View image Who's that black guy in between the blonde Jack Black and the tattooed Ben Stiller? It's Robert Downey, Jr.
One of these days
I'm gonna play it black
Play it black
One of these days...
-- misquoted Elvis Costello song from "My Aim is True"
What will the Jim Crow "one-droppers" who didn't think Angelina Jolie was "African enough" to play Dutch-Jewish / Cuban-black-Hispanic-Chinese Mariane Pearl make of this? The actor in the center of the accompanying image is Robert Downey Jr., a white German-Scottish / Irish-Jewish actor. He's playing a white actor who is cast in a part originally written for a black actor, so he decides to play it black. The movie, "Tropic Thunder," is a satire of Hollywood actors making an epic war movie. It's directed by Stiller, co-written by Etan Cohen ("Idiocracy," "My Wife is Retarded" -- note that the "h" is not in the first name but the last; he's no relation to Joel) and Justin Theroux (who played a director in "Mulholland Dr." and an actor in "Inland Empire"). Nick Nolte, Jay Baruchel and Steve Coogan also star -- along with some big names in cameo appearances.
As Downey told Entertainment Weekly, "If it's done right, it could be the type of role you called Peter Sellers to do 35 years ago. If you don't do it right, we're going to hell." [...]
''At the end of the day, it's always about how well you commit to the character,'' he says. ''I dove in with both feet. If I didn't feel it was morally sound, or that it would be easily misinterpreted that I'm just C. Thomas Howell in ["Soul Man"], I would've stayed home.''
Trivia: Downey's father, the writer-director of "Putney Swope," the satirical 1969 comedy about a black advertising executive, looped his own voice for the black actor in the leading role.
OK, we've also seen a black actor playing a racist white man who turns black overnight (Godfrey Cambridge in Melvin Van Peebles' 1970 "Watermelon Man"); a white male actor playing a white female actor (Dustin Hoffman in "Tootsie"); a white female American actor playing a male Chinese-Australian "dwarf" (Linda Hunt, "The Year of Living Dangerously"); a black male actor playing various white, female, Chinese and other characters (Eddie Murphy, "Coming to America," "Norbit"); Chinese actors playing Japanese geishas (Gong Li, Ziyi Zhang, "Memoirs of a Geisha"; a white woman playing a white male pre-op transsexual passing as a white woman (Felicity Huffman, "Transamerica"); a straight white woman playing a gay white female-impersonator (Julie Andrews, "Victor/Victoria"); a German- Japanese-Venezuelan male actor playing a Kenyan-white male American senator and presidential candidate (Fred Armisen on "Saturday Night Live" as Barack Obama); A-- C------ playing itself; a Catholic Italian-American / French-Canadian man playing a Kabbalist Englishwoman (Madonna); various straight actors playing gay roles and gay actors playing straight roles and gay male actors playing straight actors playing straight women and straight men and gay men and... what else?
Watermelon Man features a black actor playing a white guy who turns black.
And then, of course, there was Buddy Hackett in Breakfast at Tiffany's....
"a Catholic Italian-American / French-Canadian man playing a Kabbalist Englishwoman (Madonna)"
Did I miss something? Madonna is a man?
Think you left out the word "male" on the Linda Hunt line and please say it ain't so about A--C------. Whatever it's playing it can't be itself, can it?
Pretty much the entire career of Cliff Curtis (aside from "Once Were Warriors" and "Whale Rider").
Michaela: Yes. Has anyone ever thought otherwise?
Two favorites:
"Highlander": a white American plays a Central Asian steppe nomad, an American-born actor raised in Switzerland and France plays a Scottish highlander, and a Scotsman plays an ancient Egyptian pretending to be a 16th century Spaniard.
"The Conqueror": The Duke as Genghis Khan!
Buddy Hackett was in BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S? Did he secretly play Holly?
gay male actors playing straight actors playing straight women and straight men and gay men
Mee-ow!
JE: I'm making it all up, of course.
Speaking of Cliff Curtis, we might as well include nearly all of Anthony Quinn's filmography, while we're at it. And how about Marlon Brando playing Mexican in "Viva Zapata!" and Japanese in "The Teahouse of the August Moon".
Saturday Night Live has crisscrossed roles for years> A white male currently plays Jesse Jackson. A white male used to play Janet Reno. A black male plays Maya Angelou, and a white female plays Dennis Kucinich.
Wpattison, you forget that all the immortals in Highlander turned out to be extraterrestrials.
Or as Lambert puts it in the sequel, in one of my favourite bits of dialogue ever: "I'm Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. I was banished from the Planet Zeist 500 years ago... and I cannot die." [They embrace and kiss]
Jason: I think somebody slipped you a Mickey!
Michaela: ...and Charlton Heston as Mexican narcotics agent Mike Vargas in "Touch of Evil"...
How about much of the career of Tony Shalhoub? Frequently called on to play Italians, even though he's Lebanese-American.
Or much of Yul Brynner's filmography?
Or Jay Hernandez playing a Kazakh in Nomad?
Anthony Hopkins or Lawrence Olivier playing Othello?
Or pretty much anyone who's played Jesus or members of his circle in a film financed in Europe or the United States.
This could go on for days...
Yes yes, and I'm sure Downey and Stiller will do great, the whole thing is a preemptive non-issuing of a non-issue certain to become an issue amongst those who make issues of non-issues, but to equate it with _Tootsie_ and Ferrel's Janet Reno et al, is to pretend that the issue of blackface is the same as comic cross-dressing, and it's not. This movie sounds smart and hopefully will be good, it is something that can be done well, but let's not all act like the history of blackface is the same as Monty Python. The fact it's not is what makes this movie sound interesting, so leave the straw men to those who'll condemn the film out of hand and maybe wait for a screening first.
And then there's the American Scientologist playing the German Catholic anti-Nazi war hero.
Phillip: I didn't use the word "blackface" in this post because the term is a straw man in this context. Like you, I don't see that as the point here, for the reasons described in the post itself. I'd hoped I was setting the tone with that mangled Elvis Costello quote. I don't really think Amos 'n' Andy are the same as Madonna.
I can't believe that nobody has yet mentioned the famous case of how the Egyptian Omar Sharif was passed as a Russian in Dr. Zhivago.
I still have a hard time wrapping my head around that one.
I hope I'm the first to mention Dragonseed (1944). For those not up on their classic film you will no other (not even The Good Earth) with more non-Chinese looking Caucasions playing Chinese characters than here.
I shall allow James Agee the final word on it:
"Dragon Seed is an almost unimaginably bad movie.
... such distinguished Chinese as Katherine Hepburn and Walter Huston... I shan't even try to say how awful and silly they looked."
Damn, someone beat me to Touch of Evil.
How 'bout Al Panino as a Cuban in Scarface?
Oh man, Jolie was terrible in "A Mighty Heart." It was a movie with "Lifetime original movie" written all over it.
As for this, big credit to the make up crew for making Downey hard to recognize, but I'll see this before deciding if this is ridiculously racist, or slightly brilliant.
First of all, that wasn't Buddy Hackett. It was Mickey Rooney. Second of all, I could see how a person might be offended if it was a white actor playing a role meant for a black actor, but its a white actor playing another white actor who's playing a role meant for a black actor.
Weren't most Native Americans in movies before 1960 all played by Jewish or semi-exotic-looking actors?
Anthony Hopkins = Richard Nixon?
Anthony Hopkins = a man who's supposed to be "secretly" African-American (The Human Stain)?
Anthony Hopkins = Zorro (a Spaniard)?
How about John Wayne as Temujin in The Conqueror? Or as a Roman centurion in The Greatest Story Ever Told? That'll be the day.
Children playing adults: David Bennent in The Tin Drum, Shirley Temple in War Babies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orq4LqX7WEE
Adults playing children: Alison Lohman in Matchstick Men, Shirley Henderson in Harry Potter.
Alec Guiness and Anthony Quinn played Arabs in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. Robert Downey Jr. played an Arab in UP THE ACADEMY (directed by his dad).
My guess is that most of the people who will be offended by this will not know that Downey is, in fact, playing a white character.
I would also guess that the movie will mercilessly satirize the offensive aspects of blackface acting.
I will further guess that that , too will go over the heads of the offended.
The Human Stain featured *spoilers* Anthony Hopikins and Wentworth Miller playing an African American who could "pass" for white....who also inexplicalbly has an english accent.
John Rhys-Davies played a Gilbert and Sullivan loving Arab in two Indiana Jones films. And then he played a beer loving dwarf in the Lord of the Dance films. There is a pattern there - one way too discreet...
Oops - pressed post too soon, sorry.
Jonathan - What about Lon Chaney playing the titular character and his grandfather in Mr Wu? Of course, Matheson Long had played the Mr Wu in the 1919 original.
And Eddie Murphy plays a starship in his new flick, Starship Dave. I wonder what his character is called.
Pen Dragon - exactly. I can only imagine what Al Sharpton will try to make of this. Congratulations to Stiller and Downey for having the balls to go for it anyway.
Pen Dragon - I love how in this day and age, people can get offended at the thought of other people getting offended.
Wait, wasn't Julie Andrews in "Victor/Victoria" actually a straight white woman playing a straight white woman pretending to be a gay white female-impersonator?
Stiller & Downey have a track record of smart, insightful work, which I'll gladly trust far enough to see the movie first. And in the end, that's exactly what it is: A movie. Dave Chappelle's take on a friend's reaction to his "Clayton Bigsby" sketch seems well-applied here.
In any case, judging the entire picture on one still photo is ludicrous. And with a mixed-race (but presumed and declared "black") man poised with a very realistic shot at becoming the leader of the free world, knee-jerk cries of "racism!" just seem even sillier these days.
Some people - on both sides of the issue - really need to get over themselves, and stop acting like relics of a world reasonable people no longer inhabit.
see: Oland, Warner, entire career of (we will also accept Toler, Sidney)
Maybe I just need for coffee, but for the life of me I cannot figure out what "A-- C------ playing itself" means :)
A-- C------?
JE: Longstanding practice here at Scanners. It's someone so undeserving of additional publicity that we do not write its name.
Oops, I made a mistake, but you all knew what I meant and I can't go back and edit.
On the topic of Downey, I think those who have found/will find this offensive would be offended regardless of the context of the story at hand simply because of the context of the image itself. A white actor blacked up is an image that many people fought long and hard to do away with and no amount of satire/context will make it palatable to them. I see no reason to begrudge them that. It's like the "n-word" debate. Those who spent years having it flung at them as an epithet of degradation and humiliation are incensed when they hear it tossed around so casually among today's youth; and it's not simply a 'get with the times, get over yourself' issue, because there is a history there that doesn't go away just because it's usage has been mainstreamed, because that is exactly what they struggled against.
Before one post leads to another, leads to another, etc. let's at least allow for the possibility that the movie might actually turn out to be offensive. It does happen. However far the over-reactors tend to go, there are still lines of taste. And speaking out against bad taste is *not* the same as restricting someone's freedom of speech. I reserve judgment until I see something for myself, but I don't get enjoyment out of pure shock, anymore, unless it's truly busting a taboo and said taboo truly needs busting. And there isn't a lot of that being created, anymore, in my opinion. I like Downey, though, and Stiller...well, he used to have a pretty good record. So I'll give them the benefit of the doubt but not a free pass.
Poor old C.Thomas Howler..never recovered from Soul Man..Downey Jr is wise to keep that one in mind!
My favorites were Ben Carruthers and Lelia Goldoni playing a black brother and sister pair whose older brother was played by an actual African-American (Hugh Hurd) in the Cassavetes film "Shadows". Wisely, Cassavetes chose not to adorn his two leads in blackface; instead choosing to use their apparent "whiteness" to explore the issues of racial identity at the core of the film.
Just a question --
Isn't "Blackface" more than just a white person made up to look like a black person? Isn't blackface a specific, clownish/stereotypical persona/costume? In fact, black minstrel performers used to put on "blackface" makeup. There has to be more criteria than simply a person of one race/orientation/gender pretending to be another.
JE: I think you're right. Which is why I didn't use the word "blackface" in the original post. It has other connotations.
I have to admit that the funniest thing I might read all day has to be DW's "Stiller... has a track record of smart, insightful work".
Man. I'm not saying he hasn't done some good work. Permanent Midnight, Royal Tenenbaums and Your Friends and Neighbors spring to mind, but it's hard to balance those out with the wealth (and I choose that word pointedly) of films like Zoolander, Heartbreak Kid, Envy, Starsky & Hutch, and Dodgeball.
Some issues to remember...
1. When one person of one race is playing a character of another... is it to mock/make fun of that race or not... you run into BIG problems if you are.
2. When one person of one race is playing a character of another... are the people of the character's race unrepresented in Hollywood?
Hopefully if you address these two items with each example you will find there is a difference between some of the situations. (Like #2 explains why Japanese people --I have a few friends so-- were pissed about Memoirs. How many Japanese actors are known in the U.S. v. Chinese?... also Norbit was a bit annoying as his Asian character seemed mocking. If it was with love/lighthearted then no one would care.) I'm half-White (Scottish, French, English and German), half-Viet btw so you can put my opinions in context.
Tina: Good points. There's a story at Newsweek.com about the very issue you raise: A negative portrayal or stereotype is one thing, but if it's positive or affectionate most people see it differently.
Jim,
I'd like that you read the blog Racialicious.com. I think you would find it very educational, helping you understand how mixed-race and people of color deal with race in America.
JE: Thanks. I found this post about "Who Gets to Define You?" particularly interesting:
http://tinyurl.com/352rse
Jim,
Here's another link on the movie "21" replacing Asians with whites:
http://www.ultrabrown.com/posts/bringing-down-the-asians
I think you're an intelligent person, but you don't understand what it's like to be a person of color. It also seems that you aren't willing to do any research either.
JE: Actually, I mentioned something about this in my review of "21," written last week for publication next week when the movie opens.
Jim,
I'd also suggest you read this blog posting that discusses the phenomenon of whites or non-ethnic whites pretending to be people of color in writing memoirs:
http://theangryblackwoman.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/co-opting-pain-for-profit/
One question? What in the world is a non-ethnic white?