saying that it was not an issue and that anyone saying otherwise must have ulterior motives.
Colombia
The television comedy ''Sábados Felices
''Sábados Felices'' (''Happy Saturdays'') is a Colombian comedy show that debuted in 1972. It has been produced by Caracol Televisión for its entire run on the air; from 1972 to 1998, when Caracol was a ''programadora'', it aired on Cadena U ...
'' included a blackface character, who after a controversy changed his makeup to look like a camouflaged soldier.
Ecuador
In Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ' ...
, there's a traditional festival held in Latacunga
Latacunga (; Quechua: Latakunga) is a plateau town of Ecuador, capital of the Cotopaxi Province, south of Quito, near the confluence of the Alaquez and Cutuchi rivers to form the Patate, the headstream of the Pastaza. At the time of census 2 ...
called " La Mama Negra" also known as ''La Santísima Tragedia'' in which a man in blackface makeup portrays a black woman liberated from slavery holding her youngest child.
Finland
In Finland, a version of the Star boys' singing procession originating in the city of Oulu, a musical play known as Tiernapojat, has become established as a cherished Christmas tradition nationwide. The Tiernapojat show is a staple of Christmas festivities in schools, kindergartens, and elsewhere, and it is broadcast every Christmas on radio and television. The Finnish version contains non-biblical elements such as King Herod vanquishing the "king of the Moors
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a distinct or ...
," whose face in the play has traditionally been painted black. The character's color of skin is also a theme in the procession's lyrics.
The last installation of the '' Pekka and Pätkä'' comedy film series, '' Pekka ja Pätkä neekereinä'' (Pekka and Pätkä as Negroes), was made in 1960. In the film a computer tells the title characters that a "negro" would be a suitable profession for them. They blacken their faces and pretend to be American or African entertainers performing in a night club, talking self-invented gibberish that is supposed to be English. The computer meant "negro" as a now archaic term for a journalist, which originates from journalists' hands becoming tinted black with ink when handling prints. When Finland's national public broadcasting company Yle
Yleisradio Oy ( Finnish, literally "General Radio Ltd." or "General Broadcast Ltd."; abbr. Yle ; sv, Rundradion Ab, italics=no), translated to English as the Finnish Broadcasting Company, is Finland's national public broadcasting company, found ...
aired this film 2016, some people on the social media disapproved of it and insisted that the film should have been censored, or at least the name changed. A representative from Yle said that an old movie should be evaluated in the context of its own time, and that the idea of the movie is to laugh at people being prejudiced. When the film series was aired in 2019, this particular film of the series was left unaired.
Before the 1990s the word "neekeri" (negro) was generally considered neutral, inoffensive word.
Germany
A group of showmen in the Cologne Carnival
The Cologne Carnival (german: Kölner Karneval) is a carnival that takes place every year in Cologne, Germany.
Traditionally, the "fifth season" (carnival season) is declared open at 11 minutes past 11 on the 11th of the 11th month November. Th ...
called ''Negerköpp'', founded in 1929, act with their hands and faces painted black.
The Germany-based Dutch musician Taco Ockerse stirred up controversy in 1983 by using dancers in blackface for his hit synthpop version of " Puttin' On the Ritz".
In Germany, blackface was used in several theatrical productions.
Examples of theatrical productions include the many productions of the play "Unschuld" (Innocence) by the German writer Dea Loher, although in this play about two black African immigrants, the use of black-face is not part of the stage directions or instructions.
The staging of the play "Unschuld" (Innocence) at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin was also subject of protest. The activist group "Bühnenwatch" (stage watch) performed a stunt in one of the stagings: 42 activists, posing as spectators, left the audience without a word and later distributed leaflets to the audience. Fundamental of the criticism was that the use of black-face solidifies stereotypes regardless of any good intentions and supports racist structures. The critics were invited to a discussion with the director, actors, theatre manager and other artists of the Deutsches Theater. As a result of the discussion, Deutsches Theater changed the design of actor make-up. Ulrich Khuon, the theatre manager, later admitted to being surprised by the protest and is now in a process of reflection.
German productions of Herb Gardner
Herbert George Gardner (December 28, 1934 – September 25, 2003), was an American commercial artist, cartoonist, playwright and screenwriter.
Early life
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Gardner was the son of a bar owner. His late brother, Robert ...
's ''I'm Not Rappaport
''I'm Not Rappaport'' is a play by Herb Gardner, which originally ran on Broadway in 1985.
Productions
The play was originally staged by Seattle Repertory Theatre in 1984.
The play premiered on Broadway at the Booth Theatre on November 19, 198 ...
'' almost always cast the role of Midge Carter, the black character, famously portrayed in the U.S. by Ossie Davis
Raiford Chatman "Ossie" Davis (December 18, 1917 – February 4, 2005) was an American actor, director, writer, and activist. He was married to Ruby Dee, with whom he frequently performed, until his death. He and his wife were named to the NAACP ...
, with a white actor in black makeup. The 2012 production of the play at the Berlin Schlosspark-Theater was the subject of protest. The director, Thomas Schendel, in his response to critics, argued that the classical and common plays would not offer enough roles that would justify a repertoire position for a black actor in a German theatre company. The protest grew considerably and was followed by media reports. While advocates of the theatre indicated that in principle it should be possible for any actor to play any character and that the play itself has an anti-racist message, the critics noted that the letter unwillingly disclosed the general, unexpressed policy of German theatres, i.e., that white actors are accounted to be qualified for all roles, even black ones, while black actors are suitable only for black roles. Other authors said that this problem in Germany generally exists for citizens with an immigrant background. The debate also received foreign media attention. The Schlosspark-Theater announced plans to continue the performances, and the German publishing company of ''Rappaport'' stated it will continue to grant permits for such performances.
German dramatists commented on the debate:
In 2012, the American dramatist Bruce Norris cancelled a German production of his play ''Clybourne Park'' when it was disclosed that a white actress would portray the African-American "Francine". A subsequent production using black German actors was successfully staged.
Guatemala
Guatemalan 2015 elected president, Jimmy Morales
Jimmy Morales (born James Ernesto Morales Cabrera, ; 18 March 1969) is a Guatemalan politician, actor and comedian. From 2016 to 2020, he served as the 50th president of Guatemala.
Early and personal life
Morales was born in Guatemala City ...
, was a comic actor. One of the characters he impersonated in his comic show "Moralejas" was called Black Pitaya which used blackface makeup. Jimmy Morales defended his blackface character saying he is adored by the country's black Garifuna and indigenous Mayan communities.
Iran
Hajji Firuz
Hāji Firuz ('' fa, حاجی فیروز'') or Khwāje Piruz ('' fa, خواجه پیروز'') is a fictional character in Iranian folklore who appears in the streets by the beginning of Nowruz. His face is covered in soot, and he is clad in brigh ...
is a character in Iranian folklore
Iranian folklore encompasses the folk traditions that have evolved in Greater Iran.
Oral legends
Folktales
Storytelling has an important presence in Iranian culture. In classical Iran, minstrels performed for their audiences at royal courts and ...
who appears in the streets by the beginning of the New Year festival of Nowruz
Nowruz ( fa, نوروز, ; ), zh, 诺鲁孜节, ug, نەۋروز, ka, ნოვრუზ, ku, Newroz, he, נורוז, kk, Наурыз, ky, Нооруз, mn, Наурыз, ur, نوروز, tg, Наврӯз, tr, Nevruz, tk, Nowruz, ...
. Additionally there is ''Siah-Bazi'', a type of Persian theatre
Persian theater ( fa, تئاتر ایرانی) goes back to antiquity. The first initiation of theater and phenomena of acting can be traced in ceremonial theaters to glorify national heroes and legends and to humiliate the enemy, as in the class ...
in Iran that involves a blackfaced character.
Japan
In Japanese hip hop, a subculture of hip-hoppers subscribe to the ''burapan'' style, and are referred to as blackfacers. The appearance of these blackfacers is evidence of the popularity of the hip-hop movement in Japan despite what is described as racist tendencies in the culture. It was reported in 2006 that some Japanese hip-hop fans found it embarrassing and ridiculous for fans to change their appearance with blackface in attempt to embrace the culture. In some instances it could be seen as a racist act, but for many of the young Japanese fans it was seen as an appropriate way of immersing in the hip hop culture. The use of blackface is seen by some as a way to rebel against the culture of surface images in Japan.
Blackface has also been a contentious issue in the music scene outside of hip hop. One Japanese R&B group, the Gosperats, has been known to wear blackface makeup during performances. In March 2015 a music television program produced by the Fuji TV
JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as and colloquially known as CX, is a Japanese television station based in Odaiba, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Owned and operated by the it is the key station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network S ...
network was scheduled to show a segment featuring two Japanese groups performing together in blackface, Rats & Star and Momoiro Clover Z
is a Japanese idol girl group, commonly abbreviated as MCZ or .
The four members of MCZ are known for energetic performances, incorporating elements of ballet, gymnastics, and action movies.
MCZ is notable for being the first female group to ho ...
. A picture was published online by one of the Rats & Star members after the segment was recorded, which led to a campaign against broadcasting of the segment. The program that aired on March 7 was edited by the network to remove the segment "after considering the overall circumstances", but the announcement did not acknowledge the campaign against the segment.
Mexico
In modern-day Mexico there are examples of images (usually caricatures) in blackface (e.g., Memín Pinguín). Though there is backlash from international communities, Mexican society has not protested to have these images changed to racially sensitive images. On the contrary, in the controversial Memín Pinguín cartoon there has been support publicly and politically (chancellor for Mexico, Luis Ernesto Derbez). Currently in Mexico, only 3–4% of the population are composed of Afro-Mexicans
Afro-Mexicans ( es, afromexicanos), also known as Black Mexicans ( es, mexicanos negros), are Mexicans who have heritage from sub-Saharan Africa and identify as such. As a single population, Afro-Mexicans include individuals descended from both f ...
(this percentage includes Asian Mexicans
, image =
, image_caption =
, popplace = Baja California, Bajío Region, Guerrero, Mexico City, Yucatan
, langs = Mexican Spanish and Asian languages
, rels = Christianity (mainly Catholicism), ...
).
Panama
Portobelo's Carnival and Congo dance in Panama include a use of blackface as a form of celebration of African history
The history of Africa begins with the emergence of hominids, archaic humans and — around 300–250,000 years ago—anatomically modern humans ('' Homo sapiens''), in East Africa, and continues unbroken into the present as a patchwork of d ...
, an emancipatory symbol. Black men paint their faces with charcoal which represents three things. Firstly, the blackface is used as a tool to remember their African ancestors. Secondly, the black face is representative of the disguise or concealment on the run which slaves would have used to evade the Spanish colonizers. Lastly, the practice of blackface is used as a way to signify the code or "secret language" which slaves would have used during the time of the Spanish occupation. During the celebration, for example, good morning will mean good night, and wearing black, or in this case wearing blackface, which normally denotes a time of mourning, is instead used as a way to represent a time of celebration.
Portugal and Brazil
Use of black performance in impersonations was quite frequently used in the impressions show ''A Tua Cara não Me É Estranha'', with blackface impressions of Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...
, Siedah Garrett
Deborah Christine "Siedah" Garrett (born June 24, 1960) is an American singer and songwriter who has written songs and performed backing vocals for many recording artists in the music industry, such as Michael Jackson, the Pointer Sisters, Brand N ...
, Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman (born March 30, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter. Chapman is best known for her hit singles "Fast Car" and "Give Me One Reason".
Chapman was signed to Elektra Records by Bob Krasnow in 1987. The following year she released ...
, Louie Armstrong, Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's music career began after he dropped out of school at the age of 15, and continued f ...
, among others. In 2018, Eduardo Madeira dressed up as Serena Williams, adding an African accent the tennis player does not have in real life.
In Brazil, there has been at least some history of non-comedic use of blackface, using white actors for black characters like Uncle Tom
Uncle Tom is the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel, '' Uncle Tom's Cabin''. The character was seen by many readers as a ground-breaking humanistic portrayal of a slave, one who uses nonresistance and gives his life to prot ...
(although the practice of "racelift", or making black/mulatto characters into mestiços/swarthy whites/caboclo
A caboclo () is a person of mixed Indigenous Brazilian and European ancestry, or, less commonly, a culturally assimilated or detribalized person of full Amerindian descent. In Brazil, a ''caboclo'' generally refers to this specific type of '' ...
s, is more frequent than blackface). Use of blackface in humor has been used more rarely than in Portugal, although it also continues into this century (but it creates major uproar among the sizeable and more politically active Afro-Brazilian
Afro-Brazilians ( pt, afro-brasileiros; ) are Brazilians who have predominantly African ancestry (see " preto"). Most members of another group of people, multiracial Brazilians or ''pardos'', may also have a range of degree of African ancestry. ...
community).
Russia
Soviet Russian writers and illustrators sometimes inadvertently perpetuated stereotypes about other nations that are now viewed as harmful. For example, a Soviet children's book or cartoon might innocently contain a representation of black people that would be perceived as unquestionably offensive by the modern-day western standards, such as bright red lips and other exaggerated features, similar to the portrayal of blacks in American minstrel shows. Soviet artists "did not quite understand the harm of representing black people in this way, and continued to employ this method, even in creative productions aimed specifically at critiquing American race relations".
In 1910, the ballet ''Sheherazade
Scheherazade () is a major female character and the storyteller in the frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as the '' One Thousand and One Nights''.
Name
According to modern scholarship, the name ''Scheherazade'' de ...
'', choreographed by Michael Fokine, premiered in Russia. The story behind the ballet was inspired by a tone poem written by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov. In the ballet the leading female character, Zobeide, is seduced by a Golden Slave. The dancer who portrayed the Golden Slave, the first being Vaslav Nijinsky
Vaslav (or Vatslav) Nijinsky (; rus, Вацлав Фомич Нижинский, Vatslav Fomich Nizhinsky, p=ˈvatsləf fɐˈmʲitɕ nʲɪˈʐɨnskʲɪj; pl, Wacław Niżyński, ; 12 March 1889/18908 April 1950) was a ballet dancer and choreog ...
, would have his face and body painted brown for the performance. This was done to show the audience the slave was of a darker complexion. Later in 1912, Fokine choreographed the ballet ''Petrushka
Petrushka ( rus, Петру́шка, p=pʲɪtˈruʂkə, a=Ru-петрушка.ogg) is a stock character of Russian folk puppetry. Italian puppeteers introduced it in the first third of the 19th century. While most core characters came from Italy ...
'', which centers around three puppets that come to life, Petrushka, the Ballerina, and the Moor. When the ballet premiered, the part of the Moor, first danced by Alexander Orlov, was performed in full blackface. The Moor puppet is first seen onstage playing with a coconut, which he attempts to open with his scimitar
A scimitar ( or ) is a single-edged sword with a convex curved blade associated with Middle Eastern, South Asian, or North African cultures. A European term, ''scimitar'' does not refer to one specific sword type, but an assortment of different ...
. His movements are apelike. The Moor seduces the Ballerina and later savagely cuts off the head of the puppet Petrushka. When ''Petrushka'' is performed today, the part of the Moor is still done in full blackface, or occasionally blueface. The blackface has not been publicly criticized in the ballet community. Black and brownface appear in other ballets today, such as ''La Bayadère
''La Bayadère'' ("the temple dancer") ( ru. «Баядерка», ''Bayaderka'') is a ballet, originally staged in four acts and seven tableaux by French choreographer Marius Petipa to the music of Ludwig Minkus. The ballet was staged especiall ...
'' and '' Othello'', in the United States and Europe.
The early Soviet political cartoon '' Black and White'', created in 1932, managed to avoid the blackface style, confronting "precisely that paternalistic model of the ever-passive black subject awaiting enlightenment from the Comintern". The cartoon integrated "an avant-garde-influenced visual aesthetic with images derived from the many newspaper illustrations, cartoons, and posters of American racism that appeared in Soviet Russia at this time".
Soviet theater and movie directors rarely had access to black actors, and so resorted to using black makeup when dictated by the character's descent. Soviet actors portrayed black people mostly by darkening the skin and occasionally adjusting the hair style, without accentuating or exaggerating their facial features. In particular, Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky ( rus, links=no, Владимир Семёнович Высоцкий, p=vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr sʲɪˈmʲɵnəvʲɪtɕ vɨˈsotskʲɪj; 25 January 1938 – 25 July 1980), was a Soviet singer-songwriter, poet, and actor ...
performed the role of Abram Petrovich Gannibal
Abram Petrovich Gannibal, also Hannibal or Ganibal, or Abram Hannibal or Abram Petrov ( ru , Абра́м Петро́вич Ганниба́л; c. 1696 – 14 May 1781), was a Russian military engineer, general-in-chief, and nobleman of Africa ...
, an 18th-century Russian general of African origin, in the 1976 Soviet film ''How Czar Peter the Great Married Off His Moor
''How Czar Peter the Great Married Off His Moor'' (russian: Сказ про то, как царь Пётр арапа женил, ''Skaz pro to, kak tsar Pyotr arapa zhenil'') is a 1976 musical film directed by the Russian filmmaker Alexander Mi ...
'', while Larisa Dolina
Larisa Aleksandrovna Dolina (russian: link=no, Лариса Александровна Долина, , née Kudelman, Кудельман, formerly Mionchinskaya, Миончинская; born 10 September 1955) is an Azerbaijani-born prominent Rus ...
performed the role of Cuban singer Clementine Fernandez in the 1983 film ''We Are from Jazz
''We Are from Jazz'' (russian: Мы из джаза, My iz dzhaza) is a 1983 Soviet comedy musical film by Karen Shahnazarov.
Plot
A student is expelled from music school because he loves jazz, and jazz at that time (the film depicts the 1920s) ...
''. The 1956 Soviet film adaptation of Othello received the Best Director Award at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.
On November 30, 2020, in a segment of the Russian TV show "International Sawmill", Russian television presenter Tigran Keosayan
Tigran Edmondovich Keosayan ( hy, Տիգրան էդմոնդի Քեոսայան, russian: Тигран Эдмондович Кеосаян; born January 4, 1966) is a Russian film director, actor and television presenter of Armenian origin. He is ...
interviewed an actress in blackface posing as former United States President Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
. In the segment, Keosayan, referring to Obama's book ''A Promised Land
''A Promised Land'' is a memoir by Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Published on November 17, 2020, it is the first of a planned two-volume series. Remaining focused on his political career, the preside ...
'', asks the actress: "Do you consider this book your achievement?", to which the actress in blackface replies: "Of course." Keosayan then asks: "Because none of your relatives have written books?", after which the actress answers: "Because none of my relatives that came before me could write." Keosayan then states "you should have a rap musician, not the president". The segment was widely deemed racist.
South Africa
Inspired by blackface minstrels who visited Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
, South Africa, in 1848, former Javanese and Malay coolie
A coolie (also spelled koelie, kuli, khuli, khulie, cooli, cooly, or quli) is a term for a low-wage labourer, typically of South Asian or East Asian descent.
The word ''coolie'' was first popularized in the 16th century by European traders acros ...
s took up the minstrel tradition, holding emancipation celebrations which consisted of music, dancing and parades. Such celebrations eventually became consolidated into an annual, year-end event called the "Coon Carnival" but now known as the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival or the Kaapse Klopse
The Kaapse Klopse (or simply Klopse), formerly known as the Coon Carnival and officially called Cape Town Minstrel Carnival, is a Cape coloured minstrel festival that takes place annually on 2 January in Cape Town, South Africa. It is also refe ...
.
Today, carnival minstrels are mostly Coloured ("mixed race"), Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
-speaking revelers. Often in a pared-down style of blackface which exaggerates only the lips. They parade down the streets of the city in colorful costumes, in a celebration of Creole culture. Participants also pay homage to the carnival's African-American roots, playing Negro spirituals
Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, African American spirituals, Black spirituals, or spiritual music) is a genre of Christian music that is associated with Black Americans, which merged sub-Saharan African cultural heritage with the ex ...
and jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
featuring traditional Dixieland
Dixieland jazz, also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band ...
jazz instruments, including horns Horns or The Horns may refer to:
* Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells
* The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain
* ''Horns'' (novel), a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Joe Hill ...
, banjos, and tambourines.
The South African actor and filmmaker Leon Schuster
Leon Ernest "Schuks" Schuster (born 21 May 1951) is a South African filmmaker, comedian, actor, prankster and singer.
Early life
Schuster was drawn to the filmmaking process at an early age. As a child he and his brother would play practical ...
is well known for employing the blackface technique in his filming to little or no controversy. But in 2013, the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa halted the airing of an ad wherein Schuster portrayed a stereotypically dishonest African politician in blackface. The action was in response to the following submitted complaint:
Vodacom
Vodacom Group Limited is a South-Western African mobile communications company, providing voice, messaging, data and converged services to over 55 million customers. From its roots in South Africa, Vodacom has grown its operations to include ...
South Africa has also been accused of using non-African actors in blackface in its advertising as opposed to simply using African actors. Some have denounced blackface as an artefact of apartheid, accusing broadcasters of lampooning Black people. Others continue to see it as "harmless fun". In 2014, photos of two white University of Pretoria
The University of Pretoria ( af, Universiteit van Pretoria, nso, Yunibesithi ya Pretoria) is a multi-campus public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and de facto capital of South Africa. The university was established in 1908 ...
female students donning blackface makeup in an attempt at caricaturing Black domestic workers
A domestic worker or domestic servant is a person who works within the scope of a residence. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service ...
surfaced on Facebook. The students were said to face disciplinary action for throwing the institution's name into disrepute.
South Korea
Comedians in many Asian countries continue to occasionally use minstrel-inspired blackface, with considerable frequency in South Korea. "Acting black" has been a common phenomenon in South Korean media for more than 30 years: in the 80s, comedians used to perform with darkened faces without attracting criticism. Although criticism has increased, use of blackface in Korean media was still occurring in 2018: a performer used blackface in a TV show, a play called "The Blacks" used blackface, as well as all-female quartet Mamamoo while doing a cover for one Bruno Mars
Peter Gene Hernandez (born October 8, 1985), known professionally as Bruno Mars, is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is known for his stage performances, retro showmanship, and for performing in a wide range of musical ...
' songs. In 2020, ''The Diplomat
''The Diplomat'' is an international online news magazine covering politics, society, and culture in the Indo-Pacific region. It is based in Washington, D.C.
It was originally an Australian bi-monthly print magazine, founded by Minh Bui Jone ...
'' reported that backlash to pictures posted by students in which they posed in blackface for Halloween was indicative of growing consciousness toward racism in the country.
Taiwan
Taiwanese YouTube comedy group The Wackyboys came under fire after some of its members blackfaced for a Dancing Pallbearers
Dancing Pallbearers, also known by a variety of names, including Dancing Coffin, Coffin Dancers, Coffin Dance Meme, or simply Coffin Dance, is the informal name given to a group of pallbearers from Nana Otafrija Pallbearing and Waiting Service w ...
parody video. The group later apologised and deleted the video.
Thailand
In Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
, actors darken their faces to portray the Negrito of Thailand in a popular play by King Chulalongkorn (1868–1910), '' Ngo Pa'', which has been turned into a musical and a movie.
United Kingdom
Poachers and rioters
From 1723 to 1823, it was a criminal offence to blacken one's face in some circumstances, with a punishment of death. The Black Act was passed at a time of economic downturn that led to heightened social tensions, and in response to a series of raids by two groups of poachers
Poaching has been defined as the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights.
Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets. It was set a ...
who blackened their faces to prevent identification. Blackening one's face with soot, lampblack, boot polish or coal dust was a traditional form of disguise, or masking, especially at night when poaching.
The Welsh Rebecca Rioters (1839–1843) used to blacken their faces or wear masks to prevent themselves being identified whilst breaking down turnpike gates, sometimes disguised as women.
Folk culture
South Western English traditional folk play
Folk plays such as Hoodening, Guising, Mummers Play and Soul Caking are generally verse sketches performed in countryside pubs in European countries, private houses or the open air, at set times of the year such as the Winter or Summer solstices ...
s sometimes have a Turk Slaver character, probably from the Barbary Coast Slave raids on Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset in the early 17th Century by " Sallee Rovers" (where the English were the slaves captured and taken by force to North Africa). This character is usually played using a black face (or brownface).
Throughout the country, the Turkish (Saracen
upright 1.5, Late 15th-century German woodcut depicting Saracens
Saracen ( ) was a term used in the early centuries, both in Greek and Latin writings, to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Romans as Arabia Pe ...
) Knight character (probably harkening back to the crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were ...
during the Medieval era
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
) in traditional English Mummers' plays was played in blackface (or brownface), though less often in the modern era.
Various forms of folk dance in England, including Morris dancing
Morris dancing is a form of English folk dance. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers, usually wearing bell pads on their shins. Implements such as sticks, swords and handkerchiefs may ...
, have traditionally used blackface; its continuing use by some troupes is controversial. Some interpretations trace the original invention of blackface back to specific morris traditions.
Molly dance
Molly dancing is a form of English Morris dance, traditionally done by out-of-work ploughboys in midwinter in the 19th century.
History
Molly dancing has been recorded in many parts of the English Midlands and East Anglia. It died out during the ...
rs and Cornish Guise Dancers, traditionally associated with midwinter festivals, often use blacked faces as a disguise. The Molly dancers wished to avoid being identified by the landlords and petty nobles, who were also usually the local magistrates, when they played tricks on those who failed to be generous enough in their gifts to the dancers. The Guise dancers (disguised dancers) also wished to avoid any punishment for their mocking songs embarrassing the local gentry.
Some traditional mummers groups perform the English folk play "St George and the Turkish Knight" with the entire cast, including Father Christmas, and all the white, English characters in mummers' blackface.
In Bacup
Bacup ( , ) is a town in the Rossendale Borough in Lancashire, England, in the South Pennines close to Lancashire's boundaries with West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. The town is in the Rossendale Valley and the upper Irwell Valley, east of ...
, Lancashire, the Britannia Coconut Dancers wear black faces. Some believe the origin of this dance can be traced back to the influx of Cornish miners to northern England, and the black face relates to the dirty blackened faces associated with mining.
In Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
, several Mummer's Day celebrations are still held; these used to be sometimes known as "Darkie Day" (a corruption of the original "Darking Day", referring to the darkening or painting of the faces) and involved local residents dancing through the streets in blackface to musical accompaniment. As late as 2014, at least one festival (Padstow
Padstow (; kw, Lannwedhenek) is a town, civil parish and fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall, England. The town is situated on the west bank of the River Camel estuary approximately northwest of Wadebridge, northwest of Bodmin and ...
) featured such songs as 'Old Uncle Ned', which includes the lyrics "He's gone where the good niggers go".
The traditional wedding day chimney sweep, that is considered to be good luck, sometimes has a partially blacked up face to suggest smears of soot. This depends on the performer but it was, and still is, unusual to have a full blackening. Though the complete covered "greyface" is known.
These two traditions, of chimney sweep and folk dancing, coincide in the sometimes lost traditions of (chimney) sweepers festivals. Medway Council
Medway Council is the local authority of Medway in Kent, England. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined.
The council was created on 1 April 1998 and replaced Rochester-upon-Medw ...
supports the Sweeps' Festival, revived in 1981, now claimed to be "the largest festival of Morris dance in the world". It takes place in Rochester
Rochester may refer to:
Places Australia
* Rochester, Victoria
Canada
* Rochester, Alberta
United Kingdom
*Rochester, Kent
** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area
** History of Rochester, Kent
** HM Prison ...
around May Day and features a Jack in the Green
Jack in the Green, also known as Jack o' the Green, is an English folk custom associated with the celebration of May Day. It involves a pyramidal or conical wicker or wooden framework that is decorated with foliage being worn by a person as part ...
character. Originally the chimney sweeps were little boys, and they used the day to beg for money, until this child labour was outlawed.
On Guy Fawkes' Day
Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night and Fireworks Night, is an annual commemoration observed on 5 November, primarily in Great Britain, involving bonfires and fireworks displays. Its history begins with the ev ...
2017, participants in the Lewes Bonfire
Lewes Bonfire, or Bonfire for short, describes a set of celebrations held in the town of Lewes, Sussex, England, that constitute the United Kingdom's largest and most famous Bonfire Night festivities, with Lewes being called the bonfire capi ...
, the best known of the Sussex bonfire tradition, decided to abandon black face paint in their depiction of Zulu warriors.
On July 3, 2020, the Joint Morris Organisation
Morris dancing is a form of English folk dance. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers, usually wearing bell pads on their shins. Implements such as sticks, swords and handkerchiefs may ...
announced that all three constituent bodies, representing the vast majority of Morris Dancing in the United Kingdom, would be actively moving to eliminate the use of full-face black makeup from their membership.
''The Black and White Minstrel Show''
''The Black and White Minstrel Show
''The Black and White Minstrel Show'' was a British light entertainment show that ran for twenty years on BBC prime-time television. Running from 1958 to 1978, it was a weekly variety show that presented traditional American minstrel and count ...
'' was a British light entertainment show that ran for twenty years on BBC prime-time television. Beginning in 1958, it was a variety show which presented traditional American minstrel and country songs, as well as show tunes and music hall numbers, lavishly costumed. It was also a successful stage show which ran for ten years from 1962 to 1972 at the Victoria Palace Theatre, London. This was followed by tours of UK seaside resorts, together with Australia and New Zealand.
Due to its employment of artists wearing blackface, the show was seen by UK anti-racist groups such as the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination
The Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) was a British organization, founded in 1964 and which lasted until 1967, that lobbied for race relations legislation. The group's formation was inspired by a visit by Martin Luther King Jr. to Londo ...
, to be both racist and perpetuating ethnic stereotypes.
Legacy
Blackface minstrelsy was the conduit through which African-American and African-American-influenced music, comedy, and dance first reached the white American mainstream. It played a seminal role in the introduction of African-American culture to world audiences.
Many of country's earliest stars, such as Jimmie Rodgers
James Charles Rodgers (September 8, 1897 – May 26, 1933) was an American singer-songwriter and musician who rose to popularity in the late 1920s. Widely regarded as "the Father of Country Music", he is best known for his distinctive rhythmi ...
and Bob Wills
James Robert Wills (March 6, 1905 – May 13, 1975) was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the founder of Western swing, he was known widely as the King of Western Swing (although ...
, were veterans of blackface performance. More recently, the American country music television show ''Hee Haw
''Hee Haw'' is an American television variety show featuring country music and humor with the fictional rural "Kornfield Kounty" as the backdrop. It aired first-run on CBS from 1969 to 1971, in syndication from 1971 to 1993, and on TNN from 1 ...
'' (1969–1993) had the format and much of the content of a minstrel show, albeit without blackface.
The immense popularity and profitability of blackface were testaments to the power, appeal, and commercial viability of not only black music and dance, but also of black style. This led to cross-cultural collaborations, as Giddins writes; but the often ruthless exploitation of African-American artistic genius, as well – by other, white performers and composers; agents; promoters; publishers; and record company executives.[.]
While blackface in the literal sense has played only a minor role in entertainment in recent decades, various writers see it as epitomizing an appropriation and imitation of black culture that continues today. As noted above, Strausbaugh sees blackface as central to a longer tradition of "displaying Blackness". "To this day," he writes: "Whites admire, envy and seek to emulate such supposed innate qualities of Blackness as inherent musicality, natural athleticism, the composure known as 'cool' and superior sexual endowment," a phenomenon he views as part of the history of blackface. For more than a century, when white performers have wanted to appear sexy (like Elvis
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the " King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His ener ...
or Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer and songwriter who has achieved international fame as the lead vocalist and one of the founder members of the rock band the Rolling Stones. His ongoing songwriting partnershi ...
),[ explicitly analogizes Al Jolson's style of blackface to Jagger and Eminem: "not mockery, but the sincere mimicry of a non-Black artist who loves Black culture (or what he thinks is Black culture) so dearly he can't resist imitating it, even to the ridiculous point of blacking up."] or streetwise (like Eminem), or hip (like Mezz Mezzrow
Milton Mesirow (November 9, 1899 – August 5, 1972), better known as Mezz Mezzrow, was an American jazz clarinetist and saxophonist from Chicago, Illinois. He is remembered for organizing and financing recording sessions with Tommy Ladnier ...
), they often have turned to African-American performance styles, stage presence and personas. Pop culture referencing and cultural appropriation of African-American performance and stylistic traditions is a tradition with origins in blackface minstrelsy.
This "browning", à la Richard Rodriguez
Richard Rodriguez (born July 31, 1944) is an American writer who became famous as the author of '' Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez'' (1982), a narrative about his intellectual development.
Early life
He was born on July 3 ...
, of American and world popular culture began with blackface minstrelsy. It is a continuum of pervasive African-American influence which has many prominent manifestations today, among them the ubiquity of the cool aesthetic and hip hop culture
Hip hop or hip-hop is a culture and art movement that was created by African Americans, Latino Americans and Caribbean Americans in the Bronx, New York City. Hip hop culture is characterized by four key elements: rapping, DJing and turntablis ...
.[MacBroom, Patricia]
"Rap Locally, Rhyme Globally: Hip-Hop Culture Becomes a World-Wide Language for Youth Resistance, According to Course"
News, ''Berkeleyan''. May 2, 2000. Retrieved September 27, 2006.
See also
* Blackface and Morris dancing
Multiple theories exist about the origins of the theatrical practice of blackface. One interpretation is that it can be traced back to traditions connected with Morris dancing.
15th-century Moorish mimicry
The term ''morris'' is believed to ...
* Border Morris
Border Morris is a collection of individual local dances from villages along the English side of the Wales–England border in the counties of Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire. They are part of the Morris dance tradition.
History
T ...
* Brownface
Brownface is a social phenomenon in which a white or light-skinned person attempts to portray themselves as a "brown" person of color, but less overtly and with a lighter complexion than traditional blackface. This may include mimicry of Midd ...
* Censored Eleven
* Coon song
Coon songs were a genre of music that presented a stereotype of black people. They were popular in the United States and Australia from around 1880 to 1920, though the earliest such songs date from minstrel shows as far back as 1848, when they we ...
* Wigger
''Wigger'', or ''wigga'', is a term for a white person of European ethnic origin, who emulates the perceived mannerisms, language, and fashions associated with African-American culture, particularly hip hop. The term is a portmanteau of ''whit ...
* Little Black Sambo
''The Story of Little Black Sambo'' is a children's book written and illustrated by Scottish author Helen Bannerman and published by Grant Richards in October 1899. As one in a series of small-format books called The Dumpy Books for Children ...
* List of blackface minstrel songs
This is a list of songs that either originated in blackface minstrelsy or are otherwise closely associated with that tradition. Songwriters and publication dates are given where known.
A
* " Alabama Joe" (a.k.a. "Shall Trelawney Die") (before ...
* List of blackface minstrel troupes
* List of entertainers known to have performed in blackface
* Negermusik
* Racebending
* Redface
Redface is the wearing of makeup to darken or redden skin tone, or feathers, warpaint, etc. by non-Natives to impersonate a Native American or Indigenous Canadian person, or to in some other way perpetuate stereotypes of Indigenous peoples of ...
* Stereotypes of Africa
Stereotypes and generalizations about Africa, its inhabitants, and their culture have evolved in the Western world since the years of colonial settlement. The idea of Africa's negative stereotypes come from historical and media interactions. Man ...
* Stereotypes of African Americans
Stereotypes of African Americans are misleading beliefs about the culture of people of African descent who reside in the United States, largely connected to the racism and discrimination which African Americans are subjected to. These beliefs ...
* Yellowface
Portrayals of East Asians in American film and theatre has been a subject of controversy. These portrayals have frequently reflected an ethnocentric perception of East Asians rather than realistic and authentic depictions of East Asian cultures, c ...
* Whiteface
* Ralph Northam
Ralph (pronounced ; or ,) is a male given name of English, Scottish and Irish origin, derived from the Old English ''Rædwulf'' and Radulf, cognate with the Old Norse ''Raðulfr'' (''rað'' "counsel" and ''ulfr'' "wolf").
The most common forms ...
* Jewface
Footnotes
Further reading
* Abbott, Lynn, & Seroff, Doug (2008).
Ragged but Right: Black Traveling Shows, "Coon Songs," and the Dark Pathway to Blues and Jazz.
' Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
General
"Bambizzoozled – Blackface in Movies and Television"
Manthia Diawara
"Cape Minstrel Festival Kaapse Klopse"
''Cape Town Magazine''.
Several blog posts from 2004 about blackface stories in the news, from the Colorblind Society
* Louis Chude-Sokei
"The New Era of Blackface"
December 17, 2009
"The History of Racist Blackface Stereotypes
"From Blackface to Beulah: Subtle Subversion in Early Black Sitcoms"
Video: Blackface: History of a Controversy; Blackface in modern society, especially related to school.
Zwarte Piet
Zwarte Piet? – Boom Chicago rap video satire of
Run-DMC's "Christmas in Hollis"
Who's that with Santa? An introduction to Black Peter
"Who is Black Peter?"
from Ferris State University
Ferris State University (FSU or Ferris) is a public university with its main campus in Big Rapids, Michigan. It was founded in 1884 and became a public institution in 1950. Ferris is the ninth-largest institutions of higher education by enrol ...
Zwarte Piet film by Adwa Foundation, Rotterdam, and the Global Afrikan Congress
Zwarte Piet
Balthazar in Spain
WanafriKa's vídeo
Press article "Real Madrid star upholds Spain's commitment to racism"
January 8, 2009.
{{Authority control
African-American cultural history
African-American-related controversies
American culture
Articles containing video clips
Casting controversies in film
Cultural appropriation
Ethnic humour
Race-related controversies
Race-related controversies in film
Race-related controversies in the United States
Race-related controversies in theatre
Stereotypes of African Americans
Theatre characters
Vaudeville tropes