Aki Yashiro turns into a dark-skinned foreigner

seconded : like the recent outcry about Australians doing something similar.

I really think the political side is a bit overblown, but I dont get why anyone would do it for entertainment. I think they look downright stupid.

Why is it that the only people who complain about this kind of thing are White people?
There’s is a BIG difference between dressing up as a Black person and acting like an idiot compared to dressing up as Black person in order to play a joke on someone.

This skit is not offensive to Black people, but for some reason it seems like some White people want to be offended by it.

Honestly, I can’t see how anyone wouldn’t think that’s makeup. It looks awful and grayish, like coal – like someone didn’t even try to color match to actual African skin tones.

There are two insulting things about this: 1) the show actually expects viewers to be so credulous and world-naive that they’d actually believe that was a “foreigner” (seriously–those who were “fooled” on air HAD to all be in on the joke); and 2) rather than doing an actually convincing makeup job (including prosthetic features, perhaps), the show continues the long tradition of lazily equating “dark skin” with “foreigner” and calling it a day.

And honestly, figuring out why the TV show would be satisfied with that opens a separate can of worms–there’s a fundamental Japanese cultural problem with lazily defining people as “foreigners.” Comparatively, in America, if you’re not American, you’re “Australian,” or “British,” or “Japanese,” or “Chinese”… Maybe people get a little lazy using broad terms like “Asian,” but even that connotes a specific geographical area. Everyone in the U.S. may know what “foreigner” means, but I really never hear anyone actually use that insular, us/them language except from a small minority of bigots who don’t represent society anyway. And in this case, I believe use is tied to thought–i.e., they don’t think that way, that correlates to not using language that way. And society is better off for it. Specifically referencing others’ nationalities limits oversimplified generalities, and helps to treat people relatively more like individuals (even if any definition in national terms is someone de-individualizing).

Now, we can argue about “gaijin” or “gaikokujin,” but the debate is sort of irrelevant. The fundamental problem is the same for both terms. There’s still this lazy classification into “Japanese” and “foreigners” that show segments like this validate.

How does a small show segment like this actually contribute to this problem, if there’s no overt disparagement of the “foreigner”? Compare how U.S. films and TV used to (?) have the subtle “magic negro,” a black person who had mystical powers or just served to solve a white protagonist’s problems. This was an in-between characterization that was no longer overtly racist but still created a demeaning and damaging stereotype. It intrinsically required a viewer to deny granting the character the fullness of a “real” person.

In this same way, even if there’s no overt xenophobia or racism in a segment like this, it still validates an essentially unhealthy and demeaning worldview. The “foreigner” is essentially a token character in many of these segments, a placeholder meant to represent otherness, sometimes exotic, but always only as a contrastative to Japanese foils. It serves only a negative purpose–”That person IS NOT Japanese,” instead of “that person IS British,” or “African,” or whatever the case is. It’s a reminder that they’re different, and not much else. Combined into the steady stream of Japanese TV segments that utilize a token foreigner only for contrastative effect, this segment at best helps perpetuate avoidant, tentative behavior regarding foreigners.

So, racism aside, I do think there’s a more fundamental reason for shows not to be so lazy in how they portray other nationalities.

Maybe if it was really dark and someone poked one of my eyes out, I’d believe it wasn’t make-up.

It’s an interesting joke, but perhaps no one notices her because she’s NOT that popular??

What Gaijinocchio said. Those Africans who gave her appreciative looks were probably just being kind. I don’t see this as racist (though I wasn’t there, so I can’t say) but no way is that skin color natural.

It could also include N Africa and parts of Europe depending on what era in history we are talking about.–

never saw arabs living in N-Africa or Europe. unless they are immigrats there.

–Not true, you don’t need to be a racist to enslave someone, especially if you enslave members of your own race (which is what I was trying to say).–

i was telling you that it is racism to group people by races. what you did as if it were a absolutly normal way..

I find it peculiar that someone would think that “blackface” has negative connotations in the U.S. and nowhere else in the world. Black people were sold as slaves basically worldwide. The consistent use of impossibly-black skin color and exaggerated features of “blackface” in every depiction wordwide should indicate that the intent to demean and ridicule is even and equivalent across the board.

Blackface should not be accepted-even in a movie like Tropic Thunder (which destroyed my previously growing respect for Rober Downie Junior), or Harry Connick Jr.’s previous portryal of a black minister. Here is what rescued Harry Connick Jr. in my eyes–when black people where dying on roof in New Orleans after the flood, and former President Bush did a fly-over, Harry Connick was one of the few celebrities who went to help people out of the inhumane conditions they were abandoned in for days. I believe that New Orleans helped sensitize him to realize that blackface is not “harmless” for the risk that it creeps in insiduously and informs and bolsters your stereotype of a race of people.

I find it peculiar that someone would think that “blackface” has negative connotations in the U.S. and nowhere else in the world. Black people were sold as slaves basically worldwide. The consistent use of impossibly-black skin color and exaggerated features of “blackface” in every depiction wordwide should indicate that the intent to demean and ridicule is even and equivalent across the board.

Blackface should not be accepted-even in a movie like Tropic Thunder (which destroyed my previously growing respect for Rober Downie Junior), or Harry Connick Jr.’s previous portryal of a black minister. Here is what rescued Harry Connick Jr. in my eyes–when black people where dying on roof in New Orleans after the flood, and former President Bush did a fly-over, Harry Connick was one of the few celebrities who went to help people out of the inhumane conditions they were abandoned in for days. I believe that New Orleans helped sensitize him to realize that blackface is not “harmless” for the risk that it creeps in insiduously and informs and bolsters the stereotype and caricature of a race of people. Case in point-the commenter calling itself “longus dickus.”