Watching the video, it sounds like the host and the audience immediately understood when Connick said that the group could not get away with that act in the United States.
I’m going to say “not racist” since to me that word implies intent. Since a bunch of Australians can reasonably plead ignorance, I’m going to write it off as that. Honestly, I’d bet more than half of Americans don’t know what a “minstrel show” was; certainly most of the younger ones wouldn’t. (They probably know that it’s a bad idea for a white guy to put on black makeup, but not why.)
And certainly, I can see why aussies would look at this video of Harry Connick Jr. in something awfully close to blackface and see hypocrisy.
For some reason the Jackson Jive video sets off my cringe reflex, but the other one not so much. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to have to explain the difference, though.
Is there a message board, or website, or perhaps a phamplet with a full list of all the things that the rest of the world has to tread carefully around so as not to upset the Americans?
Remember people, we have to be careful not to upset those 'mericans!
Here, let me get you started.
- Racism
When that one’s handled come back, I got more.
I am not American. À la MrDribble
That’s “MrDibble”
smack:
Where are you getting either of those things from Connick? He was absolutely graceful about the whole thing, he made a point of saying it was clear that there was no racist intent, and that it just made him personally uncomfortable. He gave them a low score, but only slightly lower than the Australian judge who halted the act in the first place.
I agree with the general sentiment that an Australian show created entirely for Australian audiences shouldn’t have to cater to American sensibilities. But if you’re going to go out of your way to include an American as a part of the show, for the specific reason of asking him what he thinks about the show, and you show him something that violates a huge taboo in American culture, you can’t act too shocked when he says he didn’t like it.
I don’t see this as a cultural-specific faux paus at all. Are Aussies that far removed from the rest of the world that they can’t see why white guys parodying black entertainers like this would be offensive to some people? Don’t buy it for a sec.
You don’t have to have a degree in minstrel shows to see that there is a big difference between impersonating a person who happens to be black (e.g. Hammond imitating Jackson, or the guy who plays Obama on SNL ) and making fun of a person because they are black. This “Jackson Jive” group appeared to be doing the later because of the sloppy way they went about dressing themselves up. For that reason, it doesn’t matter that minstrel shows existed in the past. If minstrel shows had never existed, I still would find this act distasteful.
Last time I checked, brown paint is just as cheap as black paint, and would be a much more accurate portrayal of the Jackson family skin tone. Yet this ship of fools went for the blackest paint that they could find. Why? Probably because their act wouldn’t be as “funny” if they used brown paint, and they were trying to be funny. 'Cuz black people have black skin and that’s funny, har har! Pile on the afros and little else needs to be said, right? Comedy gold. Whatever.
Gimme a break. Michael Jackson’s skin was on the dark side of pale 20 years ago, but that didn’t stop them from mimicking him in literal black face when they did this act back then. It’s when you see crap that you realize race is being used as the butt of an unfunny joke.
And to portray them by posing in blackface. Nope, nothing wrong with that! :rolleyes:
WTF??? He wasn’t wearing any make-up there: the caption even says he was playing a WHITE southern evangelical preacher. :rolleyes:
Er… that’s Red Symons. He’s supposed to give low scores. It’s his schtick.
Having just watched the clip, I think people are overreacting. They were making fun of Michael Jackson - I don’t think that exaggerating the change in his skin colour is that surprising.
Do you know any black people other than through media and pop culture?
This isn’t the first case of outrage over such black stereotypes. As indicated above, the “Golliwog” figure is seen as racist in the US. See here, for instance:
http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/golliwog/
(The whole website is interesting:
Jim Crow Museum of Racist Imagery)
or here:
I’m surprised there hasn’t been more of an outcry over the use of the golliwog in the League of Extraordinary Gentlen: The Black Dossier, but perhaps that’s too much of a niche market.
In any event, I recall several outcries, at different times, over the Japanese Dakko-Chan dolls, which look an awful lot like Golliwogs
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/32149
(Picture, too, about 2/3 of the way down):
So there’s plenty of history regarding these images and international repercussions when they’re used abroad (generally when someone tries to bring them to the US – we typically don’t notice them until they’re brought here). But the objections aren’t just from outraged Americans – Britain’s the Black and White Minstrel Show was apparently protested by British petitions:
Other examples of Blackface caricature abroad that has been criticized:
More likely, everyone’s too terrified of Alan Moore to complain. With good reason.
How can folks say this was a tribute to the Jackson 5 when absolutely NO attempt was made for them to look like the Jackson 5. I think what some folks are missing is that it IS racist to simply slap on some VERY black makeup and afro wigs and do an impoersonation of a black group. It just does not compute. And Connick was being very fair, he was there to judge a give his opinions, and he, as an American found it offensive and for good reason.
What are your thoughts on the guy who was parodying MJ whose face was smeared with shoe-polish 20 years ago even though Michael looked like this? If you didn’t see that part of the video, go back and watch it. Doesn’t that seem a bit…off? Like, it was so unnecessary given that the red jacket and his hair established well enough who he was spoofing. The guy’s Indian, so it’s highly likely he was dark enough back then to pass himself as MJ sans the face paint. The thought probably never occurred to them, though.
Or talk like them, for that matter (with the exception of the MJ character, I guess). The dudes in the back might as well have been imitating the crows on Dumbo. Sounded nothing like Jermaine et al. The Jacksons have midwestern accents and almost all of them have voices that run on the falsetto side.
From Wikipedia -“The Black and White Minstrel Show was a British television series that ran from 1958 until 1978”. It was cancelled because of complaints of racism. This show was shown in New Zealand and I assume Australia. Hey Hey it is Saturday was an awful show which was always 20 years behind the times. It is disingenuous of any informed Australian to say that this skit was innocent humour. Only the ignorant bogans or racists are saying it. There are a lot of ignorant bogans who really do not think that the skit was racist. Hopefully they have learnt something.
I didn’t see anything from Connick indicating he thought they shouldn’t have done it. What he said was that they couldn’t do something like that in America, and he wouldn’t have gone on the show if he’d known they were doing it. (Not because they shouldn’t do it, but because as a representative of America he shouldn’t be there.)
I actually do think they shouldn’t have done it–the content is racist on its face, regardless of the history of similar images in America. It’s also doubtful that their costumes were historically unconnected to American blackface. The resemblance was too exact.
Plus it wasn’t even good. The whole thing seemed to be “look at these white guys with darkened faces!” There was a funny sketch based on the MJ/Bashir interview–Rowan Atkinson played Bashir (with darkened skin) and Lenny Henry played MJ (he’s black and he whitened his face completely), which was hilarious. Plus it’s not like the entire thing was, “Look, we changed our skin!” – they had some other parts.
No arguments there. I remember seeing it when I visited Australia in '99 (before moving here) and thinking “Wow, I didn’t realise Australian TVs all came with Past-O-Rama™! It’s like watching TV in the 1970s!” (especially since other shows on at the time included things like A Country Practice).
“Racist” is a pretty strong word which implies a degree of malice or strong dislike towards another ethnic group. And since Australians generally have no experience with African-Americans (and therefore no reason to dislike them), I’d hardly call a Blackface skit “Racist”. I don’t think anyone disagrees it’s racially insensitive, but since the number of African-Americans in this country can quite probably be counted in the low hundreds, I think rather a lot of people in Australia would respond to the “racially insensitive” thing with “Yeah, and?”
I read a story one of of the Australian news websites yesterday in which a social commentator observed that, realistically, 10% of people who saw the sketch were offended, 30% thought they should be offended because of the 10% who were, and 60% of people weren’t offended and think the whole thing has gotten way out of context.