Re: MT VOID, 03/29/24 -- Vol. 42, No. 39, Whole Number 2321

On 3/31/24 11:36 AM, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:

Is TCM having a theme of blackface and racial stereotypes this
month?   We have:
 THE TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON (1956): A combination of
progressiveness (interracial romance) on one hand, and racial
stereotypying and yellowface (Marlon Brando as a Japanese) on the
other.

It annoys me whenever I see the term "blackface" used in a trivial way. Blackface was a device used by the minstrel shows of the 19th century. It isn't simply dark makeup, but _caricature_. You can see it, for example, in the final scene of the 1927 _The Jazz Singer_. In the minstrel shows, it was part of a shtick which made black people objects of ridicule. "Coon songs," sung in fake dialect, generally went along with it. Even black performers sometimes had to wear that makeup, which helps to show that it wasn't just to make the actors look like black people.
Using terms like "blackface," "yellowface," etc. for makeup that simply alters a performer's skin tone trivializes what it was.
--
Gary McGath    http://www.mcgath.com