Halloween happens to be my favorite holiday of the entire year. Everyone has a plausible excuse to dress up, tons of free candy is passed around and you have a legitimate reason to scare the Dickens out of someone. Do you know what is not normally celebrated on Halloween? Dressing up in blackface. Julianne Hough decided to dress up as Crazy Eyes, a character from the much-beloved TV show Orange is the New Black (above.) There is just one thing though: Crazy Eyes is black. Julianne Hough is white, so she took it upon herself to remedy this issue by donning blackface makeup, which is never a good idea for anyone. Blackface is still strongly tied to images of racist minstrel shows and a time in filmmaking when companies would not hire black actors, instead opting to hire white actors and smother them in blackface. Perhaps Julianne was ignorant enough to not know the history behind blackface, or perhaps she simply didn't care. Either way, I'm sure she knows how idiotic it is now.
Ryan Estabrooks is a film writer/director and photographer. When he is not busy solving mysteries, he can be found working on his feature length film. You can view all of his work at the imaginatively-titled RyanEstabrooks.com
