That playing is the thing

 

Now something a bit more serious and possibly controversial.

I'm not in favor of blackface, but I don't know why. While a minstrel show might have had an actor using makeup to lampoon a black person, and present a caricature of some stereotypical (and insulting) image of a black person, I'm still not exactly sure what is wrong with that (in an absolute sense). Making fun of people is either totally OK by you, or wrong. Let's explore:

If you think that making fun of a person or a group, by pointing out physical, intellectual, mental or sociological traits, practices or beliefs is a valid source for humor, then you are OK with Polish jokes, mocking reporters with physical limitations, and poking fun at Charles Manson because he's out of his gourd. Everyone is fair game and in all ways. Sticks and stones etc.

If you think that jokes focused on a person or group because of some aspect of group identity are wrong, then you are against the song "Short People," the TV show "Hogan's Heroes" most of "Blazing Saddles" and any comments which make fun of anti-vaxxers, flat earthers and any other conspiracy theorist. Membership in a group by dint of physical, ethnic or socio-cultural affiliation is sacred and we can't joke about it.

Next, we have to figure out if you are against cultural appropriation, one group's or group member's using some aspect of another group's identity when crafting its own sense of self (even if temporarily). If getting dreadlocks or using a particular style of speech or dress is improper because one cannot take that which "belongs" to another group, then we have to condemn the entirety of Hollywood. If the appropriation was to underscore the power of stereotypes then that act is doubly offensive, right?

Recently, it has even been seen as wrong to have roles that were intended for one group to be recast as not of that group so actors from outside can play the role (cf here for more). And having actors from one group PORTRAY someone of another group even if sincerely? No good, it seems.

Well, sometimes apparently. Sometimes not. No one raised a fuss when Cote de Pablo played an Israeli on NCIS. I guess that there just aren't any Israelis in Hollywood. And then I started getting an ad in my faMceEboTokA newsfeed for a new production of The Merchant of Venice. I'm a fan of the play and have written about it a few times. I'm too tired to link, but if you search my blog for "Shylock" you will find a couple of posts about him.

A recent, fancy movie version of it had Al Pacino as Shylock. Pacino is not Jewish. People have mixed reactions when talking about Olivier as Othello, but was there any backlash to Pacino playing a Jew? Not as far as I know. I guess there are no Jews in Hollywood so it is OK to use a non-Jew to play the role. Or maybe it is because some of his best friends are Jewish so he's an honorary Jew...I wonder if there can be an equivalent honorary status in other groups that would allow non-members to pass for the sake of their acting roles and not be vilified.

A new production of the play has a black actor named John Douglas Thompson as Shylock. As far as my research has shown (and if I am wrong, profuse apologies) this actor is not Jewish. But he will be playing a Jew on stage, and one who is, by some, thought to typify the worst racial stereotypes of Jews.

Why is this OK? Is the role being rewritten so the Shylock character is no longer Jewish? I don't think so. And does it matter to me that he is black? Certainly not -- there are plenty of Black Jews around. Simply put, he isn't Jewish, and his playing the role of a Jew, having to adopt whatever "mannerisms" he thinks would make his portrayal more believable is therefore as offensive to me as blackface might be to someone else. This is appropriation in the perpetuation of stereotypical and offensive presentation of a group.

And yet no one else seems bothered by this. One wonders why that is.