If you don’t recognize that African-American actor standing between Jack Black and Ben Stiller, there’s a good reason: He’s white. In Tropic Thunder, an epic action comedy co-written and directed by Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. plays Kirk Lazarus, a very serious Oscar-winning actor cast in the most expensive Vietnam War film ever. Problem is, Lazarus’s character, Sgt. Osiris, was originally written as black. So Lazarus decides to dye his skin and play Osiris, um, authentically. Funny? Sure. Dangerous? That’s an understatement. ”If it’s done right, it could be the type of role you called Peter Sellers to do 35 years ago,” Downey says. ”If you don’t do it right, we’re going to hell.”
The State Of . . . black face. A few weekends ago, Fred Armisen, who is Latin, tanned his skin to play Obama. For years, though SNL has used white actors to play black characters. This has been done with no uproar. I (rich) heard only one person raise a question about Armisen being in black face. Despite all the nooses that were flying around last year, it seems that blackface has gotten a pass.
Filed under: TV/Movie
