Can’t see a thread on this yet, apologies if it’s been done…
On Wednesday night (October 7th), a television show called Hey Hey It’s Saturday went to air here in Australia. It’s intended to be a family friendly variety show.
One of the segments on this show is called Red Faces, where ordinary members of the public can get up and do some sort of short act (the act is usually intended to be funny in some sort of way). Each act then gets judged by three judges.
On Wednesday night’s show, a group of contestants performed a skit which they titled “The Jackson Jive”.
After the skit was over, visiting American singer Harry Connick Jnr, acting as one of the three judges, expressed his disgust at the skit. He gave it a score of zero (out of 10), and then said something along the lines of “If you tried something like that in the US, it would be a case of ‘Hey hey, you don’t have a show anymore’”. Connick was also quoted as telling the host of the show “I just wanted to say on behalf of my country, I know it was done in humour … but we have spent so much time trying to not make black people look like buffoons, that when we see something like that we take it really to heart”.
Australian media is covering this story quite heavily, and in the US, it appears to have been featured on The View.
IMO… I don’t believe it’s racist, but am willing to concede that such a skit probably wouldn’t go down well to an American audience, where race is is seen as a far more sensitive issue.
I think Connick’s point was valid, and his reasoning sound. I’m fine with him and his decision.
So yeah- it may not have been thought to be racist by the group performing, but Connick’s point of how it’d go over in the US is quite correct.
It could easily offend some people. So I’m in agreement with the guy- he concedes it wouldn’t go over well in the US, and I totally agree there.
**Ro0sh ** and El Kabong you seem largely to miss the point. I don’t think anyone doubts that the skit would be met in the US with the reaction that Connick thought it would. The OP explicitly concedes this point. But is the skit racist and exactly why and how? I’d like to hear some solid reasoning on the point.
Every famous act gets parodied. To me it seems racist to assume that parodying an act whose members are black must be making black people generally “look like buffoons” where parodying some other act whose members are not black would not be assumed to be a comment on all non-black people.
Listening to people discussing this on the radio and constantly hearing how this sort of thing is taboo in America it made me wonder. I’ve never heard complaints about Fred Armisen wearing dark makeup to play Obama. Although I have to say, if I was a guest judge on “Hey Hey It’s Saturday” I would have been uncomfortable too.
In the U.S. there’s a context that the blackface minstrel show comes with four centuries of baggage that you can’t really escape. In Australia this sketch is on an extremely daggy retro-variety thing where they’re reenacting an act that they did on that programme 25 years ago.
The denotation’s the same but the connotation is completely different.
Was the sketch intended to be racist? No. Could someone be offended by it? Certainly. Would the show’s audience have associated the act with racist behaviour? Generally not. Would another one with a different set of ethno-sociographic baggage? Obviously, yes.
So who should be catered to? The audience of the show, or those who might see context-free excerpts of it from half a world away?
How is it not racist? They didn’t even try to look like actual black people, they just slathered on the darkest make up they could. Then they put on ridiculous wigs and then they acted like idiots. Hurr hurr darkies, right?
It’s racism and it’s not even subtle racism, I don’t even understand what the debate is here. Is it ok if they paint themselves yellow and put in fake buckteeth and cone shaped hats? What the hell?
Maybe since it’s Australia and they don’t have issues with black people it’s ok. Oh, wait…
From what I saw of the skit (it is getting heavily featured in the US media) it wasn’t just that the performers were wearing makeup to look black, it was that the make up was far to reminiscent of “minstrel shows” popular through the early 20th Century that, frankly, make black people look like idiots and buffoons for purposes of entertainment. Yes, it was clearly intended to be a parody and, as Mr. Connick stated, it seems apparent that it was meant in a humorous vein, but because of the manner in which the performers were made up and costumed it would, to any American, recall an era with the Klu Klux Klan and public lynchings as much as it would remind them of the Jackson Five. It brings to mind things that most Americans are, quite frankly, embarrassed about, feel are fundamentally wrong, and have no desire to see again.
Not only do many of white folks find it embarrassing and offensive, I wouldn’t be surprised if many black Americans find minstrel shows threatening to some degree because of the strong link to the Jim Crow era in the US.
I will also add, as someone who lives in Michael Jackson’s home town, that their portrayal of Michael Jackson in “whiteface” is offensive to many here and seen as a mockery of a medical condition, particularly as when the Jackson Five were performing Michael Jackson was not yet suffering from vitiligo. Needless to say, a disease affecting skin color stirs up strong feelings in a community historically oppressed because of their skin color. I don’t pretend to have a first hand understanding of all those issues, but I can certainly perceive that those issues are volatile and at times painful to black Americans.
In sum, there is no way the vast majority of Americans could see that skit as anything BUT offensive. It was painful even to watch portions of it. They have certainly pissed off black Americans, about 1/5 of the population here.
Even a careful attempt at a white man portraying a black man such as Robert Downey, Jr. in Tropic Thunder is a minefield in the US and controversial.
If it had been black people doing that skit it probably wouldn’t have been as offensive.
If it had been white people making a serious attempt to actually make themselves look like people of African descent it might not have been as offensive.
But, as I said, they looked like a blackface minstrel show. Such “humor” was part of a highly racist era in the US and the jokes and “humor” in such routines were part of what perpetuated racist and damaging stereotypes in this country and kept blacks “in their place”. Really, it’s about on part with standing up and reciting the N-word and other racist epithets, or showing up with white hoods and nooses in public.
It is not that they were parodying the Jackson Five, it was the manner in which it was done that was offensive.
I’m sorry if you are having trouble understanding just how viscerally repugnant that skit was to people in the US, but it is. Clearly, there are some cultural differences here.
If it had been ME sitting there judging that skit I’m not even sure I could have waited until they finished to protest.
As an Australian, I can tell you, I have never heard of a “minstrel show” before. We have no history here of a touring act painting their faces black and making black people look like buffoons (at least no instance of it that exists in the public consciousness).
Hence, if a group of American performers, fully aware of America’s racial taboos, went on American television and performed that act, you probably couldn’t help but conclude they were either being deliberately racist, or mind-bogglingly ignorant (yes, I understand the overlap between the two concepts).
But as an Australian act performing to an Australian audience… not racist. No way.
Still, I note that this was a reunion/nostalgia show for a TV show and that the group were doing the same sketch that they did 25 years ago, only with the guy (of Indian ethnicity) playing Michael being in whiteface instead of darkface. This was only a few years after repeats of the (British) Black and White Minstrel Show were still considered family viewing on evening TV.
A major difference is that when Fred Armisen portrays Barack Obama his makeup is to make him look as much as possible like a real person. The skin tone is not exaggerated, for example, but a pretty close to that of the President. His hair is done to resemble the style actually worn by Mr. Obama (I’m assuming it’s some sort of wig). As it happens Mr. Armisen’s facial features are closer to those of Mr. Obama than those of many black actors/comediens (not too puzzling given the PotUS is of mixed heritage). Many black comedians portraying Obama would have to wear make up to lighten their skin tone, but, again, that would likely only be acceptable if it was done in a realistic manner that actually brought their appearance closer to Obama’s.
Saturday Night Live has also had white performers portray Jesse Jackson and Sammy Davis Jr. but in those cases as well the makeup made the performers look like the people they were portraying. It wasn’t some white dude slapping on blackface and wearing a wig that looked like a black dishmop.
Even so, ALL of those portrayals, including Armisen’s, have been controversial even if that hadn’t made it into the international news. I will cite this Washington Post article from February of 2008 for a few such issues and how they are aired in the US.
The people in the skit in Australia, as mentioned, wore exaggerated blackface and obviously fake wigs. Except for the one man who wore exaggerated whiteface and looked like clown. There is no way that could NOT offend Americans.
Even if this was the first blackface minstrel show ever in the history of Australia it’s still offensive. Why? Ask yourself this, why are blackface minstrel shows in the US offensive? It’s not just because they were done in the past. It’s because they are making fun of black people for being black. They are creating caricatures of black people (exactly like they were doing in the skit) so that people will laugh at them. It’s the intent, not the history, and the intent here was the same. Our very first blackface show was just as offensive as our very last one, and the same holds for Australia.
Yes, that makes complete sense. It’s not like Americans talk about minstrel shows much any more, you certainly don’t seem them broadcast, and when they are mentioned they are roundly condemned. You are correct, there is no reason an Australian would be familiar with that.
Racism and prejudice are not rational things. Even an educated, worldly American well aware that Australians are not likely to have ever heard of a minstrel show will still have a kneejerk reaction of “that’s racist”. It’s not rational, but it does exist. As Mr. Connick said, it was intended to be humorous. Personally, I don’ t think any offense was intended - nonetheless, it was offensive to a substantial number of people.
I wish I had a good analogy, but I’m not sure what an Australian would find equally offensive if done in innocence/ignorance by someone in another country.
Most of the explanations so far amount to “it’s offensive because it just is” or “yes Connick was right that it would be seen as offensive”, neither of which amounts to spit.
The explanations that make sense (thanks, **Broomstick **and others) amount to saying that the skit was a reminder of embarrassing history. I can see that. Of course, that doesn’t make the skit racist in itself.
You miss the point. It wasn’t a “blackface minstrel” skit, nor was it making fun of black people for being black: it was making fun of the Jacksons, a cultural icon that is not and should not be exempt from parody merely because they are black.
They probably look a bit minstrel-ish, because their makeup and costuming was complete crap, but that is because the Red Faces segment comprises amateurs doing very amateurish things on a budget of about $5.
[HIJACK]It’s entirely possible that this is the first time that those words have ever been strung together in that order[/HIJACK]
(For Americans, Andrew Bolt is a loony-right columnist with the rational, analytic mind of Glenn Beck and the calm, controlled, common sense of Anne Coulter)
I didn’t realize it was supposed to be a funny skit. I thought it was going to be a serious rendition of a song. They said it was a tribute to MJ and it looked like they were making light of his skin condition. what?
Largely the point of that segment. The humour came from how badly the acts are willing to embarrass themselves on national TV - a fact which was not typically conveyed to the guest judges.
For reference, the winner of that segment from the week before (it’s a two-week nostalgia thing) was a 12-year-old kid whose act largely consisted of coating his entire body with Vegemite.