By coincidence, I just came across this video of Pat Paulsen in blackface protesting ethnic humor. Merv Griffin Show, 1974, supposedly never aired. Not safe for work, in case there’s any doubt.
http:/ /www.youtube.com/watch?v=04BhAxBNWIo
Maybe after more sleep I can word more original query slightly more intelligently: So, if it’s not ok now to mock blacks by dressing up as blacks, why is it ok to mock women by dressing up as women, as Travolta is doing in this movie?
Already answered: he’s not mocking women.
“Monroe Silver the Heavenly Hebe?”
“Cohen Owes Me 97 Dollars?”
“Under The Matzos Tree?”
I’m sorry, I may go to hell, but that’s some funny shit. 
Seriously, though, this is ironic in light of the fact that the most famous blackface performer in history is probably Al Jolson, a Jew. Did all the hated ethnic minorities in America just take turns picking on each other?
Jolson wasn’t “picking on” blacks, and he wasn’t a racist. Minstrel shows were part of the times.
Read:
Ethnic humor is back in force, that’s for sure.
The answer is probably yes. The Marx Brothers (Jewish) began their careers doing ethnic comedy, and they had a famous uncle who did the same thing.
According to the liner notes of that album, Jewish minstral shows were primarily performed by Jews for Jewish audiences.
Around these parts it’s also very common for Lady Brakcnell in The Importance of Being Ernest to be played by a man. And ever since (the recently deceased) William Hutt and John Neville did an “OMG, I’m busting a gut laughing” turn on stage as Martha and Abby Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace, I find it rare to see a production where the murderous, little, old ladies are not played by aging men.
I saw that original production and it was awesome.
There was also a production of King Lear where the title role was played by a woman. I was told it was an interesting experiment.
There’s a lot of that. I saw a Wellesley production of “Waiting for Godot” with an all-female cast. They also did a sex-changed “Taming of the Shrew” (which let them substitute “Peter” jokes for all the “Kate/cat” jokes.)
I don’t know if sending up ethnic stereotypes is the definition of blackface, since if it were, then you couldn’t say that the guy from rowrrbazzle’s link is in blackface, and he so clearly is. Furthermore, you’d have to say that Jamie Kennedy’s archetypal, nameless black characters are blackface characters - and they aren’t; neither are the other black characters played by non-black comedians in other sketch comedies, such as “Little Britain”.
EDIT: Why can’t there just not be an equivalent “whiteface”? Blackface is a specific phenomenon that grew out of a particular history - there doesn’t have to be an equivalent for every group.
I saw “Hamlet: Princess of Denmark” in college. That was the only switched role, though.
Chico Marx’ character was an Italian-immigrant stereotype, I believe.
I dunno what Harpo was.
Exactly right.
Before he stopped speaking, he was Irish. It’s less surprising if you know his wig was red. And Groucho played a German character - until the sinking of the Lusitania made those unpopular, so the story goes, at which time he began developing his signature persona.
Divine played the male character Hilly Blue in the film Trouble in Mind. He got good notices (I remember praise from Siskel and Ebert) and that combined with his performance in “Hairspray” had him poised to break out of his typecasting straightjacket just before his unfortunate death.
I think it is some part of the humor, but not so much “Hee hee, his fake boobs are falling out!” More like, it’s a way of putting the character even further over the top. The Monty Python guys in drag never failed to amuse me, because the characters were generally sendups of middle-class British respectability. If a woman had played those roles, she would have seemed too normal.
Likewise, Mike Myers once played Queen Elizabeth II to such scathingly hilarious effect, I was disappointed that “she” did not become a recurring character. And again, I think it would have been less funny if a woman had been playing her, because the sketch was a monologue in which QEII lists the terms of Diana’s divorce settlement. A man can portray a real-life female as being that nasty and vindictive and still be funny; a woman really can’t.
However, David Spade and Adam Sandler as the Gap Girls, a recurring sketch from the same era, I found so irritating I could not watch it. It was not a particularly funny sketch to begin with, drag added nothing, and it did seem, at least to me, that women were being mocked. I could never understand why people seemed to love that sketch, while apparently rejecting the Delta Delta Delta* sketch. Great: they’re shallow and bitchy. How about making it funny? And speak up, for crying out loud. I didn’t realize mumbling was a key component of drag.
Actually, I think what it comes down to is that cross-dressing ages men and youths women. A woman playing a younger man is not particularly funny, and a woman playing an older man is perfectly ridiculous. A man playing an older woman is funny, because he becomes a caricature. A man playing a woman his own age or younger is stupid and usually offensive, because there’s no way he looks like a girl, and only the negative aspects of the character are evident.
And CalMeacham, I don’t think JSexton was splitting a hair. That was the premise, such as it was, of the film: these guys had to go undercover as women. The audience was not supposed to think they were women; only the other characters were supposed to believe it.
*Yeah, I know there’s going to be someone who’ll say, “Are you kidding? That sketch SUCKED!” Sorry to say, I’ve known girls like that, and it was no exaggeration.
I don’t think so. I think there’s a significant difference between actual people dresing up in makeup, and film characters who dress up in makeup.
The former is engaging in social commentary at some level, the latter is simply a plot point.
If you would like to the argument that drag in fact is like blackface, it’s been made by Kelly Kleinman, among others. I think it was more popular in the early 70s; I believe Robin Morgan made the case first. I always thought it represented the worst sort of reductive reasoning, myself.
One thing that it’s important to remember is that drag, as a coherent cultural thing within the queer community, was invented not by just any men, but by men who were already being victimized for transgression of gender roles. Blackface didn’t come out of an oppressed community; drag did.
Rather than reinforcing oppression, as blackface does, it subverts oppression by saying, if you’re belittling us by how we present our gender, we’re going to go all out. It’s like Quentin Crisp said: if the world calls you effeminate, you have to think of some way to show you know you are, otherwise they keep telling you.