To summarize, this scandinavian comedy trio from the 90’s made a parody of Miami Vice. This being 90’s scandinavia, you can probably guess that the actors/comedians didn’t exactly have the melanin-credentials of parodying the black guy from Miami Vice, so one of them instead wore blackface (well, brownface would perhaps be a better description, due to the color tone).
As far as I can recall, the skit didn’t really make race much of a punchline, except from when they’re fixing their hair before the final showdown (which one of course have to do, this being a Miami Vice parody), and the white guy asks the black guy to borrow some hair gel but gets the response: (roughly translated) “I’m black, I don’t use hairgel. I use chocolate pudding.”
So yeah, asking because I’m a middle aged extremely white guy, and I found this skut funny as shit when I was a kid, and I stumbled across it recently, and I got curious.
EDIT: Found it. Turns out it’s from 1989. https://youtu.be/GDpLUXtA-4M
I can’t be arsed translating, because in retrospect it’s not really that good, but you can see the blackface and its origin in the beginning.
I think it’s a very difficult choice to navigate. The biggest example of brown/blackface where it doesn’t work I can remember is Fisher Stevens playing an Indian guy in Short Circuit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Circuit_(1986_film). In that movie, he’s playing an Indian person as a stereotype to juxtapose with how white counterpart. Contrast that to Robert Downey Jr. being nominated for an Oscar and BAFTA for his blackface roll in Tropic Thunder. The way it was handled within the movie itself was legitimately a good representation of why blackface is usually on the wrong side of “is it racist?”
I think just based on the little I’ve seen without any other translation besides your edit, it looks fairly racist.
Any kind of blackface will be considered racist by American standards (mostly because of blackface “comedy” early in the 20th century). Countries within the American cultural sphere of influence have copied this take as well. In my opinion it’s just makeup and whether it’s racist or not depends on if you use it to make fun of black people or if you’re just depicting a black character, especially if you live in a place with very few black people, but I know that’s no longer the majority take here at least.
In this particular instance I honestly believe the blackface itself isn’t even racist, it seems like they just lacked black actors for their parody. The pudding line is… unnecessarily crude, though, I don’t know what that would ever even refer to if it’s not explicitly meant as a racist insult. Maybe if the black guy used chocolate pudding next to a blonde guy using vanilla pudding it would’ve been less racist? I don’t understand the joke in the first place, it just seems like a weird dig.
Without reading, probably very, based on it being brought up.
After reading, 90’s European blackface can be excused based on lack of historical context with minstrel shows, but the pudding thing doesn’t feel very nice.
Nicely done parody.
Also mind the ladies butts, the constant smoking and whatever else seems a bit outdated.
I bet I could get that tanned skin if I worked outside for a whole summer. I think the first joke is perfectly alright. The second one at the end is a bit cheap.
Blackface is just a very big no.
Would you say that this was racist, or shouldn’t have been performed?
Of course all of you excuse it, none of you are black so you don’t care
It’s extremely racist if you’d like to know from someone who is black
