Blackface in Australia

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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

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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?