More comedy episodes removed over blackface

Three episodes of medical comedy Scrubs have been removed from a US streaming service because they feature blackface.

Although the episodes have been removed from Hulu they are still available as part of the box set on All4 in the UK. 

The episodes were My Friend the Doctor from season three, plus My Jiggly Ball and  My Chopped Liver from season 5.

In the first, Zach Braff’s lead character JD has a fantasy in which his love interest, Elliott, is being kissed by his best friend Turk (played by black actor Donald Faison). But in the dream, it turns out to be JD himself, but in blackface.

In the second, JD imagines his perfect living partner being half-Turk, half-Elliott in a sequence which shows Elliott actor Sarah Chalke in blackface.

And in a flashback scene in the third, JD and Turk go to a party dressed as each other... but get separated so JD ends up getting beaten up because of teh stunt.

The episodes have reportedly been removed at the producers’ request. 

The move comes days after episodes of 30 Rock were removed from streaming services, and even individual sale, at the request of creators Tina Fey and Robert Carlock over blackface.

Fey said: 'I understand now that "intent" is not a free pass for white people to use these images. I apologise for pain they have caused.'

In other examples of how the rejuvenated Black Lives Matter movement has resonated through Hollywood: 

• Jenny Slate has quit Netflix animated comedy Big Mouth, saying that as a white woman she is no longer happy playing mixed-race character Missy; adding she realised that even thinking she could do it was an example of white privilege. 'In me playing Missy, I was engaging in an act of erasure of Black people,' she wrote on social media. 'Ending my portrayal of Missy is one step in a life-long process of uncovering the racism in my actions.’
• US comedian and talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel has apologised for using blackface to impersonate stars including Snoop Dogg and Oprah Winfrey on Comedy Central's The Man Show, which aired between 1999 and 2004,
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine writers have scrapped all their scripts for the forthcoming eighth series following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white cop. Cast member Terry Crews said: ‘They had four episodes all ready to go, and they just threw them in the trash’, adding that the team had had ‘sombre talks and deep conversations’ over the future of the police comedy.
• BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg has admitted hi may have made a mistake in casting a white woman, Alison Brie, to play half-white, half-Vietnamese Diane Nguyen in the animated comedy. He tweeted: 'The intention behind the character is I wanted to write AWAY from stereotypes and create an Asian American character who wasn’t defined solely by her race. But I went too far in the other direction. We are all defined SOMEWHAT by our race! Of course we are! It is part of us! We should have hired a Vietnamese writer, and a Vietnamese actress to play Diane – or if not that, changed the character to match who we did hire.'

Separately, five episodes of South Park that controversially feature the Prophet Mohammed have not been made available on HBO Max, even though all other episodes in the 23-season run are.  Those shows had previously been removed from a streaming deal with Hulu and also were axed on the official South Park website over fear of offending those Muslims who believe depictions of the Prophet are offensive.

Published: 25 Jun 2020