Blackface in Australia

[sqbr]

So there's been lots of condemnation of this Hey Hey blackface thing, and the typical "But we're not racist, it's you race-obsessed Americans being oversensitive" crap that has followed(*).

But I haven't seen much discussion by Australians of general Australian attitudes to blackface, which is something I've actually been pondering for a while. Note: all links lead to racist images/video.

So: this is hardly the first time Aussie comedians have cheerfully used blacface without expecting to offend, see for example this Chaser sketch (I've been darkly amused by people saying "I miss the Chaser, they'd satirise this wonderfully". The Chaser can be good, but they're also willing to be incredibly racist/sexist/ableist etc when it suits a joke)

I've also seen people wear blackface as part of costumes to Swancon, I'm still trying to get myself to a point where the next time that happens I feel able to say something about it to them.

I think that the attitude is similar to that towards yellow-face (dressing as stereotyped asians) in America. There's a general acknowledgement that it's a bit racist, but only in an "edgy un-PC" way, not something anyone would get seriously up in arms about(**), like in I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry (part of a playlist about yellowface)

Note the way that a white guy dressing as a pacific islander in Summer Heights High is seen as anti racist.

I think a lot of Australians would argue that blackface doesn't have the same history here. But I'm not sure about that: I googled a while back and there was actually a tradition of minstrelry, though not as much as in America(***). EDIT: Minstrelsy in Australia : A Brief Overview. And the fact we don't have any significant African American population doesn't mean there aren't and haven't been black Australians who have been and are the butt of racist jokes. I don't know whether or not they are as hurt by blackface as African Americans..because afaict noone ever asks. Noone even seems to think of the question, you'll note all the Hey Hey discussion is about how offended Americans are, and how racist white/other non-black Australians are (or aren't).

See also Papa Lazarou for an example of english attitudes.

Would other Australians agree with my take on this? I'm glad to see people finally discussing the issue.

(*)Which itself is inevitably followed by a rousing game of "your country is so racist, not like mine", fun for players of all nationalities. I have had enough of this game, do not play it here.
(**)Not that people shouldn't get up in arms about yellow-face etc too.
(***)Of course googling "Australia blackface" gets me very different results now!

Comments

[samvara]

I admit my main association with blackface is the golliwogs thing which I think is gross no matter where you are in the world. I am going to... go away and think/read some more...

[sqbr]

It totally didn'toccur to me to consider the position of golliwogs, but it's definitely related. Hmm.

[samvara]

I'm sorry to admit how *much* thinking I'm doing as a result of this :(

[sqbr]

Thinking is good! (Needing to think is not always good, but if it has to happen then it's good that it does)

[samvara]

I wonder if I'm overthinking it, I'm confident race-based 'humour' is always going to be dodgy and where you are or whether you have a cultural history of a particular type of oppression is a moot point.

[sqbr]

The boundaries of acceptable humour is one of those things I'm definitely still poking at.

[samvara]

I think the main rule is Know Your Audience, if you can't guarantee you know everyone and how they will react, be prepared to pay it when they tell you you failed.

Personally humour that depends on pointing out someone else is crap is pretty limiting humour.

PS I love love LOVE your icon.

Golliwogs

[ian.mckellar.org]

Enid Blyton doesn't exist in the US. At all, basically. One theory is that it's due to the presence of golliwogs in some of her literature. American librarians are notoriously radical and may have blacklisted her for being so overtly racist.

Re: Golliwogs

[sqbr]

There's new expurgated versions where the golliwogs are all goblins or something but I guess it's too late for her to be considered a must have children's classic.

[onceamy]

It all comes down to invisibility - if a `joke' renders somebody invisible because you pin-up another as their caricature, it's damn wrong.

My opinion, anyway. I hate free to air TV for a good reason!

[sqbr]

Absolutely. And yeah, I don't watch an awful lot of free to air stuff that isn't on the ABC (not that the ABC is imune from crapness, as this post proves)

[lauredhel]

Five words: "My Boomerang Won't Come Back".

[sqbr]

*googles*

D:

(It's a total ripoff of the Goons, too. At least their racist caricatures were played by an actual POC! ...actually maybe that isn't any better :/ )

[ian.mckellar.org]

So I haven't watched the Hey Hey clip because really I could never stand that show, but I don't think that they intended to be racist. Of course the intentional racists aren't normally the problem these days. It's easy enough to ignore the KKK as fringe loonies. Dealing with the background level of racism that lets HHIS' producers think a blackface skit is appropriate or funny is harder and more important.

On the other hand, IMO the best comedy often challenges our sense of what's socially appropriate. It often holds up a slightly exaggerating mirror to our society to show us our ugly side. Sasha Baron Cohen's Borat shows us through his racist statements how uncomfortable we are confronting racism from other cultures, but at the same time he's portraying Central Asian Muslims as incestuous bumbling idiots.

Oh, FWIW, one group that it feels like it's okay to parody and ridicule in the US is Native Americans. Like the Australian Aboriginal community they have funny names, alcoholism and domestic violence and those are relatively open to ridicule in a way that we would find deeply disturbing in Australia.

[sqbr]

Yes, there's not an awful lot of people who consciously think "I would like to make life more difficult for non-white people, because I hate them!" but there's still a lot of racist stuff gets done. I believe the term is "aversive racism".

I have thinky thoughts about the role of boundary pushing in comedy I'm still trying to articulate, but I think the main issue is that it's much, much easier to be "politically incorrect" and push boundaries at the expense of less powerful groups than it is to challenge the powerful status quo, and so when people try and do the latter they often end up falling into the trap of doing the former, at least a bit. This isn't just an issue with comedy, social justice movements are rife with it too (note my previous post about ableism in feminism)

Oh, FWIW, one group that it feels like it's okay to parody and ridicule in the US is Native Americans. Like the Australian Aboriginal community they have funny names, alcoholism and domestic violence and those are relatively open to ridicule in a way that we would find deeply disturbing in Australia.

I get the impression Native American culture is much more visible and taken more seriously than Aboriginal culture, and so since people can't ignore it they make fun of it, maybe?