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The New York Times reports that at the 2012 Academy Awards, someone made a racial joke that was “in questionable taste.”

That would be comedian and presenter Chris Rock, who cracked a joke about roles available to black men in animation:

“I love animation because in the world of animation, you can be anything you want to be. If you’re a fat woman you can play a skinny princess. If you’re a short wimpy guy, you can play a tall gladiator. If you’re a white man you can play an Arabian prince. And if you’re a black man, you can play a donkey, or a zebra. You can’t play white, my God!”

(Compare that to the quip host Billy Crystal made after the lone actor of color for the night, Octavia Spencer, won Best Supporting Actress: “After I saw The Help I just wanted to hug the first black woman I saw, which from Beverly Hills is about a 45 minute drive.” This joke is somehow less “questionable” than Chris Rock’s scripted joke about playing a zebra?)

In other news, UCLA Professor Russell K. Robinson released his new study, “Not Quite a Breakthrough: The Oscars And Actors of Color, 2002-2012″, which found, among other things, that all Best Actress winners since 2002 have been white and no winner in any acting category during the those ten years was Latino, Asian American, or Native American.

The Los Angeles Times published its investigation of the Academy. (Big shocker: Oscar voters are 94% white and 77% male.)

And, although you wouldn’t know it from reading the NYT article, host Billy Crystal’s opening montage had a brief moment of the actor in blackface as Sammy Davis Jr.

Number of women who have solo-hosted the Academy Awards	2
Number of openly gay people who have solo-hosted the Academy Awards	1
Number of people of color who have solo-hosted the Academy Awards	2
Number of times Billy Crystal has solo-hosted the Academy Awards	9
(Sammy Davis Jr. co-hosted the Academy Awards with other actors in 1971 and 1974, but never solo-hosted a show.)

“Too sensitive?”

Since this (blackface+ Oscars+ 2012) happened, there’s been a lot of grumbling about how it’s “just a joke” and how “it’s not a big deal.”

This is followed by a lot of anxiety and hand-wringing about being “too sensitive” on the part of people who were offended by it (blackface+ Oscars+ 2012)

The implication is that if you are “too sensitive” then your feelings are invalid because they are extreme and those with feelings deemed extreme have no right to complain. ”Too sensitive” compared to whom, exactly? The term frames people who accept depictions of racism in media as normative, while we who are “too sensitive” are the ones not getting with the program (or getting the “joke.” Even if the “joke” is awful.)

The culture that we live in is designed to label folks who “construe something as racist”—regardless of historical context or modern exclusion— as people who are “too sensitive.” It is less concerned with exploring why people are sensitive to racism.

How do these conversations usually go when they take place in the public sphere?

People who are offended by poor depictions of marginalized groups	People who are offended when people offended by poor depictions speak out
Affected by poor depiction	Not affected by poor depiction
Labeled as "too sensitive"	Not labeled as "too sensitive"
Accused of "victimization complex" or  "claiming victimhood"	Not accused of "victimization complex" or "claiming victimhood"
Called "entitled"	Not called "entitled"
Told to "Just get over it"	Not told to "Just get over it"
Labeled:  "Can’t handle a joke"	Not labeled : "Can’t handle people upset by ‘joke’"
Told:  "No one cares"	Not told: "No one cares that you don’t care" or "Maybe you should care"
Told: "Seeing race makes you part of the problem"	Not told: "Dismissing racism makes you a part of the problem."

In our society, to be “too sensitive” is a bigger sin than “doing something that has a racist impact” or “defending something that has a racist impact.”

Why? Because being sensitive is what people who are at an disadvantage do. (Hence sensitivity being a negative trait attributed to women and minorities who just want respect. Note that in our culture, “being a pussy” is taken as an insult to men and “having balls” is taken as a compliment.)

In contrast, cultural bullying is something that people with privilege do. People with agent status are lauded for making “gutsy” jokes and expressing their free speech without caring about responsibility or impact (that would make them “too sensitive.”) The entitlement is such that the “overly sensitive” feelings of the people they are disrespecting shouldn’t matter. Meanwhile, people with targeted status are expected to “take it,” as in, docilely receive and accept it.

Being perceived as “too sensitive” (read: weak) suddenly becomes a concern for anyone (gutsy enough) to speak out.

What about whiteface? Why context matters

Another point of debate that has come out of Crystalface is whether or not blackface is “okay” or “culturally acceptable.” Comparisons are being drawn to the 2004 film White Chicks, the 2008 film Tropic Thunder, or Dave Chapelle’s whiteface routines. This argument usually doesn’t take into account historical context.

Over time, the way blackface has been used in cinema has changed. (Thankfully.) In the early 1900s, it was used to demonize and degrade black Americans [eg. Birth of a Nation (1915)]. Spike Lee’s 2000 film, Bamboozled, starred several black lead actors and satirized minstrel shows and blackface. Fast forward to 2008, where Ben Stiller’s film Tropic Thunder also poked fun at the practice of blackface (Robert Downey Jr. was nominated for Best Supporting Actor by the Academy for this role).

	Al Jolson The Jazz Singer 1927	Robert Downey Jr. Tropic Thunder 2008	Billy Crystal Academy Awards 2012
Overtly racist (intended to dehumanize/mark black people as inferior)	Yes	No	No
Portrayal based on harmful stereotypes about black people	Yes	Yes	No
Evokes an oppressive history associated with the practice of blackface	Yes	Yes	Yes
Provides a meta-commentary that critiques blackface as problematic	No	Yes	No
Acknowledges poor diversity or poor representation of black people in Hollywood	No	Yes	No

It is possible to critique Billy Crystal’s use of blackface without equating it to the use of blackface in the early 1900s. Billy Crystal’s use of blackface is also different from Tropic Thunder‘s use of blackface.

Because of America’s history of discrimination; and because of Hollywood’s use of media to discriminate against people of color, blackface does have a different impact on the black community than whiteface has on the white community.

	Blackface	Brownface	Yellowface	Redface	White-washing	Mighty Whitey	Non-traditional	Whiteface
Used as a broad casting practice to keep actors from impacted group out of lead roles	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Was primary depiction of impacted group for many generations	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Used to spread othering stereotype of impacted group	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	?	No	No
Impacted group continues to be underrepresented and marginalized in media	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No

Notes:
• The “impacted group” is the group being –faced (eg: black face impacted black Americans).
• In this table, the practice of casting a character of color with a white actor is called “whitewashing” (Prince of Persia) and the practice of casting an actor of color in a role that would likely have gone to a white actor is called “non-traditional casting.” (Idris Elba as Heimdall in Thor)
• Critics of whitewashing say that the practice impacts actors of color by depriving them of roles. Conversely, critics of non-traditional casting argue that this practice deprives white actors of roles.
• “Mighty Whitey” refers to the practice of inserting white lead characters into stories about people of color and making the role of the white male lead central, such as The Last of the Mohichans, The Last Samurai, and 2012′s The Flowers of War. The impacted group in this case are people of color who are given secondary status in the story.
• I used question marks for white-washing and Mighty whitey because the impact of these two practices is less clear cut. While the –face practices spread dehumanizing stereotypes, in some cases, white-washing and mighty whitey ‘humanize’ by showing white characters who can be or relate to people of color. Unfortunately, the practice also reinforces that people of color are secondary and positive characters of color are best represented by whites. These stories are not empowering to people of color

This is not an argument for the acceptableness of whiteface, only an argument that blackface and whiteface are incomparable. The reality is that unlike blackface and the other –faces, whiteface has never been used on a sweeping basis, period, and was certainly not ever designed as a practice to prevent an entire population of white people from having the ability to represent themselves on screen. The images perpetrated by blackface, yellowface, brownface, and redface have resulted in stereotypes that have been used to justify discrimination, hate crimes, lynchings, and cultural genocide. The same cannot be said for whiteface.

Given that Hollywood continues to have diversity problem to this day, of course the Billy Crystal blackface scene touched a nerve for many people. It is easier to label the outcry as “too sensitive” than to examine the historical context behind why people might be upset or disturbed. If Chris Rock’s crack about the limited opportunities for actors of color is what’s “questionable,” maybe the New York Times–and Hollywood–needs to take a closer look.

Categories: blog, Featured, History and Concepts
Tags: Academy Awards, african american, Billy Crystal, black, blackface, Chris Rock, Hollywood, Russell K. Robinson, statistics, UCLA, yellowface