I think Sarah Silverman’s basically a good person, and I’m taking her at her word that there is some context that’s probably missing, but nevertheless, “edgy” comedy is risky and she knew that. And by edgy, I don’t mean to be an apologist, either. Sometimes risky comedy isn’t just perceived as offensive; it actually is offensive.
Saying a person is a “black guy” is offensive now? When did that happen?
I have no idea. Ask Ultravires.
This is one of the consequences of deliberately and disingenuously removing all nuance from symbolism and language in order to use it as a bludgeon. Hopefully, at some point, reason will prevail.
Weird time that I agree with you. She should have just owned it and said “Yeah, so? It was satire” No matter how woke you are, there are always going to be people who are “more woke” that will criticize you.
Well, from the link in that article to another interview she gave last year, it seems she doesn’t actually think it was good satire:
ISTM that the self-righteous people here are the ones thinking Silverman needs to “own” something she’s explicitly chosen to disown and even feels “horrified” by. You personally don’t need to be horrified by her blackface sketch of twelve years ago if that’s not how you feel about it, but you don’t get to tell her how she should feel about it.
In my experience this only happens with white folks who have zero experience around non-white people and think that there is some kind of special set of rules they have to follow in order avoid being bigoted.
As an example, about a year ago a guy I work with tangentially went on a rant about how he can’t ask one of his employees if he was Puerto Rican because the employee would then file an HR complaint against him for racism. Nothing I said could dissuade him from this belief until said employee walked by and I asked the question myself. What resulted was a pleasant conversation with employee about Puerto Rico while employees boss stormed off fully convinced he was going to get an HR complaint.
It takes place in Asia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8ehjt-ZH_oI saw the movie Good Boys over the weekend and it’s about the misadventures of three boys who are about 11-12 years old. One is African-American and according to the Wikipedia article, the person who was his stand-in was also African-American, but was put in blackface because the stand-in was lighter skinned than the actor. There were apologies from producer Seth Rogen when this was publicized. (I assume one of the purposes of the stand-in is to adjust lighting levels and that’s why they needed a similar skin tone.)
… if “using makeup darker than the person’s actual skin tone without going caricature” is now blackface, pretty much every whitish person on TV is wearing blackface. One of the markers of a bad makeup artist is that you can see the neck and/or the hands are several tones lighter than the face. That one sounds like a case of someone looking to be offended.
Once more into the kerfuffle: now a (latex?) mask and body-suit is being called blackface.
Question – what if you’re playing a racist character? For example, on “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, said characters are total assholes who have been known to wear blackface, because, well, they’re racist, sexist, and just complete all around assholes. Does that count? You’re not doing it to look black, you’re doing it to look racist.
And then, on the opposite side, you have someone claiming that pictures of coal miners is “blackface”. (Sorry, I know it’s a crappy site, but the original was pay-walled. It works if you don’t have an adblocker) As two of my great-grandfathers were coal miners, and knowing the really harsh and shitty conditions that they were forced to accept, I admit, I was a wee offended at the notion.
(NOT that I felt the feelings there were racist. But that these men were just a bunch of privileged individuals, with soot smeared on their faces. It showed a profound ignorance of the history of the coal mining industry.)
‘she spoke with “some black people” while making the suit, heard their concerns then went and did it anyway’
Yeah, not exactly making me very sympathetic, there.
On a related topic - I wonder why more women are not offended by drag queens? Arent they making fun of women?
So after learning that blackface isn’t cool there are white cosplayers who are now looking for loopholes that will allow them to continue to dress in blackface while avoiding being labeled a racist then they get their little feelings hurt when it doesn’t work.
I truly do not understand what’s so damn complicated about this.
If the goal is for your character to come off as racist as hell then blackface is a good way to make that happen.
I’m no expert but I’m going to say that the fact that gay men don’t have a long and storied history of mocking, harassing, ridiculing and lampooning women plays a large role.
I think that Tropic Thunder has been cited on this board a few times, probably in this thread.
RDJ is criticized for wearing blackface in the movie, when the entire point of it is that he is criticized in the movie itself for doing so. Though his character was less racist and more an ignoramus.
First, there are some women who are offended. Mary Cheney is one that comes to mind.
Secondly, drag queens are almost always impersonating a diva, either an existing one or their own creation. Divas are no more representative of womanhood than professional wrestlers are of manhood. Sure, everyone knows a woman with a larger than life personality and a big bitchy streak. But only idiots would come away from a drag show thinking all women are like that. The vast majority of people know many women personally and are exposed to diverse images of women.
Lastly, most drag performers are pretty accurate caricatures of femininity, however over-the-top they are with their persona. Like, you aren’t going to go to a good drag show and see guys with beards and hairy legs clod-hopping around in ugly dresses, talking in a falsetto voice (you know, the kind of voice men tend to default to when they are imitating a woman). Because it would be obvious they were just making fun of femininity rather than performing it with some thought and respect. Most people parading around in blackface look like fools parading around with black stuff on their face.
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I thought RDJ in Tropic Thunder did a great job of portraying a racist white guy who had no idea he was racist. The fact that they had a black guy literally follow him around the whole movie calling his ass out every time he crossed the line did a great job of informing the audience in no uncertain circumstances that this movie does not condone this behavior.