Line #57 Main/Brownface


1	[[quoteright:285:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/0f0b558997d85c373b42660f6bef0461.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:285:Creator/GemmaArterton as an Englishwoman in ''Film/QuantumOfSolace'' and as a Persian in ''Film/PrinceOfPersiaTheSandsOfTime''.]]
3
4	->'''Dev:''' The Indian dude [in ''Film/ShortCircuit2''] is a white dude. That's Creator/FisherStevens. They used brownface makeup.\
5	'''Ravi:''' Wait, what?\
6	'''Dev:''' Yeah. They got a real robot and a fake Indian.
7	-->-- ''Series/MasterOfNone'', "Indians on TV"
8
9	White actors pretending to be members of ethnicities that typically have tan skin such as UsefulNotes/NativeAmericans (sometimes called "redface" in this case), [[LatinoIsBrown Latin Americans]], Polynesians, South Asians, Southeast Asians, West Asian, or North Africans. This is often done with makeup or tanning, and sometimes hair dye.
10
11	Brownface is seen more often than {{yellowface}} and {{blackface}} in modern productions. Lately, Hollywood prefers casting actors who ''look'' enough like Native Americans without using makeup when actual Native American actors aren't used. This is even more common with Latino characters, who have a greater latitude due to the fact that there are Indigenous, Mestizo, Black, White, and Asian Latinos.
12
13	There are basically three ways that this Trope is played:
14	# The classic "Brown Face". A white actor is plastered with layers of makeup to make them look darker skinned. Generally lousy.
15	# The Ethnic getup. A white actor has his or her normal features onscreen, but wears Ethnic garb.[[note]]This used to be also a common way for Westerners to blend in in Real Life in many places during the Age of Colonialism.[[/note]] This often sees works portraying people wearing stereotypical clothes and dresses, which may be from the wrong region, worn rarely, worn out of season, or worn in inappropriate locations, or times.
16	# The "lets ignore it" bit: the character's ethnicity is only an InformedAttribute, they wear no makeup or hair-dye, and sports no national "dress".
17
18	A mixture of the three can be employed as well. No 1 is straight up considered offensive these days, while No 2 and 3 are controversial; particularly with the latter due to the fact South Asian/Arab/Native/Latino/Brown actors in general are rarely given roles that aren't stereotypical.
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20	This is a subtrope of FakeNationality. Occasionally used as a method for creating HumanAliens.
21	----
22	!!Examples
23
24	[[foldercontrol]]
25
26	[[folder:Advertising]]
27	* Creator/IronEyesCody, famous as "The CryingIndian", was an Italian-American who passed himself off as Native American in real life for decades.
28	* Creator/AshtonKutcher once darkened his face to play a stereotypical Indian man in a Pop Chips commercial, in an example of No 1 and 2. Ironically, if he had retained his actual skintone, he would have still been within the range of Northern Indian phenotypes.
29	[[/folder]]
30
31	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
32	* Biblical movies often run into controversy for this, as they tend to cast very white actors as Israelites/Jews, who at that time period should have all been Middle Eastern (so Ashkenazi Jews are out of the question).
33	** ''Film/ThePassionOfTheChrist'' had Creator/JimCaviezel (of Irish, Slovak, and Swiss descent) playing Jesus. The rest of the cast, on the other hand, were mainly comprised of Southern Europeans, so they had an easier time playing their characters.
34	** One of the controversies surrounding ''Film/{{Noah}}'' was it having an ''[[MonochromeCasting entirely]]'' white cast in a Biblical story.
35	** ''Film/ExodusGodsAndKings'' features its largely white cast tanning to portray Ancient Egyptians and Israelites in the 12th century BCE. Creator/JoelEdgerton and Creator/SigourneyWeaver were the most obvious cases of it.
36	* InUniverse in ''Film/MovieCrazy''. Harold meets Mary the actress for the first time when she is in costume, wig, and Brownface to play a Spanish woman. He meets her again when she is out of costume, in her actual appearance as a pretty blonde. He doesn't recognize her, and a TwoPersonLoveTriangle ensues.
37	* ''Film/VivaVilla'' is an entire film about Pancho Villa and UsefulNotes/TheMexicanRevolution that doesn't employ a single Mexican. Most obvious with the makeup job on lily-white Fay Wray.
38	* {{Spaghetti Western}}s typically cast Spaniards and Italians as Mexicans and Native Americans, since they were typically filmed in Spain and made by Italians.
39	* Westerns filmed in America during UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood would often cast Jewish, Italian or even Japanese-American actors as Native Americans, most famously with Espera Oscar "Iron Eyes Cody" de Corti. This was parodied in ''Film/BlazingSaddles'' where Creator/MelBrooks, a very light skinned Ashkenazi Jew, cast himself as a [[YiddishAsASecondLanguage Yiddish]]-speaking Native American chief without wearing makeup.
40	* Creator/EliWallach, an olive-skinned Polish-American Jew, played Mexican bandits in ''[[Film/TheMagnificentSeven1960 The Magnificent Seven]]'', ''Film/TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly'', ''Film/AceHigh'' and ''Film/DontTurnTheOtherCheek''. On top of that, he's played a South American dictator in ''Film/KissesForMyPresident'', a Spanish gypsy in ''Literature/ForWhomTheBellTolls'', the Sharif of Khwarezm in ''Film/GenghisKhan'', and more Italians and Sicilians than you can shake a stick at (which is helped by the fact that he grew up in an Italian neighborhood).
41	* ''Film/TheLastAirbender'' infamously cast the very white Noah Ringer, Creator/NicolaPeltz, and Jackson Rathbone as Aang, Katara, and Sokka respectively. Other than the ethnic costumes, there was no attempt to portray them as anything but whites. In [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender the show]], Aang has light skin, so Ringer's casting can be forgiven (though since the Air Nomads are based on the Tibetans, it should not), but Katara and Sokka -- and the Water Tribes in general)-- are based on the Inuit people. Bizarrely, the Water Tribe extras actually ''were'' played by actors who resemble real-life Inuit, so the casting choice could have been better.
42	* ''Film/Aladdin2019'' came under fire before release when word got out that most of the extras were white actors wearing skin-darkening makeup. In response to this, several crowd scenes were re-shot and re-edited with actual people of color.
43	* In ''Film/TheThirtyThree'', Chilean Maria Segovia was played by a French actress.
44	* In ''Film/MasterOfTheFlyingGuillotine'', one of the main villain's three henchmen, Indian martial artist Yoga Tro La Seng, is very obviously a Chinese actor in brownface.
45	* An unusual case in the form of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_(2016_film) 2016 biopic]] of Music/NinaSimone, in which the Afro-Latina Creator/ZoeSaldana wore dark makeup and a prosthetic nose in the title role.
46	* ''Film/BrotherhoodOfTheWolf'' has Mark Dacascos as a Native American. Dacascos has Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Spanish and Irish ancestry, but no Native American. He does not use makeup, in an illustration of No 2 and No 3.
47	* Jacob Black in the ''Film/{{Twilight}}'' movies is played by Creator/TaylorLautner, who has only "distant" Native American ancestry. He does not use makeup. Most of the other werewolves are played by people with more prominent Native American heritage.
48	* The very white Creator/SpencerTracy seems to have used some kind of makeup to darken his skin when playing a Portuguese fisherman in 1937's ''Literature/CaptainsCourageous''.
49	* No 3. happens in ''Film/{{Argo}}'', a film about the Iranian hostage crisis; where the white Anglo-American Creator/BenAffleck plays Mestizo Mexican-American CIA agent Tony Mendez.
50	** However, Mendez has said that his features (dark hair and eyes and light skin) are such that he could pass as a local in most places from, Europe and India.
51	* Vasquez from ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' is played by a fair-skinned Jewish actress, Jenette Goldstein. This is because the film was an American-British co-production and shot on a filming lot in England. All the US actors (save Sigourney Weaver) were expats living in the UK at the time, with no Hispanic actresses readily available. Goldstein is considerably darker-skinned in that role than she is in real life. However, she's stated she's actually half Moroccan and Brazilian (and not AllJewsAreAshkenazi), making this a subversion.
52	* Creator/JohnnyDepp plays Tonto in the ''Film/TheLoneRanger''. This is especially jarring since Tonto had always been played by Native American actors prior to the film. When critized for this, Depp responded that he had some native blood from his great grand-parents but did not specify which tribe they came from and he never dicussed ''anything'' about this before the film.
53	* In ''Film/QuantumOfSolace'', the fair-skinned Ukrainian actress Creator/OlgaKurylenko has put on a considerable tan to play her Bolivian character, Camille, though the character is actually half-Russian, and Olga has Russian ancestry on her mother's side. And there are fair-skinned Bolivians, actually.
54	* Creator/GemmaArterton, a fair-skinned Englishwoman, looks considerably tanner while playing the Persian princess Tamina in ''Film/PrinceOfPersiaTheSandsOfTime''. Curiously enough, Gemma Arterton's actual skin tone would be unremarkable in Iran itself, but rather her ''very'' European facial features and mannerisms would make her stand out.
55	** In the same film, Creator/JakeGyllenhaal plays the titular Persian prince. Gyllenhall is of mixed Swedish/Jewish descent.
56	* Fair-skinned English comedian Creator/PeterSellers wears brown makeup to play Indians in ''Film/TheMillionairess'' and ''Film/TheParty''. Again, his phenotype would actually not make him stand out in real life India (well, [[InterchangeableAsianCultures Northern India that is]]), but rather his ''very'' European facial features and mannerisms.
57	* In ''Film/AMightyHeart'', Creator/AngelinaJolie plays Mariane Pearl, a real-life journalist with a Dutch Jewish father and an Cuban-born Afro-Chinese mother. Jolie's skin is made slightly darker and her hair is made curly to resemble Pearl more. The casting caused a minor outcry in spite of the fact that Pearl had personally approved the casting.
58	* ''Film/{{Pharaoh}}'': ''Everyone''. It's a film about AncientEgypt, made in Poland in 1966. A bunch of very white Polish people put on makeup.
59	* ''Series/PipoDeClown'': Klukkluk the Native American is played by a white actor, the Dutch Herbert Joeks, in brownface. It became his StarMakingRole. This was back in the 1950s. In the 2017 version he's still portrayed by a white actor, but there's no make up involved.
60	* Creator/ChristopherLee, an English actor, played Gandhi's Pakistani opposite number, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in the film ''Jinnah'', and needed very little make-up to do so since Jinnah was fairly light-complexioned, and Lee did have more than a passing resemblance to him. Casting a foreigner, especially one known in his home culture for his villains, still caused a lot of controversy. An example of Type 3.
61	* The Frenchman Pierre Briece is most famous for his role as Apache chief ''Film/{{Winnetou}}''.
62	* In ''Film/ShortCircuit'', white actor Fisher Stevens darkens his face to play Indian Ben Jahvri.
63	* Creator/CharltonHeston darkened his hair to play a Mexican detective in ''Film/TouchOfEvil''. His makeup is hard to gauge since the film is black and white.
64	* While still blonde, Elsa Pataky (Spanish actress of Romanian-Hungarian descent on her mother's side) is more tanned and has her hair darker than usual in her first Hollywood role, the passenger Maria in ''Film/SnakesOnAPlane''. This is completely avoided in her later role as Brazilian police officer Elena Neves in ''Franchise/TheFastAndTheFurious'' franchise.
65	* In both ''Literature/TheSheik'' and its sequel ''Film/TheSonOfTheSheik'', a bunch of very white actors are tasked with playing Arabs. This is most notable in the sequel with Karl Dane, who was Danish, but still managed to look brown to play Rudolph Valentino's Arab sidekick.
66	* In ''Film/TheSearchers'', the Comanche ''Scar'' was played by Henry Brandon, a blue-eyed German.
67	* ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia'': Creator/AlecGuinness, an English actor, plays Prince Feisal, an Arab. Memorably, Guinness [[https://i.imgur.com/4wdaPlx.jpg looked enough like Feisal]] that many people who had known Feisal, were taken aback at the resemblance.
68	* White man Creator/DouglasFairbanks plays a half-Native American character in ''Film/TheHalfBreed''.
69	* Almost all Hollywood versions of ''Film/{{Ramona}}'' featured white actors in both leading roles: an Indian man and a half-Indian woman. Their ethnicity is integral to the plot. The one exception was Mexican actress Creator/DoloresDelRio in the last silent version.
70	* ''Film/{{Pan}}'' sees [[IndianMaiden Tiger Lily]] played by Creator/RooneyMara. The InUniverse explanation is that the Neverland tribe is comprised of people of all races and ethnicities, but much of their iconography (feathers, braids, et al) is appropriated from real Native American cultures.
71	* ''Film/{{Octopussy}}'' had the villan, Kamal Khan, an exiled Afghan Prince, played by the white Frenchman Creator/LouisJourdan; we are told by M at the start that he is an Afghan, and that's it, no Brownface, no Ethnic Dress, [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent no accent even]].
72	* ''Film/BlackNarcissus'' had Creator/JeanSimmons, Sam Jaffe and Esmond Knight in Brownface to play Indian characters. Averted with the Young General - as he was played by the Indian Sabu.
73	* In ''Film/AnimasTrujano'', the title character, a Mexican citizen, is played by Creator/ToshiroMifune.
74	* In ''Film/TheOutrage'', Creator/PaulNewman plays Juan Carrasco, a {{Bandito}}. There is TruthInTelevision that a number of Mexicans are fair-skinned and fair-haired, but it's still strange why an actual Mexican actor didn't play him.
75	* ''Film/CloudAtlas'': Bae Doona plays a Mexican woman in one storyline. Jim Broadbent also shows up as a brown-skinned prescient.
76	* ''Film/{{West Side Story\|1961}}'' cast Creator/NatalieWood (American of Russian descent) as Maria, who's from Puerto Rico. Her brother Bernardo was played by American of Greek Turkish descent Creator/GeorgeChakiris. Creator/RitaMoreno, who played Anita, was the only actual Puerto Rican in the main cast... and even she was made to wear dark makeup. According to Wood's biography by her sister Creator/{{Lana\|Wood}}, she didn't use makeup and instead sunbathed a lot to get a tan so she would look "outdoorsy" as Maria.
77	** Averted in the [[Film/WestSideStory2021 2021 film version]], as Creator/StevenSpielberg insisted on casting Latino actors from a wide range of backgrounds. Creator/RachelZegler (María) is of Colombian ancestry, David Alvarez (Bernardo) is Cuban-Canadian, Creator/ArianaDeBose (Anita) is Afro-Latina, Sebastian Serra (Braulio) is Puerto Rican, Julius Anthony Rubio (Quique) is Dominican, and Andrei Chagas (Jochi) is Brazilian, while Rita Moreno (Valentina) appears with her natural skin tone.
78	* In ''Film/ABeautifulMind'', Creator/JenniferConnelly (whose ancestry includes family from Russia, Poland, Ireland, and Norway) plays Alicia Nash, a woman from El Salvador.
79	* ''Film/TheMummyTrilogy'':
80	** Creator/ArnoldVosloo (Afrikaner) as the Ancient Egyptian priest Imhotep and Creator/OdedFehr (Ashkenazi Jew) as the Medjai Ardeth Bay. While they were tanned enough to believably play Egyptians, they did stand out among other Egyptians who were played by local actors, such as the Pharaoh, who was played by a Moroccan Jew. However, the [[ForeignFanservice exotic beauty]] Anck-su-namun was actually played by a Venezuelan actress.
81	** The second movie had the English Alun Armstrong as the Egyptian Baltus Hafez. Creator/RachelWeisz, an Ashkenazi Jew otherwise known for playing many an EnglishRose, briefly donned ethnic garb to play the Pharaoh's daughter in flashbacks.
82	* In ''Film/{{Apache}}'', all of the Native American characters are played by white actors in makeup and wigs. For some, like the already swarthy Creator/CharlesBronson, this more-or-less works. However, for others like the blue-eyed Creator/BurtLancaster—-and especially the redheaded, green-eyed Jean Peters—-it does not work at all.
83	* Zigzagged in ''Film/TheRamrodder''. The Indian braves are played by Caucasian actors in makeup and wigs. However, the Indian maidens are played by brunette Caucasian actresses sporting their natural skin tones, which range from 'plausibly Native American' to 'more likely Scandinavian'.
84	* In ''Film/{{Gandhi}}'', the titular activist is played by Creator/BenKingsley, who, despite being half-Indian with parentage from the same region and ethnicity as Gandhi, is fair-skinned in real-life; he darkened it for the role.
85	* ''Film/DoctorSeries'':
86	** The Maharajah of Branda from ''Film/DoctorAtLarge'' is played by Martin Benson, a British actor covered in makeup.
87	** Saterjee from ''Film/DoctorInTrouble'' is played by Graham Stark, covered in brown makeup.
88	* Ranjid from ''Film/WatchYourStern'' is yet another character Creator/SpikeMilligan played in brown makeup with a silly accent.
89	* In 1956's ''Film/MobyDick'', Queequeg was played by Austrian actor Friedrich von Ledebur. The fake tattoos look okay at a glance; von Ledebur as a Pacific islander is less convincing.
90	* Hassan and Suleiman from ''Film/NoKidding'' are Middle Eastern princes played by fair-skinned actors browned up to look more Middle Eastern.
91	[[/folder]]
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93	[[folder:Literature]]
94	* "Literature/ClublandHeroes" has an in-universe example. The Mystic Maharajah, one member of a superhero team called the Splendid Six, is actually a white Englishman pretending to be an Indian mystic.
95	* ''Literature/TheLastBattle'' has an in-universe example. Tirian, Eustace and Jill wear the Narnian version of fake tan to make their faces brown enough to briefly pass for Calormenes.
96	* Another in-universe example in Creator/HansChristianAndersen's ''The Wild Swans''. The WickedStepmother covers Elisa's face in walnut juice - which is known for staining the skin brown - to make sure her father doesn't recognise her.
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99	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
100	* ''Eastenders'', British Pakistani Syed Masood is played by Marc Elliot who is half Scottish half Anglo-Indian. Making Syed look way whiter than both his onscreen parents. Its even jarring when Jay Brown describes him as an Indian looking fella.
101	* In ''Series/FTroop'', none of the Hekawi tribesmen are played by actual Native Americans. Most were played by Jews using classic BorschtBelt-style performances. There was even a reference to the Hekawi being the lost 13th tribe of Israel.
102	* In the 1970s sitcom ''Series/ItAintHalfHotMum'', the British Army's Indian bearer Rangi Ram was played by a white British actor, Creator/MichaelBates, with his skin darkened by makeup. Bates was born in India, and had served in the Indian Army. The other Asian characters were played by Asian actors.
103	* Parodied in ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'', in which Dee has a character she performs called Martina Martinez, which is an extremely stereotypical Latina with an artificially brown face[[labelnote:*]]''[[ExactWords Just]]'' her face. Her arms and neck are unaltered.[[/labelnote]] and black wig. People who see her in costume are mortified.
104	* In ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', white American actress Robia [=LaMorte=] played Jenny (actually Janna) Calendar, a Romani woman pretending to be an AmbiguouslyBrown American. Confused yet?
105	* In the ''Series/CimarronStrip'' episode "The Battle of Bloody Stones", all the main Native American characters in the episode are played by white men, despite having Native American extras.
106	* Later on in the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' canon it became common practice for actors playing Vulcan characters to have an olive or bronzed make-up foundation (which makes some sense considering their home planet is very hot, arid and dry, common factors connected to skin tone). The original Vulcan, Creator/LeonardNimoy, was Jewish (in "[[{{YellowFace}} Chinese yellow]]" makeup) and many of the later Vulcan actors had a similar background and appearance. It wasn't until the black Tim Russ was cast as Tuvok in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' (the first time establishing a distinct ethnic diversity in the Vulcan population) that the make-up practice took hold and the very pale Jolene Blalock was darkened to play T'Pol on ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise''. Series following the 2010s Trek Revival have averted, having many a pale skinned Vulcans, including Creator/EthanPeck's Spock.
107	** Another case of Brownface would be Khan, as played by Creator/RicardoMontalban with heavy make up and a wig to make him look Indian. Montalbán was a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Hispanic_and_Latino_Americans White Hispanic]]. The dark makeup was notably not used for his return in ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'', however.
108	** Meanwhile, Klingons all tend to have dark skin, which is a good match for African American actors such as Creator/MichaelDorn but has led to several white actors being browned up to fit the look. These generally get a pass since after all Klingons are not even Earthlings, let alone meant to represent any particular human ethnicity.
109	* Classic ''Series/DoctorWho'' had several examples of this, chiefly in its 1960s black-and-white era:
110	** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E6TheAztecs The Aztecs]]", every character bar the Doctor and his companions is an Aztec, played by a white actor with darkened skin.
111	** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E6TheCrusade The Crusade]]" features several Arab characters, including the famous Saladin and his brother, played by white actors in brownface.
112	** Creator/PatrickTroughton in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E4TheEnemyOfTheWorld The Enemy of the World]]" when playing the Mexican-born Salamander, both as Salamander and the Doctor impersonating him. While it isn't very noticeable in black-and-white, a slightly-dark tinge is visible. It is worth pointing out that the story shows a scene of the Doctor literally applying dark makeup to appear like Salamander...
113	** Leela was heavily browned up in her early promo-shots to go with her NubileSavage theme (and possibly to make her look [[InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace futuristically mixed-race]]). The makeup she eventually wore on the show was darker than her natural colouring and included brown eye contacts, but was a lot more subtle than in early pictures (which bordered on blackface).
114	* ''Series/UnbreakableKimmySchmidt'': Averted for comedy when the blond-haired and blue-eyed snob Jacqueline (played by Jane Krakowski) is revealed to be secretly a Lakota Native American who is ashamed of her heritage and changed her appearance to pass as white in high society.
115	* Creator/SpikeMilligan went into brownface to pay a Pakistani character in his short-lived sitcom ''Curry and Chips''. The result was held to be crassly racially insensitive even by the standards of TheSeventies and the humour depended on one-dimensional racial stereotypes with very few redeeming features. The sitcom did not last for longer than one series and has never been repeated.
116	* In the ''Series/{{Bonanza}}'' episode, "The Burning Sky," Dawn Wells of ''Series/GilligansIsland'' fame guest stars as a Native American wife in redface with all the stereotypes of the day, in an episode about racism of all things.
117	* Downplayed in the 1981 BBC production of ''Theatre/{{Othello}}'', in which the title role was conceived as Arab rather than Black. Creator/AnthonyHopkins played the part in brownface, but little or no effort was made to darken his blue eyes.
118	* In ''Series/TheSaint'' episode, "The Gadic Collection", Creator/PeterWyngarde of ''Series/JasonKing'' fame guest stars as a villainous Turk in brownface. Wyngarde later [[OldShame regretted the role]] when he appeared in Creator/Channel4's ''It Was Alright in the 1960s''.
119	** Largely as a result of this, [[BannedEpisode the episode is often excluded from reruns]] on [=ITV4=].
120	* ''Series/TwoSentenceHorrorStories'': "Manifest Destiny" has an in-universe example. The episode focuses on a reenactment of a European settler village, and features both European and Blackfoot characters. However, ''all'' of them are played by white people, including the Blackfoot lead, who is played by a very blond, blue-eyed white man. This is only a part of the problem, because [[TheThemeParkVersion everyone has been misled into thinking that it's a feel-good reconciliation story between Europeans and Native Americans]], while the real story ends with the settlers massacring the Blackfoots.
121	* Series/HorribleHistories would do this with the main actors playing Egyptian and Native American characters, though [[https://cherwell.org/2022/12/05/we-didnt-do-blackface-but-you-could-argue-that-we-did-mathew-baynton-discusses-horrible-histories-type-casting-and-his-acting-career/ one of the actor's Mat Bayton spoken about regretting playing non-white characters (such as in the Egyptian sketches).]]
122	-> '''Baynton:''' We didn’t do blackface, for example, but you could argue that we did. Because I played Egyptians, you know, for example, where you’d get a spray tan, essentially, and stand in your pants. That whole sort of issue, I think, is one worthy of continuous discussion.
123	[[/folder]]
124
125	[[folder:Music]]
126	* White Englishman Music/PeterGabriel wrote the story of ''Music/TheLambLiesDownOnBroadway'' with a New York Puerto Rican named Rael as the protagonist. When {{Music/Genesis\|Band}} took it on the road in 1974–75, Gabriel performed the role of Rael heavily made up in brownface.
127	[[/folder]]
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129	[[folder:Theatre]]
130	* ''Theatre/{{Othello}}'': In a case for JustForFun/TheZerothLawOfTropeExamples, the title character has traditionally (though certainly not always) been played by a white actor made up to look like a person with brown skin, or even in full-on {{blackface}}. This is complicated partly because Othello is identified as a Moor, which in Shakespeare's day was something of a vague catchall term for people with any shade of brown or black skin, including olive-skinned Caucasians as well as Sub-Saharan Africans. (More specifically it meant Arabs and/or North Africans, but that still doesn't it narrow it down very much.) For obvious reasons, modern productions are likely to avoid brownface in favor of an alternate solution, such as [[StatingTheSimpleSolution simply casting a person of color]], or giving the play a RaceLift, as in the production starring Creator/PatrickStewart as the only ''white'' character in an otherwise black cast.
131	[[/folder]]
132
133	[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
134	* Reversed for the fairly dark Chicano Wrestling/{{Chavo Guerrero\| Jr}}, who used make up to become paler, in order to fit in better with "middle class America" (one case in a series of race baiting by WWE writers). Ironically, his uncle Wrestling/EddieGuerrero, who was a good deal lighter-skinned, portrayed a far more stereotypical Chicano character.
135	* Wrestling/{{Carmella}} is actually pretty fair-skinned outside of the ring but wears a really dark tan to portray her Italian-American {{Joisey}}. Given that she was introduced as a hairdresser-turned-wrestler, it's not too much of a stretch to suggest the character just likes tanning.
136	* Averted with Wrestling/IvelisseVelez during her time in WWE. Despite wanting to turn her hair brown, WWE insisted she remain blonde. She was also given the name 'Sofia Cortez', a reggaeton entrance theme and billed from her native Puerto Rico - without darkening her fair skin.
137	* Wrestling/KarleePerez, who is mixed race but fair skinned, tans up to play the apparently Mexican Catrina in ''Wrestling/LuchaUnderground''.
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139
140
141	[[folder:Real Life]]
142	* Quite a few British intelligence officers posed as Indian or Persian merchants while [[Literature/TheGreatGame gathering information about Central Asia]]. Most of them had been living in tropical climates already, and their travels included desert environments, so they ended up pretty tan, and in some cases practically indistinguishable from the people that they were blending in with.
143	** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton Sir Richard Francis Burton]] (not to be confused [[Creator/RichardBurton with the 20th century actor]]) was notable among this group for journeying in disguise to Mecca. He got himself ''[[GroinAttack voluntarily circumcised]]'' to help avoid detection as a non-believer.
144	* In the memoir ''Seven Years In Tibet'' (it didn't make it [[{{Film/SevenYearsInTibet}} in the 1997 film]]), Heinrich Harrer tells how German and Italian explorers escaped a British internment camp in India: the Germans disguising themselves as Indians, while the Italian officer Marchese was already brown enough to pass for an Indian with only a clothes change.
145	* [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/20/mitt-romney-orange-bronzer-univision-face_n_1900387.html?utm_hp_ref=style Some]] have suggested that US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney got a fake tan before appearing on Univision to better appeal to Latino voters. His ears are noticeably paler than his face.
146	* Lillian Smith, a trick-shot performer and contemporary of Annie Oakley, pretended to be a Sioux by darkening her skin and calling herself "Princess Wenona" while performing for Mexican Joe's Wild West Show.
147	* Walter B. Harris, a British writer established in Morocco, used dark makeup and dressed like a Moroccan to gather information for his books.
148	* When Robert Beltran was cast as Chakotay, an American Indian character on ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', the producers, wanting to avoid this trope, asked him if he had any Indian in his heritage. His response was, "Gee, I'm only Mexican." His point: not all "American" Indians come from North of the Rio Grande.
149	* In September 2019, photos of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were leaked, some of which had him in brownface and wearing a turban for an Arabian Nights-themed party in 2001. Other photos showed him in {{blackface}}, and Trudeau admitted to several other similar incidents happening in the past. However, Trudeau's apology and acknowledgement that he was wrong to wear skin-darkening makeup were enough to ensure that his political career wouldn't be ruined, which was helped by the Liberal Party's progressive policies making the apology come across as sincere, and he was re-elected in November.
150	** A similar incident happened with Virginia Governor Ralph Northam.
151	[[/folder]]

Context Main / Brownface