Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it
-Winston Churchill
[2020 note: I basically made this exact same post three years ago, starting in a similar manner]
Not long ago, I saw that Community was available on Netflix, which was pleasing to me. Community was one of those shows in which I’d only seen sporadic episodes in no particular order, depending on whichever group of friends I’d hang out with and happen to catch an episode or two at their point of watching through the series. However, crushing on Alison Brie withstanding, I liked the show, and I always thought it would be a good idea to binge the series in order if the opportunity ever presented itself.
One episode in particular that made me think “whoa, this show is really clever” was the episode that most widely seems to be known as “the D&D episode.” Not giving anything away, but the Community gang plays a game of Dungeons & Dragons for a particular motive. However, if there’s one scene in the episode that really sticks with most viewers, it’s of Ken Jeong’s character, Chang, completely painted black and wearing a white wig, because he wants in on the game, and assumes LARPing as a dark elf would get the job done (spoiler: it doesn’t).
But it’s a little bit of a jaw-dropping scene because in all technicality, it’s still Ken Jeong in complete black face (and hands and presumably all other flesh). But the thing is, he’s not trying to imitate or ridicule black people, he’s just trying to get in character as a dark elf.
Well, I just learned that that episode of Community won’t be available on Netflix anymore. In fact, any episode of any show, and presumably any movie, that features any non-black character painting their skin tone as to appear darker, has been scrubbed from Netflix’s library, in light of the rampant racism problem, running roughshod in America currently.
Blackface, has suddenly shot up the charts as a hot button, and all throughout the world of media, there’s a whole lot of retroactive scrubbing being done, to eradicate all proof of any show, person, entity or whatever, partaking in blackface at any point in history.
Continue reading “Revisionist history culture is concerning”