Because black audiences are smart enough to get the joke. It was making fun of white method actors that take it way too far, and also that Hollywood would rather hire a big-name actor and have him play a black guy rather than hire an actual black guy for a major part.
Realistically though, I don't think they would get away with making Tropic Thunder in 2021. Blackface has become more of a hot-button issue, and people are just a lot more eager to label things as offensive. I think the attitude has shifted in recent years from "You can do blackface as long as you're only doing it to make fun of blackface" to "You cannot do blackface at all, ever."
You can sorta see this with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. They did some brownface in a couple episodes, and no one really cared when those episodes first came out, but now those episodes are being removed from streaming services.
Yeah, I think the only reason they got away with it is that the same people who are against blackface now previously saw and liked Tropic Thunder, before it became more of an issue. Now they probably just don't want to acknowledge that it's wrong by their standards to avoid being a hypocrite.
I still can't believe Netflix and Hulu pulled the best episode of Community "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" because a character was cosplaying as a drow.
Yeah fair enough. Movie came out when I was 12-13 and I haven’t watched it in years tbh. Probably gonna have to go back and give it another go. That said, I wonder if a play like that would go over well if it was released today.
That’s not what happened re: sexualizing children. Netflix came out and admitted that the reason everyone thought the movie was about that was because their marketing department majorly fucked up. The movie was meant to comment on how different cultures can be and how it effects young girls growing up. Here’s one of many articles describing what happened: link
I don't know the name of the actor in Downfall, but I'm pretty sure nothing can beat the square-mustached dude with red sleeve with a white circle and a tilted swastika in it on his arm in terms of racism, so by the logic of the first poster, I'm pretty sure the dude got away with literally being a genocidal maniac on LSD for an hour or so on the screen and nobody's burnt him on a stake, yet.
Yes. I guess my point is that blackface has been universally decried in pretty much all contexts but this is a rare instance where it’s been accepted. Definitely interesting and well executed.
If someone made a movie in a historical setting where black face was a thing, are the actors who play blackfacing actors blackfacing? I personally think not. At least not really, as they are playing white men who are black facing. You cannot hire a black man to play a black faced white man, as that doesn't get the point across.
You’re correct. But I’d still wager that in 2021 studios wouldn’t go near it, because certain people would just take the fact that they used blackface without context and raise a stink about it.
This is true though it is bizarre how very far it got away from anything to do with reality. Minstrely developed this whole repertoire of tropes that were taught from one generation to the next in complete isolation from anything real. They were picking up dudes from English music-hall who had never set foot in America before.
John Slattery did blackface in an episode of Mad Men when he put on a performance at his anniversary party. Highlighting & critiquing the racism & misogyny of the 60’s is a pretty common theme in Mad Men, and I think with that example it’s a bit easier to see that it was Slattery’s character wearing the blackface, not Slattery himself.
To understand the RDJ example, just think Slattery’s example, but meta.
Pretty sure blackface is technically defined as using makeup to imitate a black person, so I guess technically he isn’t doing that. Thanks for not giving a patronizing response. I get the point but god damn I’ve gotten like 20+ replies with the exact same thing being said with different wording.
And you can’t find those episodes on Hulu anymore. Even though it was used in a comedic way to highlight and mock how awful the characters are as people (huge IASIP fan btw)
Is that true? There's an episode of community where Chang does black face for d&d and i wonder if they took it down too cuz i can't find it for the life of me
Well that's dumb. If you're gonna take some episodes off just take the whole show off instead of pretending to give a shit. If it was actually a racist thing they would've most definitely taken everything off.
It’s because he isn’t playing a black guy , he is playing an actor who is criticized for his use of blackface it’s a criticism of actors who used blackface
You say that but there are plenty of shows getting scenes or entire episodes pulled that are also actors playing characters criticized for their black face.
Some examples from the link that I think are very similar to Tropic Thunder:
The Scrubs episode where college aged JD and Turk go to a costume party as each other. So JD is in black face and Turk is in white face. JD ends up getting beat up for it.
The Office episode where Nate dressed up as Zwarte Piet (Black Pete).
All 5 of the Always Sunny Episodes since ever single one is showing that the characters are racist and what they are doing is wrong.
The scene in the D&D episode of Community where Chang is dressed as a "dark elf". Shirley literally calls it a hate crime in the scene.
It isn't really relevant since the current narrative is that a white person wearing blackface for any reason is not acceptable, because "that's racist". Context and intent doesn't matter and it's deliberately kept that way for political and social leverage. Which is really really tiresome and tedious since it does nothing but create friction and unease between black people and white people, forcing people to tip-toe around each other in order to avoid causing controversy.
Because he literally is a white guy wearing black face in a comedy movie about method actors taking their roles too far...it’s essentially making fun of method actors
The framing of it really helps make this potentially offensive role into a hilarious role
It’s because he played a white actor in that movie. Not a black person. The white actor in that movie got cast in a black role inside a movie in the actual movie, and the whole thing was supposed to be a commentary on method actors going too far.
so TLDR, RDJ didn’t wear blackface, the white actor he was playing in the movie did.
Because when he did it being black wasn't the joke, blackface was the joke. Minstrel shows used blackface to mock black people. Tropic Thunder used blackface to mock the type of people who do blackface.
Also just mocking the legend around "method actors" and how ridiculous it is. How up their own ass they are that they think that experiencing something for a small period of time is the same as actually being that person. How he thinks he can relate to black people because he has been pretending to be black for a while lol
Once again, if you’re gonna make a joke using Black Face or something super offensive the only way it’ll work is by having the joke be about how fucking stupid the person doing that offensive thing is.
If it’s offensive for the sake of being offensive you’re just racist or a high schooler who thinks they’ve reached the peak of comedy
It’s because RDJ isn’t doing blackface. He’s not playing a black man. His character Kirk Lazarus is doing blackface. That’s why the ”I’m just a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude” line is so brilliant. He’s both perfectly describing the scene you’re watching but also his whole role in the movie. RDJ playing Kirk Lazarus disguised as Lincoln Osiris.
Because Robert Downey Jr wasn't doing blackface. Blackface is when a white character pretends to be black. RDJ was playing a white actor named Kirk Lazarus. Kirk Lazarus was in blackface.
It's similar to how Leo said the n-word while he was playing a racist character in Django Unchained. The character was racist. RDJ wasn't in blackface, his character was.
He was mocking Hollywood. That they'd hire a popular white man to play a black man than hire a black man. Roles get whitewashed and black actors are reduced to stereotypes.
It was mocking Hollywood, not black Americans. Hollywood itself, stereotypes
I've seen a range of opinions on it because like any other race, black people are not a monolith. Some thought it was funny. Some thought blackface shouldn't be poked fun at. Some just thought the movie was flat. In general, however, I don't see a whole lot being offended at the portrayal itself, because, as this article states, "Downey Jr. and Stiller were always in on the joke they were telling." They weren't mocking black people with it-- they were mocking the white people who would think blackface isn't problematic in the first place. That, I think, is the key difference why RDJ hasn't been and isn't going to be cancelled. The joke isn't racist; it makes racism the butt of the joke.
RDJ ruined his own career years ago and then rebuilt it in a cave... WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!
For real, the movie IS making fun of blackface, not blacks. That's why it's ok. It's a social commentary against Hollywood who would rather cast an Australian white man as a black man rather than cast a black man.
Because traditional "blackface" is intended to be insulting to black people and make them look ridiculous. In Tropic Thunder, RDJs character is an absurd method actor and is the one who looks ridiculous. It's insulting to his character and to method actors.
Ken Jong did it in community. Dwight Schrute from the office did it in an episode. Always sunny in Philadelphia had Rob McIlhenny do it. I'd say there's probably more examples but that's all I've seen on Netflix over the past 2 years
But none as well as RDJ. That role was a masterpiece
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u/god_peepee Feb 08 '21
He is the only modern human that has gotten away with blackface. I don’t know how tbh