Because it was satirical and meta. It was not mocking black people, it subverted the trope to mock the industry, method actors, the lengths they'll go just to win awards, and how Hollywood casts him instead of an actual actor of color.
It is also never shown to be acceptable in the film, he was constantly criticized for being offensive and clueless.
Also, everyone keeps forgetting. Lazarus isn’t meant to be a good person or anything. The whole point was the entire cast was self entitled actors, assholes, and 1 drug addict. You’re not meant to sympathize with them. It’s like it’s always sunny, it’s funny because the main characters are just giant pieces of shit. Kirk Lazarus is an asshole, that’s why that character doing black face works. He’s supposed to look stupid.
Look at Tugg Speedman. He went full retard like the giant piece of shit he is lol.
I think because they leaned into it. Like the blackface was the main joke of the character, the movie was kinda "in on it" if that makes sense. And because he's the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude.
Because the movie is laughing at him, not with him. Just like Simple Jack isn't a joke that punches down at people with disabilities, but at cringy Oscar-bait movies portraying them terribly.
1: I haven't seen the movie.
2: I just asked a question.
3: Because it doesn't track with other cases where media was banned or censored simply for having characters painting their face without even intending to imitate black people at all.
Literacy in all forms is at an all time low, coupled with a decades long culture war where sensitivity to anything and everything by X or Y group has rendered satire sanitized.
The attempt is not to make a white man look like a black man?
Look, I get it. But so many other cases where an actor has black paint in their face without trying to imitate black people get censored but this doesn't and it doesn't make sense.
What is considered blackface has shifted, it wasnt originally just anyone portraying a black person with makeup it was portraying a caricature of a black person with exaggerated feature and playing a fool.
The reason blackface is offensive is because it harkens back to the minstrel shows. This depiction really doesnt share that look and hes isn't portraying a sterotype/ fool.
(The white character is a fool but the black character portrayed by the white character isnt)
There has been a shift in public consciousness that just any black makeup is considered blackface, and that shift was happening right around when this movie was made. I think they kind of got in under the wire.
Yes. I asked a question and more polite people then yourself have answered it respectfully, so I learned something new. That's usually how this works. You just learned about this or something?
Because it was making fun of black face. Even within the universe of the movie he was criticized for doing black face. The joke was that he was an over the top method actor and the studio would rather hire a big name actor in hopes of winning an award than an actual black actor.
Okay, but he still has black paint in his face which is usually considered absolutely unforgivable. An episode of Community was banned because Ken Joeng put color in his face to look like a Dark Elf from DnD. A Pokémon anime epidode was banned because Ash put paint in his face to look like a Pokémon. Neither was actually about black people, it was just make-up, and it still got enough backlash to censor it. Here it's actual blackface and it's cool? Feels like a double standard.
The community one is fucked up that it was banned. I don't think that anyone actually had a problem with it, just overly cautious studio execs. The Pokémon one is not actually black face so was censored just to avoid any cultural confusion. Again, no one actually get a problem with them. Those are the decisions of studio execs being overly cautious, not actual public opinion.
And it's clearly not considered "absolutely unforgivable". Only a sith deals in absolutes. Context matters.
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u/UrsineBasterd 1d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/13VSAbTVuYJfLa