Though it's racist and offensive for many people, blackface doesn't seem to bother Billy Dee Williams.
In a new episode of Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast, Williams shared his perspective on minstrelsy, reflecting on Laurence Olivier’s performance as Othello in 1965, a famously controversial moment in blackface history.
“When [Olivier] did ‘Othello,’ I fell out laughing,” Williams said at around the 58-minute mark of the video below. “He stuck his ass out and walked around with his ass because Black people are supposed to have big asses.”
Maher interjected to say, “Problematic.”
But Williams disagreed.
“I thought it was hysterical,” he added. “I loved it. I love that kind of stuff.”
Maher pushed back, remarking that these days blackface is not permitted.
“Why not? You should do it,” Williams exclaimed. "If you’re an actor, you should do anything you want to do.”
Maher agreed with the Star Wars actor, before pointing out that Williams “lived in a period where you couldn’t … play the parts you should’ve played.”
Williams said that didn’t matter.
“The point is that you don’t go through life feeling like, ‘I’m a victim,'” Williams responded. “I refuse to go through life saying to the world, ‘I’m pissed off.’ I’m not gonna be pissed off 24 hours a day.”
While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, the history of blackface in American culture originates from racist and dehumanizing portrayals of Black people in the Jim Crow south. Despite how individuals may feel, in our present society at large blackface = bad, as reinforced by annual Halloween discourse.
Williams played Lando Calrissian in multiple Star Wars films: 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, 1983’s Return of the Jedi, and 2019’s Rise of Skywalker. He also appeared in 1989’s Batman, 2014’s The Lego Movie, and 2017’s The Lego Batman Movie.
