Al Roker Defended Himself Against Cries Of Hypocrisy For His “Today” Costume
As we saw yesterday, the Today show team dressed in an 80s theme with Al Roker donning a Dollar Store fright wig to portray Doc Brown (of the irony) from Back To The Future. Because we’re living in the upside down where grown men and women pretend to be dumber than a box of rocks (or in some cases just are), some folks cried that Al’s costume was racist. Le sigh. Yes, we are really still doing this. In response to the online criticism, Al #tooktotwitter to defend his right to play a character who was played by a white man in a movie about a time traveling car that runs on garbage.
E! News reports that in the wake of Megyn Kelly’s dismissal from Today, which was nominally due to her impassioned belief that blackface is an unalienable right and should be part of everybody’s Halloween bag-o-tricks, and Al’s condemnation of said bullshit, Al’s Today mad scientist drag got dragged.
@alroker: @megynkelly is a terrible person to even suggest that it is Ok for a white person to go as a black character for Halloween.
Also @alroker: Goes as Doc brown, a white character from a movie for halloween.#Hypocrites #Whiteface— BigLargeTime (@BigLargeTime) October 31, 2018
And somebody on the Today Facebook page wrote:
“Megyn Kelly loses her show because she posed a question about dressing as an admired character of color if you are of Caucasian background —and yet Al Roker dresses today as a beloved character from an iconic movie who happens to be Caucasian. Is there some hypocrisy in there?”
Here’s Al’s response
I’m going to say this one last time, but the folks who get it, understand and the ones who DON’T, won’t. I can be Doc Brown, and I wear the outfit and wig and not change my skin color if you’re white , you can be President Obama if you want. Just don’t color your skin!
— Al Roker (@alroker) October 31, 2018
Ok, Al. Sounds good but you forgot to address one important detail. Let me help.
Dear Big Large Time and Wendy,
Whiteface is not the same thing as blackface. If you believe that, then no White Chicks 2 for you. I know you probably loved that movie until you got pretend outraged by it. Your straw-man argument is ridiculous. And until you understand that underrepresented minorities have been forced to dress up as white characters their whole lives because before Black Panther, all we had were pimps, Tootie from The Facts of Life and Rerun from What’s Happening, you’re never going to get it. And that’s a fucking cornucopia of options compared to what a lot more Americans had to choose from. A child can only be Bruce Lee so many years in a row. So stop. We see right through the charade!
P.S. Y’all didn’t even like Megyn Kelly after she left Fox and you know it.
I really feel Al on this one too. Do you know how hard it is to come up with a good costume that can accommodate “portly with glasses”? Welcome to my life. Thank God Halloween is over and we can put the asinine “what about whiteface?” argument to bed for another year (or until White Chicks 2 comes out).
Pic: Wenn.com