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Poll: Blackface in Hollywood Movies

Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non-black performers to portray a caricature of a black person.

In the United States the practice gained popularity during the 19th century.

By the mid 19th century, blackface minstrel shows became a distinctive art form. It translated formal works, like opera, into popular terms for general audiences.

Early in the 20th century, blackface came off the minstrel show. It became a form in its own right.

In the United States, blackface declined in popularity beginning in the 1940s and into the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, generally considered highly offensive, disrespectful, and racist by the turn of the 21st century, though the practice (or similar-looking ones) continues in other countries.

Which Blackface image (still frame) is the most appalling one?

For an uncropped view of the images see the slides here.

Sources: Wikipedia & HuffPost

Join the Discussion Here in the IMDb Poll Community Forum

Results of 208 votes:

  1. 1.

    #4

     
    Judy Bellaire
  2. 2.

    Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder (2008)

     
    Kirk Lazarus - Hot LZ
  3. 3.

    Lillian Gish, Ralph Lewis, and George Siegmann in The Birth of a Nation (1915)

     
    Silas Lynch - Mulatto Lieut. Governor

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