Blackface

Blackface is a kind of costume or make up which involves putting black make-up on to imitate a racist image of a Black or African American person. Blackface became popular in the 19th century especially during Reconstruction after the American Civil War.

By the mid 19th century, blackface minstrel shows became a distinctive artform. It translated formal works, like opera, into popular terms for general audiences.^[1]

Early in the 20th century, blackface came off the minstrel show. It became a form in its own right.^[2]

However, in the United States, blackface became less popular after the civil right movement. It is offensive and racist.^[3]

The videos for the Culture Club "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" and Taco's "Puttin' On the Ritz" are videos in which actors in blackface appeared during the early 1980s.^[4] The original video for "Puttin' On the Ritz" (1983) was not allowed due to the characters in blackface in that video.

Blackface Media

This reproduction of a 1900 William H. West minstrel show poster, originally published by the Strobridge Lithographing Company, shows the transformation from a person of European descent to a caricature of a dark-skinned person of African descent.
FLIT advertisement by Dr. Seuss depicting blackface-styled caricatures of Black people
The Dreadnought hoaxers in Abyssinian costume
The white American actor John McCullough as Othello, 1878
A man in blackface as minstrel, c. 1890
Singer and actor Al Jolson wearing blackface in the musical film Mammy (1930)
Bert Williams was the only black member of the Ziegfeld Follies when he joined them in 1910. Shown here in blackface, he was the highest-paid African American entertainer of his day.
Sinterklaas and his Black Petes arrive by boat at the start of a procession in Nijmegen (Netherlands), 2016