Robert Downey Jr. Channels His Father

Ben Stiller's upcoming Tropic Thunder has already managed to garner a fair amount of pre-release press, not only because of a supposedly hilarious Tom Cruise cameo and what appears to be a return to "The Ben Stiller Show" era form for Mr. Stiller, but also for the use of Robert Downey Jr. in black-face. In this film about filmmaking, Downey Jr. plays a method actor who undergoes surgery to make him black for a movie role. Possibly in an effort to downplay allegations of racism, Stiller has an actual black character criticize the foolishness and offensiveness of Downey Jr's character's actions, in this way winking to the audience and saying, "look, we agree with you, this is really fucked up" (I haven't seen the movie yet, of course, just the trailer).

I bring up this use of Downey Jr. in black-face for another reason, however. His performance clearly evokes (to me, anyways) the work of his director father, Robert Downey Sr, in Putney Swope. In this trailblazing film, a token black man at an ad agency, Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson), is accidentally put in charge of the company after its president dies. What follows is a biting satire of race relations in 1960s America. It is said that Johnson had trouble remembering his lines, so when filming was complete, Downey Sr. dubbed all of his dialogue in a raspy bad-ass "black" voice (though the voice sounds more like an older Lawrence Tierney after gargling shards of glass). Why Johnson was not asked to dub over his own lines, I don't know. Regardless, Putney Swope was groundbreaking in its depictions of racism and corporate advertising culture. In a stark departure from the types of characters generally played by Sidney Poitier, Swope was not a man who was happy just to be seated at the table of white America, but rather one who demanded his right to preside over it. He was the character that most of white America was not ready for at this time.

The passage of time of time has rendered Putney Swope a cult classic, and its influence has shown itself in Tropic Thunder through the use of similarly raspy voices that Downey's Sr. and Jr. brought to their respective roles. The black-face in Tropic Thunder seems less like a comment on race relations today than a knowing reference to an earlier period and a film on the subject. Can such a meta use of black-face be considered racist? Like I said, I haven't even seen Tropic Thunder yet, so who the hell knows? Of course, both movies, however well intentioned, come from a white perspective so they would never be able to accurately capture the black experience. One thing I am certain of, however, is that Putney Swope kicks ass. If you haven't seen it, it's well worth a watch.

The red band Tropic Thunder trailer


A clip from Putney Swope