Gérard Darmon at the Cannes film festival in 2019 – LAURENT VU / HAEDRICH JEAN-MARC / SIPA
The photo didn’t stay on Instagram for long, but it did have time to provoke strong reactions. On this now deleted photo, Gérard Darmon appears grimaced in black. “Othello for Marleau…! », Wrote the comedian of Family Business who will soon be in an episode of Captain Marleau, the detective series by Corinne Masiero.
If the actor claimed to refer to Othello or the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare, Internet users, for their part, saw in it a blackface (make up her face in black). A practice considered racist which goes back to the American “minstrel shows” born in the first part of the 19th century, shows during which whites blackened their faces to play blacks and to make fun of them.
“I am a free actor”
Faced with the many indignant reactions, Gérard Darmon tried to explain himself in comments. ” What is happening ? I’m talking to you aboutOthello by Shakespeare. Laurence Olivier. Orson Welles. Pierre Brasseur (Claude’s father) and a multitude of others, he insisted. What are you talking to me about with black faces. So calm down, don’t sue me and if there’s any time left, (re) read Shakespeare. I am a free actor and if one day I want to do a biopic on Mao Tse-Tung, I will do it ”.
Some Internet users recalled that Shakespeare described Othello as the “Moor of Venice”, the character could as well be from North Africa as from Sub-Saharan Africa. Gérard Darmon ended up removing the cliché from his Instagram account without extinguishing the controversy. On Twitter, screenshots continue to be shared.
Several celebrities have been pinned in recent years for wearing a “blackface”, including Antoine Griezmann who disguised himself as an African-American basketball player.