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From: Gary McGath <garym@mcgath.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom
Subject: Re: MT VOID, 03/29/24 -- Vol. 42, No. 39, Whole Number 2321
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2024 10:12:48 -0400
Organization: Mad Scientists' Union
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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