Okay, Now *this?* This Might Be Blackface.

For the past two months, we PostBourgie pundits have been kicking around a loose and ongoing discussion about what constitutes blackface and cooning. My pet passion is more blackface-based, while Gene has stronger views on the concept of cooning.

Back when we covered Angelina’s Image Award nomination, I briefly touched on my belief that playing Mariane Pearl was not, in fact, blackface—and I’ve been defending that stance with various friends, family, and strangers ever since.

For me, this is blackface:

and this is blackface:

and so is this:

I tend to subscribe to Wikipedia’s definition of blackface, at least in part:

Blackface is a style of theatrical makeup that originated in the United States, used to take on the appearance of an archetype of American racism—that of the darky or coon. In the United States, blackface was most commonly used in the minstrel performance tradition. White blackface performers in the past used burnt cork and later greasepaint or shoe polish to blacken their skin and exaggerate their lips, often wearing woolly wigs, gloves, tailcoats, or ragged clothes to complete the transformation. Later, black artists also performed in blackface.

By my interpretation, blackface is the exaggeration of black facial features, expressions, accents, and behaviors for the sole purpose of mockery. It’s about enacting other ethnicities’ perceptions of black appearance and behavior in wildly offensive and inaccurate ways, in order to elicit laughter. It’s bucking eyes and bared teeth and “I shole is!”s. It’s Al Jolson singing “Mammy.” It’s what Savion Glover (shown above) and Tommy Davidson were doing in Bamboozled.

With the exception of the Spike Lee satire, overt instances of traditional blackface on the small and silver screens have been scarce, if not all but non-existent, in the past decade or two (unless, of course, anyone remembers that episode of Gimme a Break!, where Samantha manipulates Joey Lawrence to do an Al Jolson impression at Nell’s all-black church because she’s pissed at Nell for not letting her go camping. I’m not making this up). In place of these “corked up,” crimson or white-lipped portrayals, we’ve gotten a spate of non-black actors being cast to play black characters. To do so, these actors may use cosmetics to brown their skin or don wigs with hair textures different than their own.

These casting decisions almost always rankle black audiences. Given the pervasiveness of blackface in this country, it’s inevitable that cross-racial casting will draw comparisons to traditional blackface. Any time a white person darkens his or her skin for a film (whether comedic or dramatic), someone will invariably cast the word “blackface” into the pool of heated discussion.

It’s understandable, to be sure, but I’ve always felt that cross-racial casting in today’s Hollywood is a few steps removed from the Al Jolson, white-gloved era of black cork and watermelon jokes. Maybe I’m giving the film industry too much credit, but I’m not immediately ready to picket, boycott, or otherwise protest when a white person is cast for a role meant for a person of color (particularly not in the case of Mariane Pearl, a multiracial woman who specifically endorsed Jolie to portray her). I’m willing to take each instance on a case by case basis—and then determine whether or not I should get up in arms. Even then, I hesitate to use the word “blackface.”

If I’m going to conjure up mental images like the ones posted above, I’m not going to do so lightly. I’ll wait until I absolutely have to. Those images are indelible, whereas the visage of Jolie in a curly wig and brown makeup is pretty forgettable, when you get right down to it.

So it’s taken PostBourgie quite a while to get around to tackling this topic of discussion, polarizing as it potentially is and with as many varying, deeply personal levels of interpretation as are likely being held out there. But this morning, upon visiting EW.com (as we do pretty regularly around here), we found this:

a first look at Ben Stiller’s latest film, Tropic Thunder, wherein Robert Downey Jr. (above, center) plays a white, “four-time Oscar winner” who’s cast in a role intended for an African American named Osiris (presumably he takes the part because, if convincing, his portrayal will lead to a fifth Oscar).

The premise and the article at EW.com itself rubbed me the wrong way — and have been threatening to turn my personal interpretation of blackface on its ear all morning. If a white actor is satirizing the prevalence of cross-racial casting by playing a character with an ethnicity other than his own, darkening up and donning a short afro wig to do so, has he crossed the line into blackface?

As someone who really digs Robert Downey Jr. but hasn’t found Ben Stiller funny since 1995’s Heavyweights, I can’t imagine whether or not this will be deftly handled or whether or not Downey’s character’s perception of what it means to be black will involve the politically correct equivalents of bulging eyes and jazz hands. The article states that, in an attempt to bond with another black cast member, Downey’s character recites lines from The Jeffersons theme song.

Funny or too far?

Both Stiller and Downey Jr. expressed to Entertainment Weekly their concerns about whether or not they were crossing the thin lines of racial offense. Stiller seems to have quelled the murmurings of his conscience by screening the film for an African American test audience, who he claims “really seemed to embrace it.” Downey Jr. is a bit more nervous, stating, ”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.”

Indeed.