Robert Downey Jr…..in blackface?
March 11, 2008 by Wendy Boswell
So apparently they couldn’t find an actual Black actor to play this role?
Actor Robert Downey Jr has in the past been applauded for his edgy roles.
But his latest may be a step too far - as the actor dons make-up to play a rather convincing looking black man in a new Hollywood film starring comic actor Ben Stiller. In a still from film Tropic Thunder, Downey Jnr is sandwiched between Ben Stiller, and a blonde Jack Black.
With his afro hair and brown skin, he is virtually unrecognisable as the 42-year-old star of stage and screen.
Downey Jr plays a worthy Oscar-winning actor taking on a role originally written for a black actor, and rather than re-write the part, he goes method. Clearing anticipating a backlash, Downey Jr told a US magazine: “If it’s done right, it could be the type of role you called Peter Sellers to do 35 years ago. If you don’t do it right, we’re going to hell.”
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While I do think actors in blackface is normally offensive, Robert Downey Jr. is portraying an actor who is in blackface.
The difference between this and other blackface is that Robert Downey Jr. will be making fun of white people’s perceptions and stereotypes of black people, instead of more offensive blackface, which simply is stereotypes of black people.