Talk:Blackface/Archive1

Hmmm
I wonder if this would be better off as part of a bigger article elsewhere. Sophie Wilder  22:22, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm confused as to whether it is on mission or not, but then I usually am. It's a more interesting phenomenon than the current text suggests: a mainstream entertainment genre, once widely popular, that's become taboo to even allude to.  That in itself is frightening, and should be even more frightening than I'm actually finding it. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 04:17, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Watch this and then I'll tell you its context if you can't guess it. (People over 40 who know British culture, shush for a minute.) - David Gerard (talk) 09:09, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I do know that you can still get Golliwog dolls over there, or could until recently. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 18:02, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Specifically, that The Black and White Minstrel Show was broadcast until just a couple of years before and lots of people still missed it - David Gerard (talk) 10:01, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Interesting. In the USA, my understanding is that the last public blackface minstrel shows disappeared along with traditional vaudeville shortly after WWII. Mildly intriguing that it persisted much longer in the UK.  Then again, who'd have thunk so many Britons were intensely studying on American blues records in the early 1960s, either? - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 16:07, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

sexual taboo
wasn't minstrels done partially because you could not show black men with white women ? There were also actors playing Indians, both american and the actual Indian kind, also africans in movies like tarzan. Hamster (talk) 05:05, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Blackface-as-minstrelsy predates cinema by several decades. While I don't doubt you on the idea of black actors and white actresses being taboo (I know little about the history of cinema), the kind of minstrel shows that involve blackface weren't about protecting any sort of colour line, they were straigh-up about portraying black people as buffoons/clowns/objects of ridicule.
 * If you want to get a great modern take on blackface minstrelsy, watch Spike Lee's Bamboozled. It's an amazingly powerful film that deals with an element of the subject that this article does not address -- African-American minstrel shows where the African-American performers would "blacken up". It's a great film.
 * Also: Handy histories of blackface: 1 and 2. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.silverbrain.png 05:30, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * For a somewhat different take, check out A Renegade History of the United States by Thaddeus Russell (ISBN 141657106X). Russell argues that blackface characters, like the stock characters of popular comedy from ancient Greece forward, portrayed people relatively free from work ethic, sexual repression, and able to engage in public merriment without fear of shame.  People enjoyed the performances because in some sense they'd like to live just like those characters.  It was definitely stereotypical, but not all that hostile.  I'm not sure gangsta rap is an improvement in terms of wish fulfilment fantasy, in other words. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 18:12, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Katty Perry
Her appearance definitely isn't yellowfacing. We call it Cosplay. Zero (talk) 21:34, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * ಠ_ಠ Occasionaluse (talk) 22:24, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * No...no, we actually don't call it that. --Kels (talk) 22:43, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Günter Wallraf
I'm not sure if or how this should be mentioned in the article, but there's this guy who has blacked up a few times for undercover documentaries about racism in Germany. It's hard to tell to what extent the hostility & conflict he experienced were typical examples of racism or partially a product of the fact that he looks a bit creepy - sort of exactly like a white guy in make-up & an afro wig. + The whole concept is a little conceited - why not just work with an actual black person to make a candid documentary on their experiences? 00:05, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Reminds me of this. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.silverbrain.png 00:21, 9 January 2014 (UTC)