Hulu Pulled An Episode Of “The Golden Girls” Over A “Blackface” Scene
Because of the Black Lives Matter movement, Hollywood has finally started to make some changes and also take a Magic Eraser to racist messiness from its past. HBO Max put a disclaimer in front of Gone with the Wind, Tina Fey got the streamers to pull four episodes of 30 Rock with blackface in it, and Kristen Bell and Jenny Slate announced they were no longer going to voice Black cartoon characters. And now Disney-ABC has taken performative allyship to new levels of HUH? by coming for a “make” moment in The Golden Girls. They have pulled an episode over “blackface.” Megyn Kelly has said that she’s a huge fan of Golden Girls, so as a fan of both the show and also of blackface, this must really be something she feels passionately about.
In the GGs episode from 1988 titled “Mixed Blessings”, the plot revolves around Dorothy’s son, Michael, marrying an older Black woman named Lorraine. One scene involves Rose and Blanche meeting Lorraine’s family while wearing mud masks and Rose says, “This is mud on our faces, we’re not really black.” And the rest of the scene plays out like this:
Deadline says that Hulu yanked that episode after getting a request to do so from Disney-ABC Domestic television, the GGs’ distributor. Both Hulu and Netflix did the same thing to an episode of Community which featured Ken Jeong in blackface, and The Office also cut a scene from a 2012 episode which had blackface. But many think that Disney-ABC pulling that GGs episode is “woke” on the wrong kind of steroids because it’s not really blackface and they’re erasing an episode with actual Black characters in it.
They have to be doing this on purpose to make BLM look bad especially Black people. NO ONE thinks the episode is racist. They’re not even listening to what Black people actually want
— ComradeXO resurrected (@ComradeX0) June 28, 2020
This episode wasn't racist. It centered on Dorothy's son impregnating and marrying an older black woman and was groundbreaking and smart, unlike the Tina Fey foolishness. Blanche and Rose were getting mud facials. Just stop killing us and leave my GGs alone. https://t.co/9ep3xMFYUr
— Jamey_Giddens (@Jamey_Giddens) June 28, 2020
First of all, they were in mud masks not blackface. And second of all, in what world does "Stop killing us." sound like "Please remove episodes of Golden Girls"? I didn't see that ask on anyone's protest sign… https://t.co/cgEcGdD60o
— erica williams simon (@missewill) June 28, 2020
If Hollywood is pulling shit like this to pat themselves on the back while making “social justice warriors” look over-sensitive, expect them to pull Mrs. Doubtfire over its use of whiterface.
Pic: NBC/Getty