I was offended but not surprised. What did surprise me was how accurate his Jamaican Accent was!
Well, you're a wanna-be, wanna be better than me!
He was not in "black face", he was disguised as a black man. Did he paint big red lips on his face? Was his impression mocking? No, so bulls--t.
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Being that the star of the movie was a black man, and the movie took on many of the black stereotypes, I'm not sure how one could be offended by the "blackface" scene.
Not to mention, it wasn't TRUE blackface, as his entire dress and wig was that of a Jamaican Rastafarian, and he wasn't exactly playing a Stepin Fetchit.
You could say the same thing about Gene Wilder in Silver Streak and his black "jive turkey" impression, although also played alongside a black co-star in Richard Pryor.
Given that Beeks had seen Winthrop a couple of times already its not like Winthorp could have come into the car and not been recognized without some sort of disguise.
Of course you can nitpick that it was a poor makeup job, and you could also argue that since there was 4 of them and only one Beeks they could have just all over-powered him. But then you would have to go through a bunch of other plot holes like:
1) Why would Beeks be taking a train from DC to Philly
2) A costume party on AmTrack for New Years? Really?
3) How did Winthrop and Valentine get onto the floor of the exchange to make trades since they weren't part of any firm that had seats on the exchange.
4) Why did Winthrop hand his credit cards over to the bank president when he asked for them after telling him his account was frozen.
5) Why did Winthrop just walk away when Coleman said "if you don't go away I will be forced to call the police." What would the police have done? He would have had ID that shows thats his house
6) He couldn't have gotten some lawyer if he had $150K in the bank?
7) He didn't feel anything when Beeks bumped into him and put the money in his pocket at the Heritage Club
But you know what ITS A FREAKING MOVIE
Indeed...suspension of disbelief is required for the enjoyment of many movies, and Trading Places is no exception.
This includes the main plot premise of the movie: that a venerable, 100+ year old trading firm and iconic member of the exchange, would replace their main guy with a criminal from the hood, in the interest of a social experiment....riiight.
Were you also offended by Eddie Murphy playing a white, Jewish man in Coming To America?
shareThe reason this scene is in it is perhaps because the original casting was Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. There was a histroy in their films of Gene Wilder blacking up or trying to behave black and making a fool of himself.
What's offensive about it? It was just a goofy disguise in a comedy movie.
shareWhile youre offended you can suck my white dick.