From “Iron Man”…to Black Man?0 Comments

Robert Downey Jr. wears blackface for a new role in “Tropic Thunder” – something not new in Hollywood.

Robert Downey Jr. has played some high profile roles: Armored superhero Iron Man, silent film star Charlie Chaplin and British sleuth Sherlock Holmes in the upcoming Guy Ritchie film. Now in the new comedy “Tropic Thunder” he plays a black man. What’s so noteworthy about that? Well, he’s white.

In the film opening August 13, he plays an Oscar-winning actor cast in a big-budget Vietnam War movie. So you see, Downey isn’t playing a black man. He’s playing a white actor playing a role originally written for a black actor. But is a white guy appearing in blackface racist? Controversial?

Downey and Ben Stiller, the film’s co-writer and director, think satire. Stiller told Entertainment Weekly that he and Downey “always focused on the fact that they were skewering insufferable actors, not African-Americans.”

So far there’s been no uproar from early screening goers or moral outrage from Al Sharpton. In fact, Stiller told EW that he was relieved at the positive reaction from black audience members after screening a rough cut of the film. “It seems people really embrace it,” he said. Downey’s black co-star Brandon T. Jackson also embraced Downey’s portrayal.

“When I first read the script, I was like, ‘What? Black face?’ But when I saw him (Downey Jr.) (act) he, like, became a black man. To be honest, he played a black dude better than anybody I’ve seen!” Jackson told starpulse.com.

A white actor wearing blackface isn’t new to Hollywood. Old Hollywood actors Judy Garland, Joan Crawford and Shirley Temple to contemporary stars Sarah Silverman, Billy Crystal and Angelina Jolie have all performed in blackface. Fred Armisen (of Venezuelan and Japanese descent) even plays Barack Obama on “Saturday Night Live.”

The newest Hollywood actor to don blackface isn’t worried his performance is disrespectful. “At the end of the day, it’s always about how well you commit to the character,” Downey told EW. “If I didn’t feel it was morally sound, or that it would be easily misinterpreted that I’m just C. Thomas Howell in [Soul Man], I would’ve stayed home.”

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