Harry Connick Jr. Clashes with Blackface Jackson Family on Aussie TV
Apparently enough time had elapsed since Michael Jackson's death that a cheeky comic tribute to him and the Jackson 5 seemed in good taste. At least it seemed that way a troupe of Aussie TV performers, who rounded out last night's performance as the "Jackson Jive" in full-on blackface. The crowd ate it up, but an American judge who knew better ground the show to a halt until somebody apologized. Video after the jump.
It wasn't supposed to be like this for Harry Connick Jr. or the iconic Aussie variety series Hey Hey It's Saturday, for whom the midweek show represented a much-anticipated reunion special. But there they were: The Jackson Jive, all Afro wigs and black face paint, led by their late superstar brother, Michael, done up with a pasty clown visage and aviator sunglasses. Not cool, said Connick: "If they turned up looking like that in the United States, it'd be like Hey Hey There's No More Show," the crooner spat, giving the group a score of zero in the episode's mock-talent competition. (The Aussie judge beside him was much more forgiving, allowing for a smile and a 7.)
The host brought Connick -- who'd appeared on the show before -- back out after the break for an official mea culpa: "I know that to your countrymen, that's an insult to have a blackface routine like that on the show, so I do apologize." Connick thanked him, adding, "I know it was done humorously, but we've spent so much time trying to not make black people look like buffoons, that when we see something like that, we take it really to heart." As if this weren't the year two-thousand-and-freaking-nine. "If I knew that was going to be part of the show, I probably - I definitely - wouldn't have done it."
Our Aussie moles tipped us to the full video below, but feel free to skip ahead to 2:15 if cringeworthy ethnic tone-deafness is NSFW, or if you just want Connick's priceless reaction, or both.
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Comments
Regardless of what we as individuals may believe, if you offend someone then you need to respect that that is how they feel - irrespective of the original intent.
We can't dictate how people should feel nor should we try as it is no different from someone dictating to you what your favourite food/TV show/etc. is.
It can be hard as a caucasian Aussie male in the ethnic majority to be sensitive to every possible cultural nuance but when things like this come up we need to try and understand all sides of the issue and respect them.
I respect HC Jr. for speaking out about something that relates to his country's cultural history and pointing out the sensitivity around that - he was respectful, honest and non-accusational.
Take a step back and acknowledge that this sort of thing can offend some people, respect that and we'll all have a happier planet to live on.
Yes you are right Andy, some have done quite well for themselves.
This just proves that if they want to succeed they can & will.
Read some of Noel Pearsons recent speeches & you will see he is calling for the end of "sit down money" & that HIS fellow indigenous people
stop the victim mentality & get on with life.
Again a whole nation cannot be blamed for peoples personal choices, there are plenty of poor whites in Australia that do exactly the same things I have listed but no one is calling us to account for them, it's rightly seen as their own fault.
P.S. They weren't Expelled from homes,they never had permanent dwellings.
It's now 2009 NOT 1809 we and our why of life are going no-where its about time they learned to deal with it,BTW they don't seem to have too much trouble using white mans guns,Toyota's or grog instead of spears,walking & remaining sober.
What a hypocrite Harry is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooKaCbMvaZ0
America open your eyes.
hey hey its saturday has always been crap and never been funny. i'm still puzzled as to why they brought it back
Wow doesn't take much to get people to pull out the race and patriotic cards does it?
Take it for what it was, a tribute to the Jackson 5, they dressed up as them to enhance the performance, not to be racist. Harry took offense, fair enough, each to their own. He made his feelings felt, producers said sorry. End of Story
If people want to talk about race issues then talk about them straight up in the forum they deserve.
I'm utterly disgusted by all this. I am an Australian. And i'm bloody proud of it. I've always had a hatred for American's, but this just boils my blood. Quite frankly, non of you yanks can even comment on this, you don't know our culture, whether you think you understand it, coz you read a bloody wiki article about it, or not! I won't even start on how wiki is SUCH a reliable source of information. You yanks need to get your head out of your arse and stop meddling with other countries. We don't need, nor want your opinion. Australians, in general, are not racist. Our country is so multicultural, theres barely any caucasians left. And either way, this whole racism thing has gone way to far... globally. And i'm sick to death of the fact that everyone else is aloud to be racist, you just can't do it if you're white. The truth of the matter is, no matter what we do, humans will always be racist, its embedded in our brains.I think everyone should just get over it. If you enjoyed it... great! If you hated it... good for you. Just leave it alone, coz we all have more important things to deal with.
Americans are the stupiest people in the world; black or white. Australians rule and Australian TV rules. At least our hosts don't have affairs with crew.
While I love almost anything that goes against the modern day leftist PC grain, this definitely crossed the line. Absolutely no excuse for it, no reason it shouldn't have been rejected by the producers the moment it was first considered by them to be aired. It wasn't funny, there was no intended point they were trying to make, it was all about them being seen as a bunch of guys done up as blacks. Shame on them, shame on the show.
Oh Thorne,
You will die an irrelevant, mightier than thou, angry old hack. Your ridiculous assumptions of the general Australian couldn't be much further from the truth. Your political position couldn't be any clearer and unfortunately clouds even your most simple judgement.
What everyone is admitting here is that there is a problem with being black. Personally I don't believe that and hence have no issue with people imitating others through painting themselves black, dressing up like a woman or whatever else helps you best represent what you are trying to imitate.
Most importantly is why would Hey Hey bother with a has been like HCJ who can't even write his own music and sinks to just imitating other artist for the money. Harry Connick Jnr's Christmas Carols come to mind.
Whether Australia or the United States of America (i love the fact that the US claims the entire continent calling itself America) is more racist. Who cares. Both countries have awful histories of violence, discrimination, slavery etc against both imported labour and its original inhabitants. The difference is modern Australians don't behave with a racist outlook, whereas Americans still inheritly believe they are better than their black counterparts.
" dbcg " Australia has only been around for just over 2 hundred years, so it is impossible for us to have enslaved and murdered Aboriginals for "hundreds of years" get YOUR facts straight. You make it sound like it's been happening for 400 years.. No I believe that's another country..
By god yes our founding fathers came over here 200+ years ago and murdered the Natives... Did the American forefathers kill a bunch of Indians.. Or am I mistaken? I am not saying that was right, but that's just how things were done. You invaded a country, you killed the old tenants and you took the land. That was life. It wasn't just a White thing, black people did it, Asians did it, if we'd had some Green people no doubt they'd have done it too.
I am in no way surprised that slavery goes on, there are so many abuses in the world, but people would rather focus on the little things.
Don't judge me, you know nothing about me.
You don't speak for me. The skit was a boring, culturally insensitive pile of shit that has no place in a modern society. Seriously, the producers of this program deserve the sack, and hopefully it's the final nail in the coffin for Hey Hey, It's Saturday.
Yes we did have the Stolen Generation. Did I deny that? They were not stolen to help out around the house. We did not send ships to another country to get some free help, people we could bash, hang by trees etc.. We did not dress in white and wear sheets on our heads and attack these people we hurt on a daily basis..
You speak like this doesn't still go on in America. Isn't America still one of the most racist countries in the world? Where people of colour can't go into certain towns with out feeling like they are doing wrong.
America has a HUGE problem with gang violence and that is mostly race related. Yes Australia has problems, we have had an unfortunate couple of months with some poor Indian students being bashed. In the mid 80's we also had some unfortunate gay bashings. That doesn't mean our country hates Gays or Indian's or Black's.
I must note though, in the area where the Indian students have been bashed there is a high number of Indian's there, so it's not really surprising the percentage of them happening to Indians is higher than to other people because there are just more of them there.
I watched on television the other night a young black African attack a 60 year old white lady, was that a hate crime? An act of racism? No, it was opportunity for a thug to steal someone's money. Why if it's the other way around (a white stealing from a black) does it have to be anything more than an "opportunity for a thug to steal someone's money"?
What part of what I said was ignorance? The fact that we didn't do backfacing here? So we don't know that it's against something American? Do you know everything about every other culture, good and bad? If not don't call me ignorant. Go and learn everything about everything and get back to me.
Team Connick.
Wow, Americans condemning other countries for being racist. How ironic. Almost as ironic as their anti nuclear weapons stance, seemingly ignorant of their own stockpile of WMD's. Quit with the hypocrisy America, you're truly pathetic.
The performance was certainly in bad taste - and culturally insensitive, but hardly racist. People bandy that word around far too much. Their intention was to lampoon the Jackson 5, not black people in general. They had no intent to cause offence due to someones race. Red faces was always in bad taste - that was the point.
That being said HCJ had every right to voice his opinion and I agree with the poster that can't understand how the producers let something like this get through given that HCJ is a Southern American and is acutely aware of a time where black facing was done with utter intent to belittle an entire race. It's very easy to throw poo back at Americans (and we all love a good poo flinging) for being racist or overly sensitive to apparent racial stereotyping - but it is part of their history and their present and of course it's going to be uncomfortable for HCJ to sit through something like that - no matter the intentions of the "performer".
I think what many Australians lack is a sense of cultural sensitivity more than anything else, and this is borne from the fact that we don't take ourselves too seriously either, and definitely bury our heads in the sand about our own problems. But when someone gets offended by something our first reaction is to get our backs up and say "But you do far worse than we ever would" and the always delightful "but it was just a bit of fun". Sometimes it's best to listen to what someone is saying and understand that just because it's funny to you and meant no offence - that it may have done just that, learn from it, apologise and move on.
And yes it would be great for someone who painted their face with black paint to represent a black singer to mean nothing more than someone who shoved a pillow under their shirt and sideburns to represent fat Elvis, but it doesn't, and to bemoan that fact, or to try and say they are the same is unfair and definitely shows a level of ignorance.
Jr.
Next time run it through a spellchecker, please, Pluto. There's no need to be ignorant and dismissive of proper spelling and grammar, because you'll give the rest of us a bad name.
"Our country is so multicultural, theres barely any caucasians left. [sic]
Hear that? That was your entire argument that Australia is not generally a racist nation crashing to the ground, you bloody fool. Have a look at the most recent census for a start.
For what it's worth, non-Aussies reading these God-forsaken comments: in my experience, despite the idiotic rants of most of these blow-ins trying to set up a U.S v Australia racism slant, most educated and civilised Australians I know are aghast that this was not only allowed to be broadcast in the first place, but that it has been shown around the world. It is not indicative of 'humour' in Australia and no-one I've talked to today supports the idiocy of such a skit.
OK, so we're allowed to poke fun at and parody white people right?
I doesn't seem to matter what colour you are - thats fine.
But we're not allowed to poke fun at black people?
FFS, African-americans are PEOPLE. White-americans are PEOPLE.
I think Harry Connick Jr is missing his 15 minutes of fame from 10-odd years ago and wants to stir up a scandal so he gets some attention.
Answer me this tho' - Why can we parody white people but not black/brown people? Thank goodness Eddy Murphy knew that comedy is about humour and not the colour of your skin.
Very lame grab for publicity Harry.
To ALL the Aussies defending the act,
1) Stop comparing this skit to movies. Apples to oranges. Movies are fictional.
2) There was absolutely nothing funny about the act. If Aussies find that that is funny, then our humor is in a serious need of a fixing.
3) The real issue here is that Harry was invited to be a guess on the show, and since He was raised up in New Orleans - the skit was offensive and inappropriate to him. It's like if you invited a muslim to your dinner, knowing full well that he doesn't eat pork, and you serve him pork.
How on earth that the buffoon producers can overlook this important detail just multiplies the seriousness of this act.
Like it or not Aussies, Harry was offended and insulted. He showed great restraint and composer and I applaud him.
Maybe next time, Hey hey should invite a rape victim to be a judge and then put on a virtual rape act?
Think outside the square people.
Gosh, if these comments represents the views and intelligence of the majority of Australians, then i am absolutely ashamed of being an Aussie.
And yet Australia has as many Citizens today that immigrated to Australia AFTER the stolen generation as Citizens that are descended from people who actually believed they were doing good in their own ignorant way.
Americans however had no intentions of being well meaning. They killed and kidnapped as many men women and children as they saw fit from another country (who cares it is only another country)... many other countries, and forced them to work, forced them into sexual relationships with their owners if they were pretty enough, forced them to marry and breed with whoever they saw fit and then broke up those marriages and families at a whim for GENERATIONS... all for good old capitalistic profit.
Now there are apologies and work being done in Australia to make up for the wrongs done. There are fewer apologies and less work done in USA over the atrocities white America committed on black America.
How you resolve your race relations is your business, how Australia (who did not enslave black people for generations) resolves race relations is Australias business. The one thing arrogant Americans need to understand is that the world does not have to pay for your past mistakes... that is YOUR guilt, not ours. As bad as American complaining about New Zealands national sports teams called the All Whites and the All Blacks... nothing to do with the colour of skin... not today or any time in the past... those connotations are YOUR OWN, not ours!
Well well well....Harry Connick Jnr is nothing but a HYPOCRITE! So it's ok for him to paint his face black and pretend to be an African American preacher (or something along those lines), yet when Aussies do a comedic skit on the Jacksons, he jumps up and down about it!! Typical bloody American hypocrisy at it's finest! Catch the first plane out of Australia mate, and don't bother coming back. By the way, your singing sucked Harry!
One pissed off Aussie chick speaks up!!
LIZ, I am going to dress up as you, parade around like a big fat loser and have a lot of people laugh at me. Then, i'm going to get all the people named Liz in the world and round them up and enslave them, torture then, lock then away, all for the betterment of my status as a "non-liz" and as I do this, my kids will watch, laugh and spit at the Liz's and grow up thinking Liz's are second class citizens too. We'll put on "liz" shows where we dance and sing like ugly Liz's, steal all the Liz children into protective custody, ...,Then, all the Liz's of the world will stand up for yourselves, through peaceful protest and rights movements, ...and decade after decade you will change the international consciousness, slowly, digging your way out of a deep trench you did not even create. A lot of Liz's will be hurt still, will have grown up in a world of hate, suspicion and fear. Some Liz's will STILL not get the opportunities they deserve and will "fight" their way out of poverty. Liz's will too easily (and understandably) use hate as a retaliation method. And then, after Liz's find their way back to where they belong, recognized, appreciated, loved, cherished, protected... how will you react to my new "look at the funny Liz" show???
Hahaha.
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