The Guardian ran an interview with actor Joseph Fiennes on Sunday. During it, he expressed regret for playing Michael Jackson in blackface.
Joseph Fiennes regrets playing Michael Jackson
Fiennes played the king of pop in the 2017 TV show Elizabeth, Michael & Marlon. But the preview alone ignited such backlash that producers never aired the show. But the die was cast.
The reason for that backlash was obvious and all too predictable. That’s because viewers didn’t see Fiennes playing Jackson. They saw a White actor with black paint on his face mocking a famous Black man.
The mere sight of that conjured up racist stereotypes. And that previewed a show that was bound to offend more than entertain.
It was a wrong decision. Absolutely. And I’m one part of that — there are producers, broadcasters, writers, directors, all involved in these decisions. …
But you know, it came at a time where there was a movement and a shift and that was good, and it was, you know, a bad call. A bad mistake.
That suggests Fiennes finally gets it. But it speaks volumes that he implicates many people in that mistake. He says he was “part of a collective.” That’s why their decision betrays a need for more diversity among decision-makers on set. After all, no Black would have signed off on this blackface farce.
Wearing blackface rivals saying the N-word
Let’s face it, a White person wearing blackface is as taboo as a White person saying the N-word. We are no longer in the 19th century.
Back then, minstrel shows featured White performers wearing blackface. And they did so only to reinforce racist stereotypes for laughs. But, today, no one in their right mind thinks it’s a laughing matter.
Actors wearing blackface are willfully perpetuating those stereotypes. That’s why they trigger such backlash when they do. And, as actress Julianne Hough can attest, this backlash knows no bounds. After all, she faced backlash for merely wearing blackface as part of her “Crazy Eyes” Halloween costume.
Moreover, no Black person can give permission to any White person to offend all Black folks. Actor Ted Danson found this out the hard way. He presumed his Black girlfriend Whoopi Goldberg permitted him to wear blackface. But, if anything, the backlash among Black folks was even greater because Whoopi is Black. Their relationship ended soon after this spectacle.
But Robert Downey Jr. has shown that White actors can still get away with wearing blackface. The marvel is that he refused to apologize in the face of backlash and still thrived professionally. Of course, it might’ve helped that he went from playing a black person in blackface to playing the cartoon character Iron Man.
The irony of playing Michael Jackson in blackface
Only God knows how many cosmetic surgeries Jackson had to make himself look White. Evidently, despite his hit song, it mattered to him if you were “Black or White.”
Yet Fiennes here is apologizing for wearing blackface to play him. That even though Black Jackson looked whiter than most White folks. The irony in that is almost too rich for words.
As it happens, I addressed the issues that compelled Fiennes’s apology in a previous blog post. I refer you to “White Actor Playing Michael Jackson Exploits His Self-Hate.” That leads to this twist: I have no issue with White actors playing Black characters or vice versa.
Indeed, Black and Hispanic actors play White characters in Hamilton. Yet nobody has raised an eyebrow. But that might be because no one is wearing whiteface to mock those White characters.
In this case, it was taboo enough that Fiennes was wearing blackface. But the whole show was also exploiting the psychopathology of racial self-hatred. That made it doubly offensive.