‘The Office’ & ‘Community’ Remove Scenes Featuring Blackface From Streaming Platforms
In addition to Hulu pulling an episode of ‘The Golden Girls‘ over the weekend for featuring scenes with blackface, popular TV shows ‘The Office‘ and ‘Community‘ have both followed suit, editing and deleting episodes, respectively, from all streaming platforms.
For the ‘The Office,’ the episode in question is titled, “Dwight Christmas,” and features Dwight Schrute, played by Rainn Wilson, dressing up as German folklore Santa figure, Belsnickle, who has an assistant named “Black Peter.” The sequence edited out shows a phone call Dwight makes to his white friend, telling him to abort mission as he prepares to arrive to the office in blackface; this follows a conversation Dwight had with his black friend Stanley, who warns him not to go through with his plan.
RELATED: Episode Of ‘The Golden Girls’ Pulled From Hulu For Featuring Blackface
Meanwhile, for the ‘Community,’ its episode in question is titled “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons,” and features its main characters engaging in the infamous game. Ken Jeong‘s character “Ben Chang” plays a dark elf, which includes his skin completely covered in black paint. Chang tells Shirley, a black character, “This is going to be awesome, yo,” and she responds, “So, we’re just going to ignore that hate crime, huh?” While ‘The Office‘ edited out its controversial scene, ‘Community‘ completely pulled their episode from services.
Responding to the edits made, ‘The Office‘ creator Greg Daniels says, “The Office is about a group of people trying to work together with mutual respect despite the inappropriate actions of their boss and assistant manager. The show employed satire to expose unacceptable behavior and deliver a message of inclusion. Today we cut a shot of an actor wearing blackface that was used to criticize a specific racist European practice. Blackface is unacceptable and making the point so graphically is hurtful and wrong. I am sorry for the pain that caused.”
RELATED: White Influencers Cause Outrage Over Blackface Makeup in ‘Support’ Of ‘Black Lives Matter’
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