miscellaneous
[interesting trope]Jokes about blackface that avoid actually doing blackface
In Zoolander when Hansel and Derek are in disguise, they are played by other actors. Derek removes his face makeup off screen so Ben Stiller is never seen in blackface except for his neck and ears
In The Neighbors the Weaver family is picking a Halloween costume. During the montage of them trying on options the parents and both daughters are wearing semi formal clothing (business suit, pantsuits etc) looking in the mirror looking disappointed, while Max is dressed as a dog. After a beat one of them says “No one is going to be able to tell we’re the Obamas”. The youngest daughter innocently suggests painting their faces and the parents immediately tell her no. (I hate that I couldn’t find a clip or a picture of this)
One episode of Ellsbeth included a plot point about a model being blackmailed with the negatives from a “cultures around the world” photoshoot where she was in makeup to portray multiple races. The photos are discussed but never seen.
In an episode of the Dick Van Dyke show, Rob and Laura accidentally dye their hands black the morning before attending a gala for “The Committee for Interracial Understanding”. They wear fancy gloves to hide it but then reveal their predicament when Rob is giving a speech.
Similar to Zoolander, in Master of Disguise when Fabbrizzio is disguised as Michael Johnson, he is played by Michael Johnson & his exit from the disguise is covered in a camera flash as he holds up the constitution he just stole.
In a really subtle joke from the office, Michael has an argument with Darryl and dresses up like him to do an insulting impression. While he doesn't do blackface, you can see he has a tiny pit of black makeup on his neck to let you know that he thought about it.
With the way his hair is slicked back wet too, I think the implication was that he did do blackface and was scolded to immediately clean it off. The documentary crew didn't show it for obvious reasons.
The Office has an even more egregious scene with Dwight’s weird Christmas including a character in black face. Dwight covertly calls off the character and we see the warehouse worker with the hearing problem walk sadly back to his car (I don’t remember if he’s in black face there). Later you can see him basically looking like Stiller in the OP
In this episode, a demon chases Pim around the forest until it leads to the Smiling Friends headquarters. When the demon enters, he is accused of doing blackface by the partygoers and has to repeatedly justify that it is just literally his physical appearance. This is to no avail as immediately after this, he is beaten to death, has his limbs torn off, set on fire and has his body devoured by the people at the party
The first time I saw that scene I expected to pull away from the two janitor dudes and show them behind them with like the wrong make up for their complexion and complaining about it to each other.
Sheldon on Big Bang Theory has an internet show called “Fun with Flags” where he shares fun facts about flags throughout world history.
He gets LeVar Burton to guest star on an episode. He shows LeVar a previous episode where Sheldon plays George Washington Carver because he was told it was racist and wants LeVar’s opinion.
We don’t see the video ourselves, but we see LeVar’s reaction to the video, and he’s pissed off within seconds of watching it.
In a 1981 polish comedy "Miś" (Teddy bear) the main character, who is a bald white guy and not so athletic, says to his love interest while watching a basketball game that when he was younger he also was black and played basketball.
Instead of doing blackface to visualise it, they got Kent Washington to hop in for this scene, a real basketball player who played for a few weeks for LA Lakers in 1978 before eventually moving to Poland for a few years.
In Star Trek Lower Decks, Mariner has to do a classic alien infiltration mission. But since she is going undercover as an Orion, let’s just say she’s uncomfortable with the “green face”
Birdie Jay (Glass Onion) suffered a controversy at an unseen Halloween party that's mentioned, "It was supposed to be a Tribute to Beyonce, but people didn't see it that way."
I’d never heard of this episode. For those that don’t know, it’s basically a quantum leap (complete with a Scott Bakula cameo) where the gang magically turns Black, and the reflections of the characters are played by Black actors. The audience sees the main cast as themselves, but every other character sees them as Black.
Depends on your interpretation of blackface, but in Spielberg's 1941 there's a gag where John Candy's character gets sooty exhaust blown in his face and the black guy in the squad starts laughing and tells him to get in the back of the tank.
I hadn't seen that movie, but what you describe makes sense. It's not traditional blackface where a white guy tries to look black. It's just a comedic effect where the punchline is blackface.
Impractical Jokers had a challenge where you had to hand a stranger a business card made by the other guys with an absurd job title that you had to explain and get the stranger to keep your card.
Sal’s card read “Professional Michael Jordan Impersonator”
Sal explains that he hires himself out for parties and describes the process of turning into Jordan.
He has a Bulls jersey, a bald cap, special shoes to make him taller, a basketball, a portable basketball hoop, and “that one final step” that he won’t go into detail on because it’s “an industry secret”
I love that the joke in the Dick Van Dyle show is so clearly anti-blackface. Like it's not 'the showrunners thought it was funny to do this taboo thing', it's 'the taboo thing is taboo for a REASON and if we don't fix this we're fucked.' It feels refreshingly progressive for a mainstream white-helmed show in the 1960s.
IIRC Laura suggests going to the gala and playing it off as a gag, since Rob is a comedy writer and he’s going there to represent his show. He tells her what the gala is for and finds out that she only knew the acronym of the committee, not their full name.
She’s mortified at even the idea that she was suggesting a blackface hand joke at a committee promoting racial equality.
Though in the very same movie, Dana Carvey does black face of an Indian guy. You can make the argument “Indians aren’t black” but it’s still a white dude doing a pretty offensive portrayal of another ethnicity.
In the show community, one of the best episodes got removed because a character dresses like a drow elf for a game of dnd. He even gets called out for doing black face and corrects them saying he's an elf.
In a later episode, another character wears a full stereotypical east Indian outfit complete with turban, brown face, and accent. That episode never got removed
Now while I don't think either episode should be removed, it's still an odd double standard.
Weirdly, the D&D episode is the only example I can think of a literal black face (outside of Varville menstrual shows vaudeville minstrel shows) while not actually being an example of blackface
"Varville menstrual shows" is the best autocorrect error I've ever seen. I'm going to assume you meant "vaudeville minstrel shows", but thank you so much for this laugh 🤣
A lot of the confusion about this is because people forget why blackface is so offensive. Obviously just doing the impression is offensive in its own right, which is true for all races, and is what you're picking up on. But that's not why blackface is so uniquely unacceptable. It's because white America spent about 100 years making blackface (specifically about African Americans) a big, common thing. They were doing it while slavery still existed and then kept doing it in the immediate aftermath. It was a huge part of racial discource during extremely formative years of American racial history, and it was such an ingrained, overly offensive thing that basically every attempt now, no matter how well intentioned, brings it to mind.
It's sort of like how all racial slurs are bad, but there's a reason the N word is the absolute most unacceptable (at least in America). Considering the context and history, blackface is uniquely offensive compared to other racial impressions.
BBC did the same for The Mighty Boosh and removing episodes with The Spirit Of Jazz. The character is a Voodoo ghost in the show but they kept they guys in brown face playing the Latino characters Rudi and Spider
It's an absolute fucking classic of American political discourse that in response to protests against police violence, police got more violent and pancake syrup got a new name.
I saw change as the drow, I think that was on dvd though. He's not even doing blackface, drow are not black like black people they are a black well beyond what akon could be if he lived on the fucking sun. No human being even remotely looks like a drow. The joke was he accidentally did it, I see people at comic cons all the time who are basically dying because of the makeup it takes to get that unnaturally dark and it's never an issue.
In a bit of brilliance, not only does he get called out by everyone for being distasteful, but he immediately dies in the campaign and is forced to leave. It's like the universe itself is punishing him for his hubris.
Brown face is the term for this. Kal Penn’s competition for the role of Taj Mahal (istg that’s the character’s name) was just a white guy in brown face.
We got rid of a white guy doing the Indian accent for apu just to find out that white people raised in India sound like that too. So the problem with apu wasn’t the voice, it was that he wasn’t yellow to match the skin color of his voice actor (who, coincidentally is also not yellow)
Apu didn’t have the wrong skin color, he is a character who is from India. He is not white. In the Simpsons universe white people are yellow, but POC characters have skin color that is more accurate to real life.
No no no. I’m saying that I’ve always been told that “the problem with apu” is that the voice apu did was stereotypical - but it actually is just they way anyone from Indian talks, regardless of skin color.
It is however a valid criticism that a white guy did the voice for a non white character - but that isn’t directly tied to being Indian.
My yellow skin comment is purely to point out the absurdity of requiring an animated character to look like their voice actor when 90% of the simpsons are a skin color that doesn’t exist in real life. Almost none of the voice actors resemble their characters
The physical resemblance doesn’t matter. Jon Benjamin looks nothing like Archer for example.
It’s not about the actor looking like the character it’s about avoiding a white person doing a POC accent.
It’s not even about the actor’s natural accent. It’s ok for a Hispanic person with a neutral American accent to voice a character with a Mexican or Spanish accent.
FWIW they retconned the City Wok guy. He’s not actually Asian, he’s actually just a white guy with multiple personalities. His accent is so stereotypical because he’s always been a white guy doing a bad Chinese accent.
It feels like Ben Stiller projects really know how to walk an offensive line effectively, I have to give credit cause he pulled off black everything but the face in zoolander and straight up black face in tropic thunder (not to mention simple jack) and managed to leave most people laughing and unhurt
The joke is predicated on this not actually being blackface because he's dressed as a completely fictional race of elves that have literally pitch black skin nothing like IRL black people. So technically they did avoid actually doing blackface... sorta
Sorta because unfortunately unless you're familiar with D&D it ends up just coming off like kinda an excuse to get away with it
its such an amazing joke because he's not doing blackface, but people not knowing what a drow is think he is doing blackface and then its also completely insane for this guy to be so invested in a tabletop game he heard about probably the night before and HE DIES IMMEDIATELY so he basically put on that insane makeup for literally like 5 minutes of game time
Also the joke that he put in all that effort on the makeup and the hair, but didn't want to wear armor or any kind of fantasy clothing. Because he's a drow, not a nerd.
Funny how that choice was made in Zoolander, but also this scene also happened. I wonder if they wiped this make up off and then filmed the scene with the computer.
I wonder whether this QUALIFIES as blackface? The intent of this scene is that he is covered in soot and coal, and not trying to necessarily portray himself as a PoC? Isn't he like.. hiding in the dark to scare the other workers for this?
Like.... is every example of being covered with something that artificially darkens your skin considered blackface? know what I mean?
Genuine question for exploration, obv not trying to like DEFEND blackface or anything.
In MGS3 your weapons expert is black, sigint aka Donald anderson. If you wear the black face paint he pauses for a long time about it. It's not intentional it's just a holdover from translation I think, but its really funny regardless. Dude is also the one black guy in a Japanese game, he all but calls you homie, he is a complete stereotype becuse japan i guess doeant have black people?
if just being covered in dark stuff counts as blackface
And Predator, and a couple of Flash villains, and Batman, Eddie Brock and almost anyone with the venom symbiote, Peter parker when he wears the black suit, Spider-Noir, ninjas, the japanese stage hands that people dress up as because they think those are ninjas, the black knight, 3d models of people of color in videogames since they are 3d models covered with a texture, Darth Vader, almost anyone wearing a balaclava, almost anything that has been painted with a dark color, anything that's been in a fire, my nails, my underwear, etc.
There are several examples in this thread of unintentional blackface like the golden girls or soap examples. The Zoolander one is interesting because he also covers his clothes (which were white and blue) in soot, so it’s clear he’s not just painting his skin.
I always thought the joke with having different actors play the characters was that they're male models so they're so good at makeup, they can completely transform. I never thought of it as an avoiding blackface thing. But I haven't seen the movie since at least 3 US presidents ago so who knows.
Crazy bc there's some nuts brown face in Master of Disguise but they obviously knew it wasn't cool to do blackface but they let the brown face fly? Damn
In the TV show “Get Shorty,” the leads find an old photo of a Halloween costume and use it to blackmail a white actress. It’s never seen but it is referenced to be Oprah
Would Community's infamous D&D scene count? Chang is wearing black (not brown) facepaint (and a white wig, and pointed prosthetic ears) to look like a Drow, while Shirley and Netflix think he's doing blackface.
The Neighbors mentioned! I used to really like that show as a kid. Although, this joke confused me so hard. I had no idea why the parents were so against the idea of painting their faces to look like the Obamas 🙃
In a scene during the first “heist” in Sneakers, River Phoenix’s character is, well, “sneaking” into the bank and has, appropriately, put dark camo paint on his face, but there’s a scene where he sidles up to Sidney Poitier, and Sidney gives him a master-class-grade double-take. It’s easily my fav moment. Kills me every time.
Newsradio had an episode with a fire in the starewell. Bill attempts to flee by the stairwell the returns covered in black soot. Dave looks at him and says…
“You know, I think talking pictures are going to ruin Hollywood."
Nope, I just misremembered the scene. I was thinking of the gag where you see him taking off coal dust with a massive amount of cotton balls.
I saw the comment that u/unicorntrees posted and I thought that by that point all the miners were covered in coal and Derek was just goofing around.
Wasn’t till I looked it up and saw the full clip where you see his dad’s reaction and the level of dirtiness the other miners are at that I realized Derek painted himself black to hide in shadow.
It’s been awhile since I saw it last but I don’t remember this moment. Maybe it was deleted on the TV edit? Idk.
In Murdoch Mysteries, Al Jolson (yes, Al Jolson, this show is weird) shows up as a character in an episode and helps solve a murder. During the episode he keeps complaining that his double act with his brother is over and he needs a new gimmick for his vaudeville. At the end of the episode he invites one of the main characters to see his new act and starts applying black makeup on the side of his face.
In a cutaway gag from the first 30 Rock live episode, Jon Hamm played a white actor donning blackface in an Amos n Andy parody. Kind of. Jon Hamm had just the tiniest bit of black makeup on to imply that--in universe--his character is in blackface, without actually putting on blackface himself.
There's a Zulu on my Stoep - as the most convenient way of infiltrating their nemesis' neonazi gathering without being recognized, a black and white pair of friends do an elaborate full rubber mask race switch makeover.
The quality of the makeup is not what makes it blackface. If a white person uses makeup to look like a black person, that’s blackface.
It’s also doesn’t have to be intended to mockery. White actors painting their face to play Othello weren’t trying to mock Black people, but they were still doing blackface.
Do you know the origins of blackface? Minstrel performers put a lot of effort into their mockery. It being high effort is completely irrelevant, and it being a disguise is not sufficient to separate it from the ongoing history of the mockery
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u/Temporary_Lead926 15h ago
In a really subtle joke from the office, Michael has an argument with Darryl and dresses up like him to do an insulting impression. While he doesn't do blackface, you can see he has a tiny pit of black makeup on his neck to let you know that he thought about it.