Blackface - Other Contexts

Other Contexts

There are blackface performance traditions the origins of which stem not from representation of racial stereotype and are not in the stereotypical blackface mode. In Europe, there are a number of folk dances or folk performances in which the black face appears to represent the night, or the coming of the longer nights associated with winter. Many fall or autumn North European folk black face customs are employed ritualistically to appease the forces of the oncoming winter, utilizing characters with blackened faces, or black masks. Foreigners visiting the Netherlands in November and December are often shocked at the sight of whites dressed up to something resembling classic blackface character, known as Zwarte Piet, whom many Dutch nationals love as a holiday symbol.

In Bacup, Lancashire, England, the Britannia Coco-nut Dancers wear black faces. Some believe the origin of this dance can be traced back to the influx of Cornish miners to northern England, and the black face relates to the dirty blackened faces associated with mining.

In Cornwall, UK several Mummer's Day celebrations are held, these were sometimes known as "Darkie Day" and involved local residents dancing through the streets in blackface to musical accompaniment. Although the origins of blacking-up for Mummer's Day have no racial connotations – the tradition going back to the days of the Celts – controversially, in the Padstow festival, a song with the words "He's gone where the good niggers go", was formerly included due to the popularity of minstrel songs during the 20th century.

In Japan, a fashion trend known as Ganguro, (顔黒, lit. "black face") was created in the late 1990s and peaked in popularity around the year 2000. Ganguro fashion is characterized by a combination of a dark tan and the application of heavy white or brightly colored makeup and light hair dye, usually blonde, orange, or silver. The bright hair and makeup result in the tanned skin looking even darker by contrast. Ganguro style also generally involves clothing items like miniskirts, tube-tops, and platform shoes or high heels. The trend is followed mostly by young women, and was created as a rebellion against the traditional Japanese image of feminine beauty, which includes fair skin, natural looking makeup, and conservative dress. Despite its similarities to American theatrical Blackface, Ganguro fashion has no racial connotations, and the style is not meant to imitate black people.

In Nowruz celebrations in Iran, Hajji Firuz performers blacken their faces, and each "wears very colorful clothes, usually — but not always — red, and always a hat that is sometimes long and cone-shaped. His songs, quite traditional in wording and melody, are very short repetitive". Iranian-American scholars Golbarg Bashi and Hamid Dabashi offer an anti-racist critique of the figure of Hajji Firuz and called for the elimination of the figure of Blackface from the Nowruz festivities. In their piece they write of the "deeply racist figure of Blackface Hajji Firuz, doubtless a nasty remnant of African slaves that were bought and sold and made into an object of ridicule at the same time. We have been horrified to see Iranians celebrate the Noruz here in the US in colorful parades down Fifth Avenue, an otherwise perfectly beautiful thing to do, while parading a figure of Hajji Firuz, much to the horror of African-Americans who cannot believe that in this day and age there are still people that flaunt such racist acts unconsciously."

In the 1976 Soviet film How Czar Peter the Great Married Off His Moor, Vladimir Vysotsky performs the role of Abram Petrovich Gannibal.

The Netherlands continues to celebrate St. Nicolas Eve with sinterklaas accompanied by multiple Zwarte Pieten in the form of adolescents boys (and sometimes girls) who use black make-up to make their faces unrecognizable, (for children who might otherwise recognise them) and who wear Moorish page boy costumes. These costumes are sometimes compared with blackface costumes by people not familiar with the historical roots of this custom.

Blackface minstel shows were performed since 1791, but the tradition of a black helper to saint Nicholas is much more ancient. Traditionally companions of Saint Nicholas (and his predecessors from pre-Christian times) have most often been "dark" somehow, for example dressed in pitch black like Père Fouettard or in some incarnation of a devil, like krampus. In ancient times young men would cover their faces in ashes and terrorize the streets, a custom (in modified form) still celebrated on the Dutch north sea island of texel. This blackening of the face was thought to make the men look like the devil, whom they expected to have a black face. In the past, Zwarte Piet was more identified with the chastising of bad children than the rewarding of the good, but both characters have softened since the mid-19th century, and today the 5 December feast of Saint Nicholas (in the Netherlands, 6 December in Belgium) is mainly an occasion for giving gifts to children. Zwarte Piet as a depiction of a moorish page resembles many of the classic darky icons, although some of the stereotypical elements have been toned down in recent decades. Journalist Brenda Stoter Boscolo remarks upon this in an article on the Dutch site Joop.nl

"attempts through the years to give Piet another color never took hold, but through the years the custom to wear large golden earrings did disappear"

The children put their shoes in front of the fireplace, hoping to find a gift in it the next morning. Zwarte Piet is said to climb down the chimney and place the gifts. Today there is some controversy regarding Zwarte Piet. Most Dutch people continue to enjoy this as a cherished tradition and see Zwarte Piet as a fairy tale figure, without any racial implications, and look forward to his annual appearance, while a minority, as well as many visitors, see him as a racist caricature and fear it shapes Dutch children's perceptions of black people. As a result of the allegations of racism, some of the Dutch have tried replacing Zwarte Piet's blackface makeup with face paint in alternative colors such as green or purple. This practice, however, was widely ridiculed and has since disappeared. The tradition of blackface minstrels has never taken a foothold in the Netherlands. And so the showing of American blackface minstrel movies stopped in the Netherlands when they were not made in the USA anymore. In modern times showing blackface minstrels isn't seen as harmless satire in the Netherlands any more so than in the USA.

In West African folk theatre and puppetry there is a tradition of satirical representation of white Europeans. Performers will wear white masks and white gloves. In the Yoruba Egungun festivals overly affectionate white couples are made fun of due to their unseemly and ridiculous behaviour. The imagery is very similar to the representation of white colonists, sometimes with a humorous undercurrent, in wood carvings from the same regions.

In Thailand, actors darken their faces to portray the Negrito of Thailand in a popular play by King Chulalongkorn (1868–1910), Ngo Pa (Thai: เงาะป่า), which has been turned into a musical and a movie.