A few weeks ago, the international Korean pop fandom were shocked by a skit performed on South Korea's very own Saturday Night Live.
(starts at 0:44)
In the video above, three young women were parodying Dreamgirls while lip-syncing to the theme song of the movie. Well, that doesn't sound very hurtful isn't it?
But what enrages the international fandom is the fact that these three women wore dark make ups. One of the woman even donned dreadlock hairdo although none of the Dreamgirl members donned it. In our eyes, it screams none other than blackface.
This is not the first blackface incident in South Korea's mainstream media. On August 2011, a famous entertainer Boom was just recently discharged from two-years mandatory military service. On his first major appearance after two-years absence, he dressed up as Stevie Wonder.
There are several blackface performance done by other entertainers too.
I believe that this is a result from ignorance. They thought that it was funny because they did not understand how offensive blackface is. They didn't know that it was offensive because of its origin and its racist connotation which came from the past. Since there are no knowledge of it, they saw it as a form of entertainment instead.
Another thing is, although this looks like a very fine example of prejudice because they were portraying a specific racial group based on their stereotype, some comments on articles about these incidents said that they were doing this as a homage to the black culture. As other people often say, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."
Some international fans who were aware of this issue is currently trying to raise awareness on it. A petition were made in order to address the problematic skit.
But what enrages the international fandom is the fact that these three women wore dark make ups. One of the woman even donned dreadlock hairdo although none of the Dreamgirl members donned it. In our eyes, it screams none other than blackface.
This is not the first blackface incident in South Korea's mainstream media. On August 2011, a famous entertainer Boom was just recently discharged from two-years mandatory military service. On his first major appearance after two-years absence, he dressed up as Stevie Wonder.
There are several blackface performance done by other entertainers too.
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| Shindong from idol group Super Junior, apparently as Oprah Winfrey |
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| BEAST's member Lee Kikwang with dark make up and afro wig |
Another thing is, although this looks like a very fine example of prejudice because they were portraying a specific racial group based on their stereotype, some comments on articles about these incidents said that they were doing this as a homage to the black culture. As other people often say, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."
Some international fans who were aware of this issue is currently trying to raise awareness on it. A petition were made in order to address the problematic skit.
Hopefully, the SNL blackface incident would be the last one being showed by South Korea's television.
I liked all the examples you gave of different people involved in the media that portrayed themselves as African Americans offensively. Try and embellish more on other examples of blackface from films and maybe think of having a broader topic so you have more to say in your blog. It would have been interesting if you compared and contrasted blackface with other countries besides South Korea to show the similarities and differences between them.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was really interesting. I have not seen other cultures indulge in blackface besides the american culture, but for some reason I did not see any humor in these forms of blackface, well maybe besides the Stevie Wonder. In my blog, I talked about how some forms of blackface were funny because they were addressing the issue of race ironically, and were trying to create open dialoge about the issues of race, but some of these are simply offesive. None of the dreamgirls had dreadlocks, and although big lips are stereotypes for black people, Oprah did not have huge red lips.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your international perspective on the issue of blackface. Again, work harder on creating an argument instead of just relaying information. In this blog there is a small about how there must be some ignorance on the part of the performers to the history and meaning of blackface, but it needs to be developed more.
ReplyDelete- Ruth