Blackface on posters causes uproar
Theatre VCU will be premiering “The Colored Museum” later this month, but some students are finding an issue with the posters for the play, which include images of people with their faces painted black.
Samantha Foster
Spectrum Editor
Theatre VCU will be premiering “The Colored Museum” later this month, but some students are finding an issue with the posters for the play, which include images of people with their faces painted black.
“The Colored Museum” was written in 1986 as a satire for the experience of African-Americans. It takes a comedic look at the conceptions surrounding African-Americans. This is the first time that “The Colored Museum” will be shown at VCU.
Posters for “The Colored Museum” show a collage of images of white people with their faces painted black, traditionally known as “blackface,” as well as cartoon drawings of African-American people as slaves. Blackface originated in early vaudeville shows, where black characters were characterized by racial stereotypes.
Some of the posters have been torn down around the Monroe Park campus.
“I did a double take because I initially thought it was a joke, but it obviously isn’t,” said Rachel Johnson, a mass communications major. “It’s offensive and frankly, they should be taken down. There’s a certain way that African-American culture should be represented and it’s certainly not like that.”
Cast members of “The Colored Museum” were given posters to put around the campus, including mass communications major Saidu Tejan-Thomas. “(The) Resident Assistants and residence halls were taking them down. People around campus were taking them down in bathroom stalls,” Tejan-Thomas said.
“If you see that and you’re shocked, why are you shocked about something that actually happened?” Tejan-Thomas said. “It’s there to wake you up to it so we can have a discussion about why it’s up there and why we’re doing this play.”
Johnson said she did not take the poster down, but said that she did consider the action. “I also know that this play has been performed many times before, so I am in no way condemning the VCUarts program for having it,” Johnson said. “I just think the way it’s being presented in this particular poster isn’t shining the best light.”
Tawnya Pettiford-Wates, the director of “The Colored Museum” and an associate professor of acting and directing at VCU, said that the play’s intention is to entertain and inform the audience.
“It takes the audience on a journey through the history of black people beginning with the first enslaved Africans brought to the Americas,” she said.
While the posters did offend people at VCU, Pettiford-Wates considers it to be a misunderstanding of the play.
“I think that there is a disconnection from the history of race and racial relations in America and a need to want to forget it or bury it as if it didn’t even happen,” she said. “(These images were chosen) because the images are a part of the nation’s history.”
Tejan-Thomas also considered the images to be part of American history.
“The images on the poster speak to American history, black history incorporated into that, when minstrels were a thing and people did blackface,” Tejan-Thomas said. “It’s basically to capture your attention, to wake you up to something that you’ve basically been blind to.”
Pettiford-Wates considers the images on the poster to still be relevant to today’s society, and hopes that the audience will look past these images to see the bigger picture of celebrating Black History Month.
“I want folks to know they will be entertained, enlightened and hopefully happy to be supportive of the African American theatre tradition especially during Black History Month,” she said.
“The Colored Museum” will be at the Singleton Center on Feb. 14-16 and 21-23 at 7:30 p.m., and Feb. 17 and 24 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $10 with student ID and $25 for general admission.
