Is it “The Searchers” where the young lead kicks an Indian woman down a hill while John Wayne guffaws?
You just shake your head and move on.
Edit: Then there’s Eddie Murphy’s standup film all of some 32 years old where his opening bit is about “faggots looking at my ass” and “but I love faggots, I really do. Women want faggots to be their best friends…”
Shake head, move on.
Not to hijack this interesting thread, but I just read this article about black stuntmen and the discrimination they *still *face due to the practice of “painting down”.
I had a very similar experience to the OP when recently I saw the Astaire/Rogers movie Swing Time for the first time. Lots of blackface.
I didn’t react quite the same, thinking what a recent movie it was, and I guess it doesn’t have the G-rated sunshine and lollipops reputation as Holiday Inn. I just kind of shook my head and thought, Good God, things were different to a surreal degree back then.
I suppose it depends on what counts as “famous.” From my point of view, the blackface scene in Holiday Inn is what I would call “somewhat well-known.” That is, folks who make a habit of being familiar with movies of that era probably know about it. I imagine that more casual movie-goers wouldn’t.
One reason for that is that the blackface scene is frequently cut out when the film is shown on TV. That’s easy to do, because it’s just one scene. Mickey Rooney’s Mr. Yunioshi is scattered throughout Breakfast at Tiffany’s, making him much harder to cut out.
So I suspect that may be why the case of Holiday Inn is not more notorious. Because even people who have seen it may not have seen that number. Even if you watch the film on TV every Christmas, you might not see that song.
That said, I have to admit I was somewhat surprised at the OP’s surprise. In my circles, the fact that Holiday Inn contained a blackface number is pretty well-known, and somewhat infamous. I guess I was a little shocked that this was not more well-known than it is. I’ll admit that my circles include that fact that my wife is both black, and huge fan of Irving Berlin. That does tend to skew the data somewhat, I suppose. 
Speaking of Mickey Rooney, he and Judy Garland also did a blackface number in Babes on Broadway (1941). It doesn’t take much Googling to find pictures and even YouTube clips.
A) It’s not okay, B) nobody knows anything about history, and C) everybody was xxxist in some ways in the past. Everybody. Nobody’s exempt. Don’t read a biography of anybody because some aspect of their life will be unacceptable today.
We’ve talked about this in other threads. How are you supposed to think when you find that X used to grope women in public or Y beat her kids or Z was a notorious anti-Semite? What do you make of books that casually throw around nigger or fag or wop or kike? Can you enjoy movies with Willie Best or Stepin Fetchit as minor characters?
The answer, of course, is “I don’t know” or “I draw lines” or “I have to say it’s okay because that’s the way the past was” or whatever gets you through the day without your head exploding or refusing to look at anything historical prior to the beginning of this sentence. Once you start righteously or rightfully condemning, where do you stop? I don’t know. I read and watch lots and lots of works from the previous century and to get through it I put little tick marks against the various boxes that are offensive and then concentrate on the rest because I can’t think of any other way to study history at all. Yet history is supremely important and there are times when you have to assemble all those little boxes and remind people that they were omnipresent. People who really would rather not be reminded and will proceed to forget as soon as possible.
The past is a different country.
I don’t watch movies from the golden age. I love musicals, but I don’t dig those kind of musicals.
One Christmas I went up to NJ to spend the holiday at my aunt and uncle’s with them and my cousins. My (white) cousin Sue was in a serious relationship with a (black) man named Kevin, who had a young daughter from a previous relationship. I’ll say she was 4 at the time. At one point, Kevin, his daughter, and I were in the TV room watching Holiday Inn (on network TV), when suddenly…blackface scene! He and I had both completely forgotten about it, and almost immediately his little girl asked, “What’s wrong with that lady’s face?” We just stared at each other for a moment, completely speechless and kind of panicking, because how do you explain blackface to a 4-year-old?? But before either of us could think of anything to say, she explained it to herself: “Oh, she’s just wearing too much lipstick.” We both gave big sighs, and let it go at that. I don’t think it ever came up again.
I don’t watch the movie, because I think it’s a stupid movie. The blackface bit is uncomfortable, but a product of the time, so it doesn’t surprise me any more than someone slapping a woman around in a film noir surprises me. It certainly doesn’t rise to the level of “famous”. The only ‘famous’ scene I can think of for either genre is Cagney smashing a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face in Public Enemy. Condescension towards - and abuse of - women was common enough in multitudes of old films that I’m surprised when it doesn’t happen.
I understand your uncomfortable surprise, though. I remember buying the John Wayne movie “The Fighting Seabees” to show my kids. It’s not historically accurate, but since I was a Seabee, I thought they might get a kick out of it. I had forgotten about the scene where Wayne refers to Japanese soldiers as “Tojo’s bug-eyed monkeys”, and the several scenes of Japanese soldiers depicted as evil-looking buck-toothed heathens with thick glasses. I had to do some 'splaining.
I wouldn’t say a “lot”; it’s just one number. And it’s very obviously a tribute to Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, a dancer who Astaire greatly admired. And while he does have the black make-up, there isn’t the accenting of the lips and such that was more “minstrel” in nature. Similarly, he doesn’t do any of the shuffle-type moves that you equate with that kind of impersonation. In fact, it may be Astaire’s single greatest moment as a solo dancer on film. The routine is a marvel of choreography and technical virtuosity. Simply stunning.
Unfortunately, it’s still very uncomfortable to watch, which is a shame because it’s easily one of the great film musicals overall as well. For while it’s very clear that Astaire meant it as an homage, it just comes across as a misguided one in hindsight. But I guess if you had to single out one movie that’s genuinely great despite the use of blackface (in the sound era), this would be the one.
For those who think blackface minstrels were a thing of the distant past, The Black and White Minstrel show ran on British television as recently as the late 70s, and toured for another decade. And yes, it was deeply, deeply offensive: somewhat ironically, black comedian Lenny Henry got his start on the show, and unironically hated it.
Those movies reflected society at the time. The reality was much worse.
A textbook example of why you should never read the comments on YouTube. As I knew there would be, there are several people assuring us that nobody was ever offended by this sort of good old-fashioned wholesome entertainment, and why can’t the PC brigade just mind their own business?
Weird, I’ve never discussed Holiday Inn without also discussing the blackface in it.
Really didn’t think it was some hidden secret everybody had agreed to ignore for a holiday classic movie (I’m not a huge fan of the movie even ignoring that scene).
They do things foreignly there.
I guess it seemed like a lot; in my memory it was a lot. Thanks for the clarification.
It comes at the very end of the film, so it’s understandable the lasting impression it might make.
Minstrel shows were quite popular up to at least WWII. Ignoring the racial element, they were quite entertaining: songs, and Mr. Bones was very funny.
Note that blackface was considered by most to be merely makeup. It indicated a minstrel show in my the same way that whiteface indicates a mime. Even all-Black minstrel shows (yes, they did exist, usually performing for all-Black audiences) used blackface. People attending didn’t think of the racism involved; for most, it would have been complaining the portrayal of Klingons on Star Trek: Klingons aren’t real, so why the fuss? Similarly, the characters in Minstrel shows were not real – it was actors in makeup.
Of course the image is offensive today, but it was less soback when Holiday Inn came out. The New York Times made no mention of the number (it called Crosby “the most casually amusing minstrel in films,” though that referred to the definition of minstrel=singer, not a minstrel show). An earlier article included photos of the film, including Crosby and Astaire in blackface.
Ultimately, it all boils down to what I always say: the hardest things for people to understand is that people in the past thought differently. Yes, right now, it’s racist and embarrassing to watch. But that doesn’t mean that its original audience – of any race – thought it was anything other then entertaining.
A Montreal theater company used an actor in blackface to portray Canadiens star P.K. Subban.
But it was a more innocent time! :rolleyes:
The ‘Controversy’ section causes my head to hurt. The Beeb actually wised up and tried to cancel it a decade before they did (because of a lot of people pointing out that it was rather racist)…only to have the replacement (the same show without the blackface) tank, so they brought the Minstrel Show back. That is 100% insane.