Japanese Comedian Uses Blackface To Dress Up As Eddie Murphy; US Twitter Erupts, Japanese Twitterverse Isn’t So Sure

“In a show that aired on New Year’s Eve, the Japanese comedian Masatoshi Hamada appeared in a Detroit Lions football jacket, a curly wig and dark makeup, an attempt at imitating the actor Eddie Murphy’s character from the 1984 movie Beverly Hills Cop.” The initial social media reaction, started (in English and Japanese) by a bilingual African-American columnist in Japan, was #StopBlackfaceJapan. But some local fans insist that the practice doesn’t and shouldn’t have stigma attached to it there.