‘Late Night’ Writer Expertly Dissects Megyn Kelly’s Racist Blackface Comments

[TheFuser]

Would we not know this was Crazy Eyes and Mr. T without the blackface? Cut it out. There's no need for it. White people are doing it because they think no one should be able to tell them what and what not to do. FOH.

 

[blaze]

Did you have an issue with this?

I personally thought that shit was genius and hilarious. Also, it was addressed in the movie quite a few times....by the black character.

 

[deputy dawg]

So did you protest the Downy character or that movie? Just curious.

None of ya'll did. Just proves my point.

I did some looking to get info on Downey's character in 'Tropic Thunder'.
The blackface was part of the script - (a "comedy"?) and they added a Black character to show the absurdity of it.
You chose a complicated example with this one.


One description of the part:
"Downey Jr. plays overly committed actor Kirk Lazarus, a white man cast to play a black soldier in a satire of the performing profession."

Another one:
"It’s hard to believe that in 2008 a filmmaker would decide to hire a white actor to play an African American. However, director Ben Stiller liked his Tropic Thunder cowriter Justin Theroux’s idea enough to keep it in the film. Then he went out to find someone to play an actor who had made a conscious choice to don blackface for a movie.

(The plot follows modern movie stars who get lost in the jungle while shooting a Vietnam War film and end up being attacked by Vietnamese drug dealers. It opens August 13.)

He chose Robert Downey Jr. who admits, in a Los Angeles hotel room, that there were many complications in playing the role of Australian actor Kirk Lazarus, a five-time Oscar winner who takes method acting to another level."

To balance the concept of Downey Jr. playing a white actor playing a black soldier, Stiller and Theroux wrote an African American soldier into the script. Stiller gave actor Brandon T. Jackson the job of making the audience feel less uncomfortable and Downey Jr. says that when he saw Jackson’s lines in the script, he felt better about his own role.

“They had him saying things to my character like, ”˜Dude you are so stereotyping yourself’ and ”˜I am so embarrassed for you’ and ”˜You wouldn’t last a minute in my neighbourhood.’” Downey Jr. relates."

Jamie Foxx comments @ 3:30 mark: