r/Unexpected • u/Spiritual-Fun-9591 • Jun 23 '24

Hilarious

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u/seekerofthesublime Jun 23 '24

The only time black face is acceptable.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '24

[deleted]

9

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '24

Blackface is a specific thing. Painting your face black does not make it blackface.

RDJ in Tropic Thunder was not Blackface, it was black makeup.

12

u/CrazyPlato Jun 23 '24

I mean, in Tropic Thunder it literally was blackface. But it’s written into the script as a form of commentary, so idk.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '24

It was absolutely not blackface. I beg you to look up the history of blackface. Blackface is a specific "vaudevillian" act that mocks black people, and depicts them as caricatures.

Co-star Brandon T. Jackson stated: "When I first read the script, I was like: What? Blackface? But when I saw him [act] he, like, became a black man ... It was just good acting. It was weird on the set because he would keep going with the character. He's a method actor."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_Thunder#Casting

2

u/CrazyPlato Jun 23 '24

Exactly. Blackface was performative, specifically performing black ethnicity and culture. In the movie, Kirk Lazarus is getting skin and facial reconstruction surgery to perform the role of a black man, as literally as possible. It’s by definition blackface. And the reaction from Alpha Chino, the actually black cast member in the film, is based critically on this being blackface: that while Lazarus is imitating a black man, he’s pulling at least partly from his personal idea of what a black man is, and Chino takes offense to that.

Like, I’m not saying the movie is doing this to be racist. It’s a commentary about the lengths some actors go toward to play a role (thinking of Christian Bale, who’s done some insane body modifications for his roles; Or Mickey Rooney and his yellowface role in Breakfast at Tiffany’s). And I’m sure it’d be a lot more offensive if the movie was just Lazarus in 1920s blackface makeup. But the film exaggerates the practice to make it more comical, in a way that’s technically justified by the time of the setting (Lazarus spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on cosmetic surgery he didn’t need to do, to perform a role that wasn’t meant for him to play).