Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Makeup for a conventionalized comic travesty of black people, especially in a minstrel show.
- noun An actor wearing such makeup in a minstrel show.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun a style of
theatrical makeup in which a white personblackens their face in order to portray anegro
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the makeup (usually burnt cork) used by a performer in order to imitate a Negro
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word blackface.
Examples
-
Putting a nonblack actor in blackface is so easy to avoid, that producers simply cannot avoid the question, "why didn't you just get a black actor to do it?"
-
Putting a nonblack actor in blackface is so easy to avoid, that producers simply cannot avoid the question, "why didn't you just get a black actor to do it?"
SeeLight: 2008
-
And here comes the chorus of Republican Governors in "blackface" singing "Oh, dem golden slippers"!
-
This American war criminal, wearing the offensive 'blackface', is preparing to shoot defenceless civilians, house pets, and house plants, as part of an ongoing campaign of war atrocities.
-
When has a person in blackface ever represented anything but a buffoon?
-
I'm not sure that the blackface is racist in this context.
-
This film lampoons the style of the time, and blackface is part of that style.
-
Stupidity defines any character depicted in blackface - the equality of ridicule argument doesn't hold water.
-
D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915) used whites in blackface to represent all of its major black characters - from the wikipedia article on blackface.
-
Stupidity defines any character depicted in blackface - the equality of ridicule argument doesn't hold water.
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.