Hm....

[trooper6]

So...Robert Downey Jr. is playing a black man in an upcoming comedy.

http://www.idontlikeyouinthatway.com/2008/03/robert-downey-jr-is-black.html

Commentary from the peanut gallery?

Comments

[thelastmehina]

.... WHY?

[trooper6]

By the way, I'll probably not be running hardboiled noir for quite some time...too much other gaming on the plate at the moment...but when I do, I'll certainly email you!

[thelastmehina]

Le awesome!

You still interested in trying out the Cam Club larp?

[notthebuddha]

He and the producers and director will be pilloried and accoladed for their daring/temerity, regardless of the content.

I think that A-lister Eddie Murphy has done enough whiteface recently and well to make it thinkable for Downey to do blackface, but we'll see if he can rise high enough above cheap sterotypes to make it sustainable.

[kola]

um. wow. just....wow.

there'd better be a really good...something...behind this.

[bluejogger]

I remember a very old SNL skit where Eddie Murphy plays a white man. A little searching found the transcript: White Like Eddie

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/84/84iwhitelikeeddie.phtml

[chorale]

The transcript was funny, despite what I said to trooper 6 below about comedies.

[bluejogger]

It's strange, in an RPG, I can play a young woman without even thinking about it. But if I was in a movie, there is no way that I could pass myself off as a young woman.

And there's the whole extra layer of "Why did they pick a male actor to play this female character? What is the director trying to say?"

[celesteh]

Given the state of things recently in America, is it any surprise that minstrelry is back?