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There are plenty of things you don’t want to do on New Year’s Eve: mix champagne with a million other kinds of alcohol, travel to Brooklyn for a party if you live in Queens, and be Mariah Carey last year. There’s one other thing you don’t want to do on New Year’s Eve, and it’s kinda surprising we have to point this out: blackface. You don’t want to do blackface on New Year’s Eve or any day for that matter.
Unfortunately that’s exactly what Japanese comedian Masatoshi Hamada did during a New Year’s Eve broadcast when he donned a wig and painted his face in order to become Eddie Murphy. Wearing a faithful Beverly Hills Cop II costume is one thing, but turning Murphy’s actual skin color into a comedic prop is wildly insensitive and offensive.
A debate swiftly emerged where it always does, on Twitter, as users from across the globe started debating Hamada’s blackface performance, with plenty rightfully expressing shock and offense.
Of course there were people that didn’t see this as a big deal since Hamada was just trying to make his Eddie Murphy costume super accurate.
The debate continued, with users having to explain the many different contexts blackface can be viewed in across the world:
One user even posited a potentially disastrous scenario, should this play out in a few years when Tokyo hosts the Olympics:
