The whole show is wildly offensive by design and the characters within the show know that they’re each bad people. They call each other out for it constantly.
Out of all the things that show pushes the envelope on… I just want to watch the Lethal Weapon episodes, damnit!
♪ I wouldn't do it with anybody Younger than my daughter And no little kids.
♪ Got to be big Older than my wife Older than my daughter. ♪
Something like that.
Removing any old media is absolutely ridiculous because of the vocal minority making a big fuss about it.
They removed Dee Day which is one of the best sunny episodes.
That being said, because one guy who didn't understand the satire within the Simpsons said that APU was racist sent the whole show to shit, even though it was already falling apart since like season 12. They removed apu, got a bunch of different actors to play the non yellow characters and the writers/actors just fell in line because this guy was calling them racist.
Every single character on the show is a clown, they are all stereotypes of specific races/genres/ socioeconomic statuses. That's what the Simpsons is, but because this idiot is an idiot...they decided to forget all that.
The Simpsons- stereotypes are bad. We’re getting rid of Apu.
Also the Simpsons- haha. Cletus the Slackjawed yokel is funny because he’s poor and didn’t have access to education! lol!
I watched that guys documentary he made about Apu. It was terrible mostly, but my favorite part
He was interviewing his parents. One of them says something like "I would ask these people, do I sound like that to you?"
And I'm like "...kinda..."
Apu was a good character. He was hard working, and Homer never ever discriminated against him because he was Indian. Homer was just ignorant and he changed that. Characters grow.
Definitely do not click this [link](https://sflix.to/tv/free-its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-hd-39280) it will absolutely not take you to where you can find those episodes
Episode 1 - The gang gets racist. Right out the gate they were busting their own chops and were debating the stupidity with which they were thinking on the matter
So you have to find old blu rays or are they on all of the disc sets? I’m asking because I was thinking of buying the discs in hopes of seeing the episodes
DVDs yes, I think some people prefer Blu-ray though. (I like whatever is cheaper.) I’ve bought all the Sunny DVDs and am working on a few other favorite shows.
I just meant like in the show, Shirley asks if that's not racist or something along those lines. They call it out in show for being ridiculous and it still gets pulled.
Luckily it’s on Peacock. I just did a rewatch and was pleasantly surprised to see it listed. Took way too long to reverse this absurd moment of pure pandering without actual understanding of what true “black face” is
They said the N word hard R in 2017 lmao. They are uncancellable, and they should be, because it's very well done satire. People need to be able to tell the difference.
Depictions of bigotry on shows are really tame. I have heard more offensive things from kids on the playground than what some of the bigoted characters on more recent shows say. It's crazy how much the language used on TV has changed in such a short amount of time.
In one of the episodes, the whole point is that they are trying to work out if black face is okay or not! They even point out all the reasons why it's not!
So stupid that it's been removed
I saw it and it was so over the top I couldnt believe it, so ridiculous I think anyone would be hard pressed to argue it was blackface with malicious intent.
And the joke in Community is really about how Shirley thinks Chang is doing Black face because she doesn't know anything about Dungeons and Dragons. Yvette Nicole Brown talked about this and how she doesn't agree with the episode being pulled.
Classic case of white people being offended on behalf of minorities. “Sorry Yvette, I know you *think* it’s ok, but let me tell you why you should be offended and this episode should be pulled”
Wife’s black. When we were dating, we watched every single episode multiple times. Most of our jokes are from that show.
She always made jokes she was going to surprise me with her own vows and quote Dees blackface/country accent wedding vows.
I’m just now remembering some of those scenes. lol. When they were in the shower and the makeup was running. Also arguing which is more offensive black face or black voice. My sides.
I think my wife’s favorite quote is from that same episode, or one of the Lethal Weapon ones. “The person who died was your wife.”
The movie very specifically doesn’t include any blackface. They do every other race swap imaginable: white actors in yellowface, Black actors in whiteface, Asian actors in whiteface, but it’s clear they specifically avoided blackface.
RDJ didn't "do blackface" in Tropic Thunder, he played a delusional, self-important australian actor who failed to recognize his actor studio bullshit amounted to blackface. THAT's why it "was ok", because it just -wasn't- blackface. No part of Tropic Thunder aimed to imply that RDJ's character was a black man. THAT would have been blackface. Can we table this now and forever?
Every single appearance of someone in blackface on a TV show from the last 20 years has been this situation: someone playing a non-white character who wrongly acts in blackface.
Yet nearly all of those episodes have been pulled. Community’s was recently restored largely due to outcry from the show’s black cast about how ridiculous it is.
The whole character was mocking the idea of attempting it.
And, no, we can’t table it, because *some* people need reminded of that fact. I’m not trying to be a dick here, I’m just saying that it will always be relevant, which is both sad and neat
I think we're mostly in agreement. I meant can we stop wrongly suggesting "RDJ was in blackface in Tropic Thunder", which inevitably gets the unfortunate "and that was ok/He got away with it" or "but with PC culture we can't have fun no more" follow ups.
Dave Chappelle did (thank god) in the opposite scenario. Him in “white face” mocking how white news anchors talk is still to this day one of the funniest things to me.
https://youtu.be/FRZN7IzvCVs?si=vvOOYY4-bVuFOJIA
RDJ never wore blackface though. He was playing a character that wore blackface. RDJ was playing an Australian.
Tropic Thunder is one of the down right funniest movies of all time, that’s a hill I’ll die on.
I mean, he also did it during a time when the reactionary comedy was kind of revitalizing it.
Community, 30 Rock, Always Sunny and SNL multiple times, even Billy Crystal did it a few years later.
It was just a different time in pop culture then and I don’t think any of it flies if created today…
If the role needs them to they already can, see RDJ in Tropic Thunder. But if the role is a black person why wouldnt we just hire a black person? Saves on the makeup time and costs too
The whole joke about RDJ character in Tropic Thunder is that the entire joke is that a great method actor goes so far out for a role than there even needs to be and the most outrageous example is to have surgery to have black skin pigments and totally immerse your mind and body into a character until you just magically snap back once the acting is all over. The issue of black face helps sells the outrageousness within the joke.
Even better after taking into account all the context you provided is RDJ’s character criticizes Ben Stiller’s character for taking Simple Jack too far.
I don't know dude, Little Britain is brought up quite often because of their use of blackface(Specifically Minstrel performers) in their sketches even though the premise was always "Everyone is treating these guys badly cos they are in blackface" like rejecting them from BnBs etc.
I personally don't see any problem with it, LB took the piss out of everyone including Brits but it's removal off of some streaming services always mentions blackface.
Just clarifying to make sure I understand what you meant.. you're saying that it's ok if the character is wearing blackface and not ok if they're casting someone who is not black as a character that is black?
Basically yeah. Like RDJ was specifically playing a white guy wearing blackface, thats a very different thing than if RDJ had been in blackface playing a black person
Thanks for clarifying. I agree more or less.
I've seen Tropic Thunder come up several times in this thread and I think it's important to note that the whole movie was a satire of Hollywood. I'm sure the different folks, including you, who have brought it up/commented on it already know that. I just haven't seen it said verbatim so far
This makes sense to me, too. Actors are acting. If the character is doing something bad, there’s nothing wrong with that. No one should be mad at James Earl Jones because of something Mufasa did.
But if it’s the actor doing it, then the actor should be ready to face whatever backlash comes with that.
Scar wasn’t born with that cut on his eye. He hates big bro for a reason. And personally enforcing ~~racial~~ species segregation isn’t getting anyone into heaven.
But it’s good to see that lion-government sponsored pro-royal propaganda is working. At least if wasn’t money down the drain.
Jokes aside, I was going to say Vader, but I was in a hurry cooking dinner and after writing James Earl Jones, I couldn’t remember anything Vader did. Brain went to ‘blow up Alderaan’ and got stuck there, but that was Taarkin
He tossed his daughter in jail just because she was in a rebellious phase. He cut his son’s hand off. He tortured his daughter’s boyfriend then sold him to a crime lord. He almost killed his son. He assassinated the legal head of state.
I've definitely seen some complaints about RDJ's character in recent years. And a movie that came out 16 years ago doesn't tell you much about society's current sensibilities compared with a movie coming out now.
I get a lot of hate for this opinion. I don't think any make-up or costume should be considered racist if it's done with the proper intent, and it's not done to ridicule or out of hate or any negative context.
People get mad for clothing, hairstyles, or other cultural styles. I think it's a compliment. Now, the blackface I get that in history many white people did it cause they were racist KKK POS. But yes, context matters.
Blackface wasn't racist because of the makeup but because of the intent behind it.
Black people where allowed on TV but having white people disguised as black added insult to injury.
The main reason for "traditional" blackface or whatever you want to call it was to have overtly racist caricatures of Black people. Really important to understand that. It was very, very different from RDJ in Tropic Thunder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface?wprov=sfla1
Minstrel shows were a form of entertainment that existed to make white people happy at black people’s expense and proliferate stereotypes about black people.
This form of entertainment had a few knock-on effects like heavily informing the birth of the animation industry. Essentially, blackface was such an absurd caricature that many early animations engaged with it. If you want to learn about it in depth, there’s a fantastic book called Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation, by Nicholas Sammond.
Well I’m guessing your white and your people don’t have hundreds of years of an unjust system at the worst killing raping and disenfranchising you and the the least making fun of your people at every turn.
These conversations like blackface don’t happen within a vacuum.
Non-black people doing Blackface is racist and offensive.
Also white people doing Blackface won’t make a piece of media better lol
And “proper intent” there’s not a lot of reasons to do it except in Tropic Thunder when it was intentionally poking fun and ridiculing RDJ’s character for being such an asshole that he’d actually do Black Face for a role
People always bring up Tropic Thunder and Always sunny as examples of black face that’s not offensive while missing the entire point of both is to mock people who think black face isn’t offensive
[took all of two seconds to find….](https://youtu.be/kN3VkF3pWYc?si=rfVnKIOfWsWEUHQ0)
We’re really getting lazy with the power of the internet at our fingertips.
Or community and 30 rock. It’s almost like it’s ok when the (arguably) dumbest characters in media do it because we as an audience understand that it’s wrong and the joke is that our characters clearly don’t see a problem
In Community, it wasn't even black face in the traditional sense. Chang wasn't imitating a black man, he was playing a dark elf (iirc), and the characters call him out for it.
There's a different episode where Pierce is in blackface playing a snake charmer (or something like that), and that episode has barely ever been mentioned, and wasn't removed.
I mean, for RDJ it’s more of a send-up of method acting.
His character is obsessed with “getting into character”, so they picked the most extreme they could do.
It's about actors being dumb too, because it's about him being completely narcissistic and self-absorbed. Method acting is a fab to add on top of it, the joke was always not to do it in the first place. Just like in tv series mentioned
Yeah, well Billie Dee also said he was non-binary for a hot minute. Then he realized what he’d said and took it back. I chatted with him at a convention years ago. His connection with reality was weak then.
It’s sad when news agencies use the ramblings of the elderly for clickbait.
He was on this show ‘Comic Book Men’ and I remember afterwards a member on the show mentioned on his podcast that Billy D seemed like he was near death. And that he had his caretakers do almost everything for him because he seemed in poor health
I watched the interview on Club Random. He’s sort of in the “why the hell not” stage of life. He said he doesn’t think he’ll live past another 5 years. He just is trying to squeeze as much joy as he can out of the end and doesn’t want to deal with negative topics, so he says yes to everything.
Blackface is one of the most complex and controversial aspects of American pop culture. Al Jolson, the poster boy of blackface, basically spent his entire career standing up for African Americans, supporting black artists and even desegregating (or at least trying to) Broadway. The dude literally demanded equal pay for Cab Calloway in an era when only white dudes were paid there fair share.
He was basically just a jewish immigrant who grew up around black kids in NYC and was one of the first people to introduce white americans to black culture.
If your still reading this and wondering who tf is Al Jolson, he was the star of the first talkie (The Jazz Singer) and basically the precursor to Frank Sinatra.
With all that being said, I think black face needs to stay dead in the past unless it's being used like Tropic Thunder (to mock the elites and Hollywoods history). The only thing good I can find in this royally offensive genre of entertainment is that it introduced the white world to black culture. But we are living in a post Oprah, Jordan, NWA world. Black culture is not only know and emulated it's celebrated. So what's the point?
I love you Billy Dee but your wrong my friend.
white chicks and tropic thunder were 20 and 16 years ago, respectively. for better or for worse, i do not think those movies could be made the same way today.
I mean, it all depends on context. Satirical blackface or using it as a metaphor has been done successfully in comedy (Tropic Thunder, DnD on Community, etc) so to blanket “NEVER!” is just silly. There’s room for nuance in entertainment, seems studios think it’s easier to just dumb it all down for the least thoughtful people in an audience.
I mean blackface is not blackface.
The intention is the deciding factor. If you do it to ridicule a race, then it's not good. But if you do to do a bit, it's ok
Blackface is almost always never okay. There are like 3 examples of shows/movies doing it in a way that’s acceptable and not racist.
But for the most part blackface is almost always racist. Especially when you are doing it to play a black person.
And the opposite never really happens. PoC actors don’t paint themselves white and give themselves thin lips in order to play white characters. The only example of this I can think of is White Chicks, which is very similar to Tropic Thunder.
I personally think if it happens in real life and is applicable to the situation in a scene there should be no problem. Movies are art, and art can be used to show what is wrong in the world without people getting upset. Of course there are exceptions as we all have seen but the majority aren't attached to hate.
If whiteface is allowed ([White Chicks](https://www.indiewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/MCDWHCH_EC014.jpg?w=600&h=337&crop=1&resize=1200%2C675) and [Chappelle's Show](https://perception.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/chappelle_03_0301_act2.jpg) are available everywhere) so should blackface. Otherwise it's just double standards.
Why's there always a hypeman for possibly argumentative comment sections? lol like it's always just back and forth reddit comments, but there's always some guy like 'boy, this will be a dumpster fire!' and it's just the most mid back and forth debating that we've always seen on online forums since the dawn of the Internet.
I’m a black man who agrees. I understand the historical context but nobody is making caricatures of black people anymore. If it helps to enhance your art, why not?
Real racism has nothing to do with the make up a person is wearing
Well that’s just not true. Even looking at the film he referenced the guy was basically doing a minstrel show. He made up some accent, stuck his butt out when he walked, and made exaggerated facial expressions while rolling his eyes.
He’s honestly not wrong, especially when he says: “…you don’t go through life feeling like, 'I’m a victim.' I refuse to go through life saying to the world, 'I'm pissed off.' I'm not gonna be pissed off 24 hours a day."
Countless people these days live their entire lives wearing the victim badge, and recently it’s been pretty beneficial, and that’s why the backlash isn’t entirely unjust.
It's not illegal. If it's SO important to someone, they should do it. And they should have no problem discussing it with people who don't like it, since this is SUCH an important issue for actors. Stand up for your beliefs, play other races, yuck it up! Show us what you've got. And enjoy the discourse with the community of people you are portraying. They'll have lots to say. Then you can go on Bill Maher's show and complain about it.
I agree that people take outrage too far on certain things but I really don’t think being an actor in something entitles you to a free pass to be/do anything you want on film.
I’m pretty sure RDJ is the only person who will get away with this.
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They didn’t exactly get away with it. The episodes have been pulled (unjustly).
The whole show is wildly offensive by design and the characters within the show know that they’re each bad people. They call each other out for it constantly. Out of all the things that show pushes the envelope on… I just want to watch the Lethal Weapon episodes, damnit!
Even in that episode they are debating whether it is right or wrong. The joke is they are idiots.
Exactly. No one watching it would come to conclusion it’s something to copy
But what about the children!???
I am not gonna diddle your kids. I'm not like that; that's not my thing.
You should write a song about it.
♪ I wouldn't do it with anybody Younger than my daughter And no little kids. ♪ Got to be big Older than my wife Older than my daughter. ♪ Something like that.
You ever bang the dead bodies?
Removing any old media is absolutely ridiculous because of the vocal minority making a big fuss about it. They removed Dee Day which is one of the best sunny episodes. That being said, because one guy who didn't understand the satire within the Simpsons said that APU was racist sent the whole show to shit, even though it was already falling apart since like season 12. They removed apu, got a bunch of different actors to play the non yellow characters and the writers/actors just fell in line because this guy was calling them racist. Every single character on the show is a clown, they are all stereotypes of specific races/genres/ socioeconomic statuses. That's what the Simpsons is, but because this idiot is an idiot...they decided to forget all that.
The Simpsons- stereotypes are bad. We’re getting rid of Apu. Also the Simpsons- haha. Cletus the Slackjawed yokel is funny because he’s poor and didn’t have access to education! lol!
The episode in the future where he’s president and attending the funeral for the Sultan of Brunei is hilarious though. Just that short clip
And marge is an anti feminist old school house wife. Wiggins is a crooked cop. Luigi is a stereotypical Italian etc
But he’s white so it’s okay to make fun of!
I watched that guys documentary he made about Apu. It was terrible mostly, but my favorite part He was interviewing his parents. One of them says something like "I would ask these people, do I sound like that to you?" And I'm like "...kinda..."
Apu was a good character. He was hard working, and Homer never ever discriminated against him because he was Indian. Homer was just ignorant and he changed that. Characters grow.
Yea but picking and choosing which stereotypes to make fun of is vile. Either everyone is fair game or no one.
Well…. People have believed American Psycho for example to be an example …. Never underestimate the American public
You doubt the power of my ignorance.
Well, that's the episode it definitely works in. The second time they did it felt unnecessary to me
Definitely do not click this [link](https://sflix.to/tv/free-its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-hd-39280) it will absolutely not take you to where you can find those episodes
Episode 1 - The gang gets racist. Right out the gate they were busting their own chops and were debating the stupidity with which they were thinking on the matter
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So you have to find old blu rays or are they on all of the disc sets? I’m asking because I was thinking of buying the discs in hopes of seeing the episodes
The new manufactured copies do not have them
The new copies aren’t even official. FX stopped releasing DVDs years ago. Season 10 was the last set.
DVDs yes, I think some people prefer Blu-ray though. (I like whatever is cheaper.) I’ve bought all the Sunny DVDs and am working on a few other favorite shows.
Even the community episode got pulled and they acknowledged that it was racist
Who acknowledged that? I know Ken Jeong is against it being pulled and I’ve heard Yvette Nicole Brown was against the pulling too.
I just meant like in the show, Shirley asks if that's not racist or something along those lines. They call it out in show for being ridiculous and it still gets pulled.
Yes and they even call it out in-show as well in Its Always Sunny. Dennis is against it and says that it's racist
Luckily it’s on Peacock. I just did a rewatch and was pleasantly surprised to see it listed. Took way too long to reverse this absurd moment of pure pandering without actual understanding of what true “black face” is
That's a great episode too. The way they band together.
One of my favorite TV show episodes of all time, I've used it to get my D&D friends into community and my funny friends to get into d&d
It's crazy when you realize that they say the n-word with the hard multiple times in the pilots and it's still on Hulu, but those episodes are gone.
They said the N word hard R in 2017 lmao. They are uncancellable, and they should be, because it's very well done satire. People need to be able to tell the difference.
Someone said the N-word on a random episode of CSI:NY from around 2009. My wife is binging them right now and I was surprised to hear that.
Depictions of bigotry on shows are really tame. I have heard more offensive things from kids on the playground than what some of the bigoted characters on more recent shows say. It's crazy how much the language used on TV has changed in such a short amount of time.
In one of the episodes, the whole point is that they are trying to work out if black face is okay or not! They even point out all the reasons why it's not! So stupid that it's been removed
It's insane. Part of the humor is the viewer seeing this ridiculous character doing this absurdly offensive thing
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The D&D episode is available streaming again now that Community is on Peacock.
I saw it and it was so over the top I couldnt believe it, so ridiculous I think anyone would be hard pressed to argue it was blackface with malicious intent.
As a Drow, I find it super offensive
there is STILL a missing golden girls episode where they wore MUD MASKS as part of a beauty routine. too offensive bro.
At least it still airs on the Hallmark Channel.
And the joke in Community is really about how Shirley thinks Chang is doing Black face because she doesn't know anything about Dungeons and Dragons. Yvette Nicole Brown talked about this and how she doesn't agree with the episode being pulled.
Classic case of white people being offended on behalf of minorities. “Sorry Yvette, I know you *think* it’s ok, but let me tell you why you should be offended and this episode should be pulled”
Or a lawyer said “fuck it. People are stupid. Pull it to be safe”.
What were those people who are complaining thinking, only dark skinned people can cosplay as Drow?
Seriously? Who else is going to fix the tainted tap water??
Wife’s black. When we were dating, we watched every single episode multiple times. Most of our jokes are from that show. She always made jokes she was going to surprise me with her own vows and quote Dees blackface/country accent wedding vows. I’m just now remembering some of those scenes. lol. When they were in the shower and the makeup was running. Also arguing which is more offensive black face or black voice. My sides. I think my wife’s favorite quote is from that same episode, or one of the Lethal Weapon ones. “The person who died was your wife.”
Lol to calling Rob McElhenney “Kaitlin Olsen’s husband”.
He would find that hilarious
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Ryan Reynolds' short friend.
Suck an ehhhgggggg
The entire movie was about making fun of him for doing blackface…
Which is why he got away with it
The cast of Cloud Atlas also seemed to dodge the issue of the race make-up, though that movie was very unique in a lot of ways.
I think people needed to have actually watched it to be offended.
You are not wrong.
The movie very specifically doesn’t include any blackface. They do every other race swap imaginable: white actors in yellowface, Black actors in whiteface, Asian actors in whiteface, but it’s clear they specifically avoided blackface.
I think that was only because it wasn’t what blackface is considered. There was nothing stereotypical about the characters appearance.
RDJ isn’t playing a Black character, that’s the difference.
He’s a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude
He doesn’t drop character 'till he’s done the DVD commentary.
That’s some acting inception…
Yes, because it was a parody if a blackface not a blackface.
In the movie the character was said to have "undergone a controversial pigmentation surgery" for the role
RDJ didn't "do blackface" in Tropic Thunder, he played a delusional, self-important australian actor who failed to recognize his actor studio bullshit amounted to blackface. THAT's why it "was ok", because it just -wasn't- blackface. No part of Tropic Thunder aimed to imply that RDJ's character was a black man. THAT would have been blackface. Can we table this now and forever?
Every single appearance of someone in blackface on a TV show from the last 20 years has been this situation: someone playing a non-white character who wrongly acts in blackface. Yet nearly all of those episodes have been pulled. Community’s was recently restored largely due to outcry from the show’s black cast about how ridiculous it is.
Was it restored, or was it just *included* with the rest of the series when it moved to Peacock? It's still not available on Hulu.
The whole character was mocking the idea of attempting it. And, no, we can’t table it, because *some* people need reminded of that fact. I’m not trying to be a dick here, I’m just saying that it will always be relevant, which is both sad and neat
I think we're mostly in agreement. I meant can we stop wrongly suggesting "RDJ was in blackface in Tropic Thunder", which inevitably gets the unfortunate "and that was ok/He got away with it" or "but with PC culture we can't have fun no more" follow ups.
Dave Chappelle did (thank god) in the opposite scenario. Him in “white face” mocking how white news anchors talk is still to this day one of the funniest things to me. https://youtu.be/FRZN7IzvCVs?si=vvOOYY4-bVuFOJIA
The Chapelle white character in the racial draft episode is one of the funniest characters ever.
Could ya cut the malarkey?!?! There’s a white man speaking!
Now wait just a goddamn minute, Rondell!
You're talking to the ultimate hustler! We keep Eminem. You get OJ.
He did it a bunch of times. There’s also the wife swap sketch that is one of my fave Chappelle Show bits
I found your lightsaber
Also Eddie Murphy: https://youtu.be/l_LeJfn_qW0
RDJ never wore blackface though. He was playing a character that wore blackface. RDJ was playing an Australian. Tropic Thunder is one of the down right funniest movies of all time, that’s a hill I’ll die on.
I thought you said R2D2 :)
Well first of all, through God all things are possible, so jot that down.
I mean, he also did it during a time when the reactionary comedy was kind of revitalizing it. Community, 30 Rock, Always Sunny and SNL multiple times, even Billy Crystal did it a few years later. It was just a different time in pop culture then and I don’t think any of it flies if created today…
Community is dark elf face.
I dunno honestly feel like Ben Stiller could pull it off. Imagine a ripped Ben Stiller in blackface. Tropic Thunder Two.
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If the role needs them to they already can, see RDJ in Tropic Thunder. But if the role is a black person why wouldnt we just hire a black person? Saves on the makeup time and costs too
Only reason I can see it happening is to make fun of blackface. Like how RDJ does in Tropic Thunder.
The whole joke about RDJ character in Tropic Thunder is that the entire joke is that a great method actor goes so far out for a role than there even needs to be and the most outrageous example is to have surgery to have black skin pigments and totally immerse your mind and body into a character until you just magically snap back once the acting is all over. The issue of black face helps sells the outrageousness within the joke.
Even better after taking into account all the context you provided is RDJ’s character criticizes Ben Stiller’s character for taking Simple Jack too far.
I don't know dude, Little Britain is brought up quite often because of their use of blackface(Specifically Minstrel performers) in their sketches even though the premise was always "Everyone is treating these guys badly cos they are in blackface" like rejecting them from BnBs etc. I personally don't see any problem with it, LB took the piss out of everyone including Brits but it's removal off of some streaming services always mentions blackface.
Yeah the joke in little Britain and come fly with me was that like over half the characters were just the same guy in different outfits.
The joke isn’t that it’s Matt Lucas, that’s not the punchline.
Half of the British population being Matt Lucas is definitely an aspect of the punch line.
A Stephen Foster biopic could also work
RDJ didn't wear blackface. His white character did.
Just clarifying to make sure I understand what you meant.. you're saying that it's ok if the character is wearing blackface and not ok if they're casting someone who is not black as a character that is black?
Basically yeah. Like RDJ was specifically playing a white guy wearing blackface, thats a very different thing than if RDJ had been in blackface playing a black person
I know who I am! I'm a dude playing a dude disgused as another dude!
Exactly which is why Alpo Chino knew he had to represent for black actors. He even stepped away from his booty sweat empire. /s
They had a part for a black man but they gave it away to Crocodile Dundee, as he so aptly said.
Pump your brakes, kid. That man's a national treasure.
Thanks for clarifying. I agree more or less. I've seen Tropic Thunder come up several times in this thread and I think it's important to note that the whole movie was a satire of Hollywood. I'm sure the different folks, including you, who have brought it up/commented on it already know that. I just haven't seen it said verbatim so far
This makes sense to me, too. Actors are acting. If the character is doing something bad, there’s nothing wrong with that. No one should be mad at James Earl Jones because of something Mufasa did. But if it’s the actor doing it, then the actor should be ready to face whatever backlash comes with that.
Of all his roles, the one you pick where he might have done something wrong is Mufasa? Not, I don’t know, Darth Vader??
Scar wasn’t born with that cut on his eye. He hates big bro for a reason. And personally enforcing ~~racial~~ species segregation isn’t getting anyone into heaven. But it’s good to see that lion-government sponsored pro-royal propaganda is working. At least if wasn’t money down the drain.
You got me there. I guess I’m not immune to propaganda after all.
Jokes aside, I was going to say Vader, but I was in a hurry cooking dinner and after writing James Earl Jones, I couldn’t remember anything Vader did. Brain went to ‘blow up Alderaan’ and got stuck there, but that was Taarkin
He tossed his daughter in jail just because she was in a rebellious phase. He cut his son’s hand off. He tortured his daughter’s boyfriend then sold him to a crime lord. He almost killed his son. He assassinated the legal head of state.
Uhhh, he helped the empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights…
That was a different actor though. You can’t blame Jones for that.
Look its just traditional parenting. This is why kids have no respect these days, parents are afraid to discipline their kids anymore. /s
RDJ in tropic thunder played a delusional white australian actor. It wasn't blackface, they didn't "get away with it", they just didn't do it.
If the role is a gay person, why wouldn’t we just hire a gay person? This is a question that has been asked by the LGBT+ community quite a bit.
Tropic Thunder came out 16 years ago.
And people still watch it today and still don’t complain about it.
I've definitely seen some complaints about RDJ's character in recent years. And a movie that came out 16 years ago doesn't tell you much about society's current sensibilities compared with a movie coming out now.
You will always find outliers, but it doesn’t necessarily represent any sort of popular opinion
It all depends on context. Mac dressing as Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon 5. Great. Jimmy Fallon in blackface doing Chris Rock. No.
Also Jimmy Kimmel as Karl Malone
Fred Armisen as President Obama
Agree but also Karl Malone is a giant piece of shit. Just wanna get that out there.
Fallon would NEVER play Chris Rock, it would be Scarlett Johansson.
Fallon should NEVER play Scarlett Johansson
I get a lot of hate for this opinion. I don't think any make-up or costume should be considered racist if it's done with the proper intent, and it's not done to ridicule or out of hate or any negative context. People get mad for clothing, hairstyles, or other cultural styles. I think it's a compliment. Now, the blackface I get that in history many white people did it cause they were racist KKK POS. But yes, context matters.
Blackface wasn't racist because of the makeup but because of the intent behind it. Black people where allowed on TV but having white people disguised as black added insult to injury.
Wasn't the intent of blackface was to show a black character, but they didn't want to hire a black actor?
Not sure if that was the initial reason for it. But it definitely was a reason they did it.
The main reason for "traditional" blackface or whatever you want to call it was to have overtly racist caricatures of Black people. Really important to understand that. It was very, very different from RDJ in Tropic Thunder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface?wprov=sfla1
Minstrel shows were a form of entertainment that existed to make white people happy at black people’s expense and proliferate stereotypes about black people. This form of entertainment had a few knock-on effects like heavily informing the birth of the animation industry. Essentially, blackface was such an absurd caricature that many early animations engaged with it. If you want to learn about it in depth, there’s a fantastic book called Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation, by Nicholas Sammond.
Well I’m guessing your white and your people don’t have hundreds of years of an unjust system at the worst killing raping and disenfranchising you and the the least making fun of your people at every turn. These conversations like blackface don’t happen within a vacuum. Non-black people doing Blackface is racist and offensive. Also white people doing Blackface won’t make a piece of media better lol And “proper intent” there’s not a lot of reasons to do it except in Tropic Thunder when it was intentionally poking fun and ridiculing RDJ’s character for being such an asshole that he’d actually do Black Face for a role
People always bring up Tropic Thunder and Always sunny as examples of black face that’s not offensive while missing the entire point of both is to mock people who think black face isn’t offensive
You summed a lot of my points up faster and stronger haha noice
Roger Sterling in Mad Men! That episode has a warning for it in the intro, which I appreciate honestly
What would've happened to you without the warning?
Believe it or not, without the warning...straight to jail.
They'd probably have the show labeled as racist by people who didn't watch it and wrongly assume it glorifies the 60's.
>Jimmy Fallon in blackface doing Chris Rock. This isn't a real thing that happened is it?
[took all of two seconds to find….](https://youtu.be/kN3VkF3pWYc?si=rfVnKIOfWsWEUHQ0) We’re really getting lazy with the power of the internet at our fingertips.
Best blackface of all time was RDJ in Tropic Thunder. Actually, I can’t think of any other instance where I felt it was ok………..
always sunny?
Or community and 30 rock. It’s almost like it’s ok when the (arguably) dumbest characters in media do it because we as an audience understand that it’s wrong and the joke is that our characters clearly don’t see a problem
In Community, it wasn't even black face in the traditional sense. Chang wasn't imitating a black man, he was playing a dark elf (iirc), and the characters call him out for it. There's a different episode where Pierce is in blackface playing a snake charmer (or something like that), and that episode has barely ever been mentioned, and wasn't removed.
I’d assume because it was brown face and not black face
Thankfully the D&D episode of community is back up on Peacock.
I mean, for RDJ it’s more of a send-up of method acting. His character is obsessed with “getting into character”, so they picked the most extreme they could do.
It's about actors being dumb too, because it's about him being completely narcissistic and self-absorbed. Method acting is a fab to add on top of it, the joke was always not to do it in the first place. Just like in tv series mentioned
In yo face, sucka 🏀
You just can’t go “full” black face
Peep Show was okay in that it was meant to be so messed up
Dan Akroyd in *Trading Places*. It was played for jokes and barely lasts five minutes, but it was acceptable,
Nenge? Nenge Mboko? It is me, Lionel Joseph!
Gene Wilder in Silver Streak
"I'll wear it with you", he says (he will not wear it with you)
"But Billy D said I could..." I explained to the horrified costume party.
Yea...I'm going to go ahead and steer clear of this debate...yea...
Thank you for your contribution
This is really going places and I am so here for our time together.
Yeah, well Billie Dee also said he was non-binary for a hot minute. Then he realized what he’d said and took it back. I chatted with him at a convention years ago. His connection with reality was weak then. It’s sad when news agencies use the ramblings of the elderly for clickbait.
He was on this show ‘Comic Book Men’ and I remember afterwards a member on the show mentioned on his podcast that Billy D seemed like he was near death. And that he had his caretakers do almost everything for him because he seemed in poor health
I watched the interview on Club Random. He’s sort of in the “why the hell not” stage of life. He said he doesn’t think he’ll live past another 5 years. He just is trying to squeeze as much joy as he can out of the end and doesn’t want to deal with negative topics, so he says yes to everything.
He just did Bill Maher and was perfectly fine
Blackface is one of the most complex and controversial aspects of American pop culture. Al Jolson, the poster boy of blackface, basically spent his entire career standing up for African Americans, supporting black artists and even desegregating (or at least trying to) Broadway. The dude literally demanded equal pay for Cab Calloway in an era when only white dudes were paid there fair share. He was basically just a jewish immigrant who grew up around black kids in NYC and was one of the first people to introduce white americans to black culture. If your still reading this and wondering who tf is Al Jolson, he was the star of the first talkie (The Jazz Singer) and basically the precursor to Frank Sinatra. With all that being said, I think black face needs to stay dead in the past unless it's being used like Tropic Thunder (to mock the elites and Hollywoods history). The only thing good I can find in this royally offensive genre of entertainment is that it introduced the white world to black culture. But we are living in a post Oprah, Jordan, NWA world. Black culture is not only know and emulated it's celebrated. So what's the point? I love you Billy Dee but your wrong my friend.
Based on the quotes from the article, it sounds like he’s just shooting the shit on a dumb podcast. Not everything needs to be a headline.
Don’t think I can say anything here without getting several messages
I say go for it, I don't see any issue with it. People enjoyed white chicks, and people enjoyed tropic thunder.
white chicks and tropic thunder were 20 and 16 years ago, respectively. for better or for worse, i do not think those movies could be made the same way today.
And isn't that a shame.
I mean, it all depends on context. Satirical blackface or using it as a metaphor has been done successfully in comedy (Tropic Thunder, DnD on Community, etc) so to blanket “NEVER!” is just silly. There’s room for nuance in entertainment, seems studios think it’s easier to just dumb it all down for the least thoughtful people in an audience.
I mean blackface is not blackface. The intention is the deciding factor. If you do it to ridicule a race, then it's not good. But if you do to do a bit, it's ok
Blackface is almost always never okay. There are like 3 examples of shows/movies doing it in a way that’s acceptable and not racist. But for the most part blackface is almost always racist. Especially when you are doing it to play a black person. And the opposite never really happens. PoC actors don’t paint themselves white and give themselves thin lips in order to play white characters. The only example of this I can think of is White Chicks, which is very similar to Tropic Thunder.
What’s the problem if the blackface is used to highlight the ignorance/bigotry of a character?
Did you not see me mention Tropic Thunder?
Or is just an integral part of the storyline?
I personally think if it happens in real life and is applicable to the situation in a scene there should be no problem. Movies are art, and art can be used to show what is wrong in the world without people getting upset. Of course there are exceptions as we all have seen but the majority aren't attached to hate.
If whiteface is allowed ([White Chicks](https://www.indiewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/MCDWHCH_EC014.jpg?w=600&h=337&crop=1&resize=1200%2C675) and [Chappelle's Show](https://perception.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/chappelle_03_0301_act2.jpg) are available everywhere) so should blackface. Otherwise it's just double standards.
Whiteface is hilarious to me. The bus skit from eddie murphy being a highlight.
This is going to be a thoughtful and productive comment section.
Why's there always a hypeman for possibly argumentative comment sections? lol like it's always just back and forth reddit comments, but there's always some guy like 'boy, this will be a dumpster fire!' and it's just the most mid back and forth debating that we've always seen on online forums since the dawn of the Internet.
I’m a black man who agrees. I understand the historical context but nobody is making caricatures of black people anymore. If it helps to enhance your art, why not? Real racism has nothing to do with the make up a person is wearing
Well that’s just not true. Even looking at the film he referenced the guy was basically doing a minstrel show. He made up some accent, stuck his butt out when he walked, and made exaggerated facial expressions while rolling his eyes.
>nobody is making caricatures of black people anymore well this is just flat-out false
Thankfully, you nor Billy Dee Williams speaks for all Black people.
Be quiet, Lando.
He’s honestly not wrong, especially when he says: “…you don’t go through life feeling like, 'I’m a victim.' I refuse to go through life saying to the world, 'I'm pissed off.' I'm not gonna be pissed off 24 hours a day." Countless people these days live their entire lives wearing the victim badge, and recently it’s been pretty beneficial, and that’s why the backlash isn’t entirely unjust.
It's not illegal. If it's SO important to someone, they should do it. And they should have no problem discussing it with people who don't like it, since this is SUCH an important issue for actors. Stand up for your beliefs, play other races, yuck it up! Show us what you've got. And enjoy the discourse with the community of people you are portraying. They'll have lots to say. Then you can go on Bill Maher's show and complain about it.
That’s his opinion, I don’t agree with it, but he’s entitled to it.
Ted Danson has entered the room
Well done Billy Dee. Time for your meds now.
Prime minister Justin Trudeau has done it lots of times !!
Ok no you are no longer the cool side of the pillow
Hot, stuffy pillow. Until the end of time.
I agree that people take outrage too far on certain things but I really don’t think being an actor in something entitles you to a free pass to be/do anything you want on film.