Blackface costumes revive controversy at Halloween
Is donning blackface to be a favorite TV character ever OK for Halloween?
NEW YORK - Is donning blackface to be a favorite TV character ever OK for Halloween?
How about a bloody hoodie and blackface for a costume riff on slain teen Trayvon Martin, or full-on minstrel at an Africa-themed party for the fashion elite in Milan?
Each of those costumes made headlines this Halloween season. And the answer to each, African studies and culture experts said, is: never.
"The painful history of minstrelsy is not that long ago for us to think that now, somehow, we can do it differently or do it better," said Yaba Blay, co-director of Africana studies at Drexel University.
Julianne Hough found that out the hard way. She apologized on Twitter over the weekend amid criticism for darkening her skin for a costume as Crazy Eyes from "Orange is the New Black" at a Hollywood bash.
Hough explained on Twitter: "I am a huge fan of the show . . . , actress Uzo Aduba, and the character she has created. It certainly was never my intention to be disrespectful or demeaning to anyone in any way. I realize my costume hurt and offended people and I truly apologize."
There's a fine line between mockery and tribute - a line that blackface has the power to obliterate, said Marita Sturken, professor of media, culture and communication at New York University.
"It doesn't matter that it was a character from a TV show. That doesn't get her off the hook," she said. "If she's going to put some substance on her face, that constitutes blackface and this incredibly complicated history gets evoked."
Blackface emerged in the mid-19th century, representing a combination of put-down, fear and morbid fascination with black culture, said Eric Lott, an American studies professor at City University of New York's graduate center. Among the most prominent examples: Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor.
"It's constantly a form of entertainment that backs itself into all kinds of trouble, whether political trouble around slavery or a kind of mental trouble having to do with fantasizing about black people," said Lott, who wrote the 1993 book Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy & the American Working Class.
As for Hough, he said: "It's just a stupid thing to do. It's a racist thing to do. What blackface does is give the white people privilege of representing black people, of taking black images and treating them as a thing owned."
Kelsey Crowe, who teaches social work in San Francisco, has been following the fracas on Facebook. She sees more tribute to Crazy Eyes than hatred in Hough's costume.
The look for Hough "didn't strike me as exploitative at all," she said. "Everybody likes the character of Crazy Eyes, but I guess that could be said of Aunt Jemima, too."
