China clearly has a lot of work to do to combat offensive racial stereotyping. A comedy sketch in the New Year Gala, an annual variety show that airs in celebration of the Lunar New Year and is quite possibly one of the most-watched TV events in the world, featured a Chinese actress in blackface and a black performer playing a monkey. But China doesn’t seem to see that as a problem.
The skit featured Chinese actress Lou Naiming in blackface, wearing a dramatically large fake bum under her skirt and a basket of fruit on her head. It was a distressing hat-trick of demeaning images that conform to the negative stereotyping of African women. She also was accompanied on stage by a monkey who appeared to be played by a black performer.
It sounds absurd but depressingly, this isn’t a bad joke. This did actually happen.
Apparently, the performance was meant to celebrate China’s relationship with African countries. However, there was a part where after an awkward and confusing scene where the Chinese host was pretending to be a young black woman’s boyfriend to get her out of a bind date and help her move to China, the woman in blackface said that she couldn’t be angry because China has done so much for Africa, before shouting ‘I love Chinese people! I love China’. Anyone else failing to see how this interaction denotes a celebratory relationship between nations?
It echoed the painfully familiar scenes of the blockbuster films in the 80s and 90s that often relied upon the tired narrative of African people being marginalised, primitive and ever grateful to the non-black powers of the world relieving them of their various problems. It’s was beyond cringe-worthy, it was grossly inappropriate, misguided and distasteful. But what’s even worse is that the Chinese government doesn’t seem to understand why this shouldn’t have happened.
The show attracted outrage on social media and many called out the performance for being straight up racist.
'this is 2018 how is there still blackface on national tv in china', tweeted one user while another said 'I just don't know what to do with this level of offensive'. 'The sketch on Africa was cringeworthy at best, completely racist at worst', said another. The Chinese Foreign Ministry disagrees, though.
At the first news conference since the show aired, Geng Shuang was asked about the controversial segment.‘As a spokesman for the Foreign Ministy, I can tell you that China has always opposed any form of racial discrimination’, he said, before adding that ‘any efforts to use this as a pretext for making a fuss and driving a wedge between China and African countries are futile’.
It’s a bit worrying that the response to justified outrage is claims of futility. I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t describe holding a state accountable for widespread offense and clear racial ignorance as a waste of time.
China has a responsibility to do better than promote racist ethnic stereotyping. This type of controversy isn't the first the country has had to face and with responses like the one given by the Foreign Ministry, it doesn't look like a progressive stance on reversing those offensive clichés is going to be on the horizon any time soon. This level of ignorance is troubling, and it shouldn't be the responsibility of citizens not only in China but across the world, to tell the government when they've got it so dramatically wrong.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.