Feminist Looking Glass

I don’t know much about American entertainer Harry Connick Jr., but his actions on an Australian TV variety show deserve applause.  He was serving as a guest judge when there was a skit in which four men appeared in wigs and blackface and danced behind a Michael Jackson impersonator wearing white makeup.  Connick gave the performance a zero score and told them that if it had been done in the United States it would have been pulled off the air.  Later, he said that if he had known about the skit, he would not have appeared and that “I just want to say, on behalf of my country, I know it was done humorously, but we’ve spent so much time trying to not make black people look like buffoons, that when we see something like that we take it really to heart.”

However, subsequently, it has been reported that Connick himself had appeared as a Southern black minister in a Mad TV skit.  Critics are calling him a hypocrite.

Filed under: International, Pop Culture Tagged: | Australia, Blackface, Harry Connick