Black Face Reflects Sad State

Mad Men's Roger Sterling singing in black face.

 









French Vogue toe testing minstrelsy with runway models covered in black makeup.

Ted Danson, or should I say 'Sam Malone', has yet to escape infamy for his turn in black face in the 90s.

American Apparel says 'why not' and tries their hand at it.


 








The use of black face has been prevalent in a variety of media over the past year.  While some examples are clearly more flagrant than others, I found the diversity of its recent use something worth discussing.  Above, I have posted four very different uses of the offensive performance trope; three current examples and one older one...


1. Mad Men's head advertising honcho Roger Sterling performing at his wedding;

2. French Vogue's controversial photo spread, which subverts traditional notions of minstrelsy by associating it with European aristocracy;

3. Ted Danson's turn in black face in 1993;

4. American Apparel, once again tasteless.

Since Mad Men is a representation of American history on American television, its use of black face, though shocking, was effective and meant to remind people of this awful past.  Just as Mad Men inventively reinterprets sexism in the workplace, it is doing the same here in the form of a tragic racial faux-pas.   

French Vogue meanwhile, is completely subverting the traditional use of black face by associating it with European aristocracy, rather than American minstrelsy or Southern performance. It is a take that is certainly aimed at provoking people's sensivities but, I am not sure it is quite as offensive as people have made it out to be.  There is nothing in particular that links it to African-American culture.   Still, couldn't French Vogue have found some hot models of colour instead?

Finally, the most offensive interpretations of black face posted here have to be Ted Danson's and American Apparel's.  Both are American entities and both are performing in jest.  But how does one see the humour in using dark makeup to demean both skin colour and racialize performance.  The strangest part of white supremacist interpretations of minstrelsy is that deep down, there appears to be a love affair with African-American culture.  This infatuation expresses itself through perpetuation of Black Face in White American culture.  Unfortunately, the underlying affect is shameful.  Moreover, whatever sympathies for Black culture White Americans feel they reveal in Black Face are done so in a mocking and disrepectful fashion and will therefore, always be hollow.

So no, I do not "see the humour in it" as Danson declared back in '93.

Defender Telegraph, page 4, No. 001