According to Deadline, the BBC has removed any sketches that used blackface from the sketch comedy program The Mitchell and Webb Look. The network recently made the series available on iPlayer to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
The internet caught on quickly, as Reddit users almost immediately began posting about the use of Blackface in the series starring David Mitchell (Peep Show, Ludwig, Upstart Crow) and Robert Webb (Peep Show, Back) . 11 sketches have been removed.
A BBC spokesperson released a statement: “That Mitchell and Webb Look has been made available on BBC iPlayer. This is a 20-year-old sketch show; in consultation with the program makers, we have included the ones that still work today and not the ones that don’t,” per Deadline.
One sketch features English Civil War reenactors who grow tired of the same battles and instead decide to role-play a rebel conflict with government forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
According to Deadline, during the sketch they ask, “Are you sure that this isn’t racist?” And eventually conclude, “It’s racist. Very, very racist. Shame.”
In a parody of a makeover show that involves a guest appearance by Olivia Colman (The Favorite, The Lobster), they are tasked with beautifying a woman in a Burqa. At the end of the sketch, the woman removes her face covering, revealing Mitchell in Blackface.
Dom Jolly, another British comedian, called the BBC’s cuts “hysterical censorship” in The Times of London. The BBC has altered or removed series from iPlayer before, as Little Britain and Mighty Boosh fell into similar controversy.
Some Redditors have drawn comparisons to when streamers removed an episode of Community, as they believed both the episode and the sketch to be satirizing the practice: “The sketch is literally about blackface being racist. They did this with Community too, where they removed an episode [sic] cos a guy dressed as a dark elf, and put fucking blue makeup on.
“I think they don’t understand what makes/made blackface racist. It’s from the historical dehumanising of a group of people. The thing that’s bad about it isn’t the LITERAL darkening of the skin. It’s ENTIRELY about the why. If you don’t care about the why, then your anti-racism just seems performative and untrustworthy,” the post con
Other users have applauded the removal of the sketches and criticized those who defend it, “Too many of you are way too invested in the availability of blackface sketches. Yes they are all ‘about how blackface is bad’. If you are a researcher of blackface performance[sic] I’m sure these are still available. Y’all need to grow up, 90% of the cut episodes and sketches are just racism with probable deniability or at the least wildly out of step with current times. Not everything needs to be available forever on every database. That’s not censorship. No one came to your house and stole your copy [sic], no one banned it in the first place. It’s just a decision on what a broad casting service wants to currently put out. Want the original? Keep your own library.”
The post continues, “Do y’all need to watch birth of a nation regularly too? Like the weeping and gnashing of teeth over the availability of “modern blackface ” is really something else. Like when it’s companies axing trans or gay characters not a peep. When AI companies destroyed rare books who cares. Your favorite blackface episode and y’all are in a rage. Sit down and think about yourselves.”
