The popular streaming service Hulu has removed an episode of The Golden Girls featuring a scene that Variety describes as featuring “a scene with characters in blackface.”
Except the characters aren’t in blackface. They’re wearing mud masks—a common cosmetic facial treatment.
“Mixed Feelings,” episode 23 in season 3 of the sitcom, aired in 1988. In the episode, Michael (Scott Jacoby), the son of Dorothy (Beatrice Author), plans to wed a much older Black woman, Lorraine (Rosalind Cash). Dorothy is critical of their age difference and Lorraine’s family disapproves of their daughter marrying a white man, so the two families attempt to stop the marriage.
Lorraine’s family arrives as Rose (Betty White) and Blanche (Rue McClanahan) are testing out a new mud face treatment. The two greet the family with their masks still on, saying to them “This is mud on our faces, we’re not really Black.”
Here’s a GIF of the scene that prompted Hulu to ax the episode:
Apparently, @hulu thinks this scene of The Golden Girls is offensive because they’re wearing “blackface” even though its actually mud masks. pic.twitter.com/Zi3FMqPRqH
— Matt Margolis 🇺🇸 (@mattmargolis) June 28, 2020
Thank you for being a snowflake, Hulu. There’s nothing offensive about this scene. Blanche and Rose are not wearing blackface, for crying out loud. In fact, in the context of the scene, it is quite clear that writers of the episode were very much aware of how offensive blackface is and found a way to take an innocent situation and make comedy out of it. Is it worth being so sensitive and politically correct that we’re gonna start censoring content that isn’t even racist? What does removing the episode do except prove that the management of Hulu, and anyone who took the time to complain about the episode, is just a delicate snowflake offended by everything?
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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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