(no subject)

[alexseanchai]

Soooo. I went to see my sister's last high school theatrical production tonight. Instead of the poetry slam at the bookstore. I regret this decision. The production, you see, was The King and I. Which has a play-in-the-play that's a rendition, and if my vague memories of the book are at all accurate a horribly unfaithful rendition, of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

With blackface.

It is TWENTY-FUCKING-FOURTEEN WHY IS THERE FUCKING BLACKFACE.

(I'm sure there was plenty of racism against Asian people in general and Thai people in specific, too; I'm equally certain most of it flew over my white American head. But Jesus fucking BLACKFACE. WHY.)

Comments

[madgastronomer]

You literally cannot do a faithful version of The King and I without blackface. No, seriously. This is not like Othello where the tradition is blackface, this is you cannot do a version that is true to the script (where the King's wives put on a terrible version of Uncle Tom's Cabin and, of necessity, use blackface because they have no black people handy), this is inherent to the text.

This play is actually several levels of racism deep. The play itself is racist towards Thai (Siamese) people inherently (it's banned in Thailand for its treatment of King Mongkut, who remains dearly beloved), both from the actual account of Anna Leonowens (who had fairly standard Victorian English Imperialist issues) and the novel Anna and the King about Leononwens' experiences, plus the racism of the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, plus the... rather slanted interpretation that the oppressed-but-pampered slant that the wives put on the story to suit their own views and purposes (which included a prejudice in favor of lighter-skinned people over darker-skinned people, which has classicist bases in SE Asia), plus the racism of the American depictions, all of which are based on the movie that casts Russian-born and generally white-passing Yul Brenner as King Mongkut... Basically, there is no way to do The King and I without serious racism, and the blackface is only the most obvious level of it.

I knew, through drama classes, a Thai/African American guy in high school who laid out much of this for me, and then as a theater major in college did some more research on my own, and fucking hell, this play is a mess.

Hm. I've laid that all out as best I can while honestly quite drunk, since I'm finishing up on the first night of a Dionysian festival, so while I did actually go hunting for a few references on names and such, I may have disordered some facts as well as spelling and grammar. Where such errors exist, I apologize, but if you're actually interested in the history of racism in this play, I encourage you to do your own research.

I like the music, and it genuinely attempted to have an anti-racist message, but it was essentially based in an Imperialist (in the most literal sense) story and viewpoint, and really even if Rogers and Hammerstein had had a current and aware education, there wasn't any way to tell this story from Anna's viewpoint without being racist.

[alexseanchai]

Well fuck. At least I know for in the future.