Jack Harbord

Masking, Memory, and Meaning: A Semiotic analysis of blackface minstrelsy in Tropic Thunder and ‘Bitch Bad’

Delivered at the Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference: Theory, Practice, Impact. Salford, England, 5-6 June 2013. The University of Salford.

Blackface just ain’t what it used to be. Now please do not take this as a rallying cry for a

return to the old days of the blackface minstrel show. Hardly. Rather, take this to mean that

blackface minstrelsy does not convey the same meanings to people in the 21st century as it

did in the 19th or 20th. With this paper I aim to demonstrate the ways in which blackface and

blackface minstrelsy are made to signify in two 21st century popular culture texts: comedy

feature film Tropic Thunder (2009) and rapper Lupe Fiasco’s music video ‘Bitch Bad’ (2012).

Discussion utilises the semiotic theories of Roland Barthes and Umberto Eco with the aim of

explaining how context and motive shape the interpretive function of blackface imagery, or

what I will refer to as the ‘signs of blackface’. Although many other musical and aural signs

exist with relation to blackface minstrelsy, the focus of this discussion in this paper is visual

signs.

For those who may not be familiar, blackface is the act of blackening the face (and

other exposed skin) to depict peoples with a darker skin colour—though blackface retains

most significance in the United States where it became a standard technique in the

entertainment form of blackface minstrelsy. Beginning in the first decades of the 19th

century, predominantly white actors and musicians of British ancestry portrayed African

American characters on theatre stages and in popular song which ranged from vindictively

demeaning to outwardly sympathetic. It had largely subsided as a dominant form in America

by the decades following the American Civil War (1861-1865), but retained a presence in

American popular culture well into the late 19th century, in Vaudeville, and in the 20th

century in new media such as moving pictures and radio [figures 1 and 2].

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Figure 1: Al Jolson as Jack Robin in The Jazz Singer (1927)

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Figure 2: Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll as Amos and Andy (1944)

Roland Barthes’ seminal 1957 work Mythologies helped to establish the study of

signs (any visual or aural unit that conveys meaning) in the texts of popular culture and how

they are presented in a manner that communicates what Barthes called ‘Myth’. Here, the

term myth should not suggest that signs are devoid of any truth, but rather that they work

to establish particular naturalised truths about life; truths that are understood through the

consumption of myth as second nature. In this sense, myth is profoundly ideological; it

works to establish and maintain ideologically motivated meanings. Furthermore, a

consumer of signs can be guided to interpret them through their combination, where they

appear, and the manner in which they are presented. For Barthes myth has ‘a double

function: it points out and it notifies, it makes us understand something and it imposes it on

us’ (Barthes, 2009, p. 141).

Umberto Eco’s ‘On the Contribution of Film to Semiotics’ attempts to establish the

parameters for reading the signs of film texts through semiotic analysis and uses the term

‘sign function’ which is ‘the correlation...between an expression (that is a material

occurrence) and its content [its meaning]’ (Eco, 1975, p. 219): or more simply, the function

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of a sign in a given context. Moreover, according to Eco ‘A repertoire or a system of sign-

functions is a code’ (Eco, 1975, p. 219). By understanding the function of signs and their

codes we can better understand how and why signs are made to mean by those who use

them.

Tropic Thunder [figure 3] Released in 2009, Tropic Thunder is a film about the doomed production of a Vietnam war

film (also called Tropic Thunder). Through various unfortunate circumstances the filming of

the fictional Tropic Thunder collapses and the cast of actors are stranded in the jungle.

Tropic Thunder is one of the first high-budget, commercially successful feature films

to feature a white actor in blackface. Robert Downey Jr. plays Kirk Lazarus: a multi-Oscar-

winning method actor who undergoes a ‘controversial pigmentation alteration procedure’

(Stiller, 2008) to darken his skin colour in order to play African American GI Lincoln Osiris

[figure 4]. Lazarus wears an afro hair wig with long pointed sideburns, a moustache, and

goatee beard and his helmet is emblazoned with the words ‘Black Power’ accompanied by a

black clenched fist and a black panther. In addition to blackface and his attire, Lazarus

adopts the personality and voice of his imagined muse, speaking in a Southern states dialect

throughout the film in which he refuses to break character.

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Figure 3: Tropic Thunder (2009)

Figure 4: Robert Downey Jr. playing Kirk Lazarus playing Sergeant Lincoln Osiris

Downey Jr.’s portrayal of Osiris attracted little obvious ire from African Americans

and, after a pre-screening, attracted no ill-will from civil rights organisation the NAACP

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(Horn, 2010, p. 144). This, I argue, was partly achieved for three key reasons: Tropic

Thunder’s obvious nature as a satire; the critical distance created by the film’s plot; and,

Lazarus’s process of realisation.

Firstly, the film is a satire of Hollywood, calling upon a raft of clichés to confirm this

[figure 5]: from its overpaid prima donna actors to its aggressive financier, from its

overblown pyrotechnics to its penchant for product placement. Its status as a satire is

abundantly clear from the outset. With reference to the definition of ‘satire’, Tropic Thunder

uses ‘humour, irony, exaggeration, [and] ridicule to expose and criticize [the] stupidity or

vices’ of the Hollywood film system (OED). Framed by this context, the signs of blackface are

placed in a position of humorous criticism; the signs (and Hollywood’s historical exploitation

of them) are there to be ridiculed, not celebrated. It is unlikely that such signs will be read as

sincere, but rather that the controversial blacking up of Lazarus will attract the same

satirical ridicule as the other absurdities of the film. The act of satire in this case works to

change the ‘sign function’; to devalue it, to attach absurdity to the sign.

Figure 6: Lead characters in Tropic Thunder (2009)

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Secondly, in addition to its satirical motives, the film’s plot provides distance from

the problematic (and potentially disastrous) consequences of using blackface by employing

the theatrical device of mise en abyme: the depiction of a film within a film (Tropic Thunder

is a film about the making of doomed fictional film project Tropic Thunder). Theoretically, it

is therefore not Robert Downey Jr. who blacks up, but Kirk Lazarus. Downey Jr. is provided

with an essential layer of distance from the act of blacking up. The decision to black up is

deflected onto Lazarus and demonstrates his naivety and ignorance rather than Downey

Jr.’s and avoids what Steve Coogan’s character Damien Cockburn describes as the ‘pitfalls of

casting a white actor to play the part of an African American’ (Theroux and Coogan, 2008).

Finally, the character of Lazarus also passes through a number of stages as the film

progresses: Ignorance-denial-realisation-transformation, ultimately ending with the removal

of the mask and the revelation of the ‘man behind the mask’. This is done by removing the

wig, facial hair, and contact lenses revealing Lazarus’s bright blue eyes and blonde hair. By

exposing the man behind the mask, Tropic Thunder is able to simultaneously expose the lie

of the mask which operates in this case as metaphor for the actor’s own fabricated persona

and detachment from reality, and destroy the mask as a sort of redemptive exorcism. It is

essential in this case that the mask be destroyed; it cannot be left intact.

‘Bitch Bad’ (2012)

Lupe Fiasco’s ‘Bitch Bad’ provides us with a contrasting, but also similar, use of the signs of

blackface. Released in 2012, ‘Bitch Bad’ is about the prevalence of the term ‘bitch’ in rap

music and the impact it may have on the aspirations and expectations of children and young

adults influenced by media portrayals of sexualised rap concubines. Much like Tropic

Thunder, ‘Bitch Bad’ deploys the signs of blackface for a satirical and critical function.

The music video to ‘Bitch Bad’ is divided into three acts—much like a traditional

organised minstrel show—and is set in an old theatre, placing the scene within America’s

history of the stage. In each act the two lead characters (one male, one female) go through

the stages of blacking-up in front of a dressing room mirror [figure 7]; corks are burnt, black

paste is made, faces are blackened. In addition to blackface make-up, bright red lipstick and

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pristine white cotton gloves are worn by both. These are all typical signs of blackface [figure

8]. Lupe Fiasco explains that blackface is used with the aim of ‘shedding some light on the

minstrel period in American history and the entertainment business...and relating it to how

it is today’ (Fiasco, 2012), though it is debateable whether this is achieved through the use

of blackface in this music video. Rather, very little light is shed on blackface minstrelsy.

Figure 7: Cast of ‘Bitch Bad’ blacking up at dressing room mirror

Figure 8: Red Lipstick, white gloves, and blackface.

Much like in Spike Lee’s film 2000 Bamboozled, ‘Bitch Bad’ uses scenes of blacking-

up backstage as an emotive signifier of shame, regret, and acquiescence; the donning of

blackface is reluctant and the process psychologically painful. This sentiment is supported by

the video’s dedication which reads: ‘In memory of Paul Robeson and the many black actors

who endured the humiliating process of blackface in America’ (Rap Up, 2012). Returning to

Roland Barthes, the signs of blackface in ‘Bitch Bad’ encourage the viewer to ‘understand’

that blackface signifies humiliation and is comparable to the contemporary degradations of

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the entertainment industry. Moreover, this message is reinforced and ‘imposed’ on the

viewer by the single tear running down the cheek of the male blackfaced actor [figure 9].

The removal of the blackface mask in the final scenes of ‘Bitch Bad’ can signify

control over the sign [figure 10]. Much like in Tropic Thunder, the act of removing the

blackface mask can be viewed as redemptive. Its messy removal is a corruption, a distortion

of the sign. The blackface mask, it can be argued, is broken before the viewer, its power is—

at least temporarily—removed, if admittedly with the potential for it to be replaced anew.

Figure 9: Tear running down cheek of male blackfaced actor.

Figure 10: Removal of blackface mask

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‘Bitch Bad’ uses the signs of blackface as a metaphor for the exploitation of African

American women in the American entertainment industry. It also works to establish a

particular myth of blackface minstrelsy: that the fundamental motives of blackface

minstrelsy are comparable to those of 21st century rap culture. This judgement is imposed

on the viewer through the deployment of the signs of blackface in combination with signs of

rap culture. Lupe Fiasco is by no means the first to do this, nor will he be the last. Through

‘Bitch Bad’ he has joined the group of those who engage in what I have termed the

‘minstrelising discourse’ of 21st century rap (Harbord, 2012).

Fiasco states that ‘whether right or wrong, some things need to be said in order to

start a conversation’ (Fiasco in Rap Up, 2012). However, blackface risks becoming a vastly

over-simplified short-cut to saying something profound about the state of race and

exploitation in America. It also risks trivialising the genuine racist crimes of blackface in

American entertainment history, of which there are abundant examples. In ‘Bitch Bad’

blackface minstrelsy’s history is partially drained from its signs to be filled with a

contemporary conception of exploitation in America, loosely connected to a less than full

knowledge of blackface, its origins and its meanings to those who made it and consumed it

in the past. In ‘Bitch Bad’ the signs are made to function in a way that its authors did not

intend.

Conclusions

Through observing how Tropic Thunder and ‘Bitch Bad’ use the signs of blackface we can see

that they are made to signify in a seemingly dichotomous manner from that which they

were originally intended. But the authors of minstrelsy are dead and they no longer wear

the mask and do not control it anymore. Contemporary uses of blackface facilitate its partial

rebranding; its intentions, and its sign functions become those of satire, criticism, and irony.

This is quite understandable—after so many years of blackface being used to exploit the

image of African Americans, why not use it now for critical, cathartic, and redemptive

purposes?

Blackface minstrelsy has left America with a regretful toolbox of signifiers. For

generations that come of age in the 21st century the consumption and creation of meaning

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around blackface is one of interpretive and constructive power: its function and meaning to

those who created and used it do not provide formal limits to the meaning it creates in

contemporary contexts. However, although blackface is by no means off-limits in 21st

century popular media there are some informal limits to its use. It appears that it must be

made to say something, to comment on a social ill. It becomes a by-word (or by-sign) for

racism, shame and exploitation, or, if you will, an iconographic short-cut. Time has a habit of

witling complicated concepts down into a manageable handful of images, often sufficient in

themselves to convey the desired notion of those who chose to use them.

Sources

Barthes, R. (2009) Mythologies (originally published in English 1972). London: Vintage

Eco, U. (1975) ‘On the Contribution of Film to Semiotics’ in Mast, G; Cohen, M. (ed.) Film Theory and Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 217-236

Fiasco, L. (2012) Behind The Scenes: Lupe Fiasco - Bitch Bad [Music Video], available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26bzaowOQgo [date accessed 04/06/13]

Harbord, J. (2012) The Minstrelising Discourse of 21st Century Rap Music [MPhil thesis]. The University of Salford

Horn, M. (2010) Minstrelsy in the new millenium, available from: http://marleehorn.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/minstrelsy-in-the-new-millenium/ [date accessed 04/06/13]

Rap Up (2012) Video: Lupe Fiasco – ‘Bitch Bad’, available from: http://www.rap- up.com/2012/08/22/video-lupe-fiasco-bitch-bad/ [date accessed 04/06/13]

Stiller, B. (2008) Tropic Thunder. Dreamworks Pictures

Theroux, J; Coogan, S. (2008) Rain of Madness. Dreamworks Pictures