this is my last post on this subject...everything and this falls within the category of everything is justified by invoking freedom of speech and freedom of expression these days....not saying it's good or bad, just stating the facts...i'm sure if somebody criticized this is as being insensitive to blacks, those responsible for this exhibit would say its freedom of expression....thats all i'm saying
would Fisher Stevens' character in Short Circuit 2 be an example of blackface (brownface?) -- including putting on dark makeup and the horrible accent as well as perpetuating some ridiculous stereotypes?
No more so than Eddie Murphy putting on white makeup and playing an old Jewish man and perpetuating that stereotype in Coming to America.
Probably worth noting that one of the co-writers of the Coming to America, Bernie Blaustein, is Jewish, which might have given Murphy more of a "clearance" to do his character than Fisher Stevens had, although I should probably re-watch the Short Circuit movies to accurately judge Stevens' portrayal, particularly to match his mimicing skills against Murphy's. Heck, what if Blaustein actually wrote the Coming to America dialogue, or edited it to make it more Jewi- uh, I mean, more reflective of whatever ethnic group he intended for Murphy to portray? Ironically, in defense of Short Circuit, they might not have been able to find an Indian actor willing to portray the role, so they had no choice but to get Stevens.
I finally saw this in person. Well executed images and some didn't really look like real objects - hard to explain but they had an almost flattened effect. The content was made a little sterile by the technique. They had a nearby reading room that had books on the depiction of blacks in Western art but, more importantly, they had some of the pieces used in the photographs. They, obviously, have more power. As an aside, when I was in the gallery for this show two black women (they were not American...perhaps Haitian? They were not speaking English but I was too far away to confirm French) stepped in the entryway, took one look, and turned right around. They never entered the room. All in all, interesting images aesthetically but of somewhat intellectually superfical.
