Between the Vietnam War stuff in the last episode, and the fairly generic tasks we've been having over the last few seasons, I think this needs a topic. Feel free to discuss either how social issues in the media relate to what we've seen on the race in the past, or how the tasks themselves are related to the culture of the countries visited, both in terms of history and in terms of social relevance.

Okay, so. The blackface thing at the moment is really making me think about this show, of all things. How does it compare to the Beijing Opera task last season, which was basically the same concept? As a cultural issue, why is it that one gets condemned and one gets a reaction amounting to "huh"?

Edited to not debate the objectivity of offensiveness. It was really more "why does this get this reaction, while this exact same thing in a different culture get this reaction?" than actually "why ISN'T this offensive?", but just to be sure.

Let's stay away from debating the objectivity of offensiveness, here. It's just going to lead to arguments and get the thread closed.

Feel free to discuss the cultures the Race visits and how the tasks relate, but if this devolves into an argument of what is more offensive than something else, I'm closing the thread.

I don't think that the Chinese Opera is analogous to blackface. Blackface is an attempt by a member of one racial group to put on a costume that suggests (along with stylized gestures, accents, and other features) that he is a member of another race. It uses stylized notions race as the basis for its humor. As far as I know, in traditional vaudeville, there were no Black performers wearing blackface, nor did Black members of mistrel shows use blackface makeup.

There is no racial content in the makeup used in the Chinese Opera task. That makeup would be worn by any member of the opera, regardless of race. It's more like putting on a mime costume and mime makeup, as it relates to the content of the type of performance without any distinction between performers of various races.

Chinese Opera performers wear that makeup, not to mimic members of some other race, but because that kind of stylized makeup is part of how those performances are done, just like Ronald McDonald wears clown makeup because that's what clowns do.

So, I don't see them as "basically the same concept".

In Chinese history, though (the Hundred Flowers Campaign specifically), the opera performers had been encouraged to criticise the government while performing, and many were later executed or placed in labor camps as a result. At the time, many of the performers (as I understand it) were from minority Chinese groups. There's still a certain amount of cultural stigma attached to the performance, in much the same way as blackface has its negative connotations in the United States. It's not "basically the same concept", I'll grant you that, but there's enough similarity to draw a valid comparison IMO.



And since Chinese opera makeup usually is only worn by and associated with Chinese people, one could make a comparison between three non-Asian TAR teams wearing the opera makeup and a group of non-black people wearing blackface, as was the case with the Jackson Jive skit that got me thinking about this.

Actually, many black entertainers DID perform in blackface, including the great Bert Williams. He and his partner called themselves a name (which I won't repeat here) to let the audience know they were getting REAL black actors, not fake ones.

I felt a deep twang of sadness seeing the dancers and actors in Cambodia knowing that so, so many of their compatriots met horrible deaths a generation before. But as the episode went on, I felt better as I saw how vital the country was now. Since Phil mentioned the Vietnam War just as they were leaving Vietnam, maybe he'll mention something as they leave Asia and go to the Persian Gulf.

Maria must be mad, she speaks Mandarin and there they go skipping over all of China!

I hope so, but I'm not optimistic. Between the monkey dancing task and the fact that it was a Vietnamese invasion that led to the end of the Pol Pot regime, this was their best chance to mention it without it sounding tokenistic.

Please keep in mind that the dicussion here must relate to the Race itself. Dicussions for the sake of discussions that don't have anything to do with the show don't belong in an Amazing Race forum.