One of the most watched TV shows in the world has come under intense scrutiny for featuring a sketch that had Asian actors in blackface and black actors dressed as monkeys.
The annual Chinese Lunar New Year gala by CCTV is a four-hour event and is watched by some 700 million people each year. This year, one of the many comedy routines featured throughout the show was one intended to depict China’s relationship with Africa. The segment sees a young African woman ask a Chinese man to pose as her husband when they meet her mother.
Carrying fruit on her head and with an exaggerated backside, the mother – played by a Chinese actor in blackface – enters the stage accompanied by what is believed to be a black actor in a monkey costume. After the conversation she yells: “I love China!”
Viewers expressed their fury at the display, with some commenters branding it “backward” and “completely racist at worst.”
Netizens were left feeling “ashamed” by the production, which the TV network hasn’t commented on since it aired. Multiple articles on Chinese social media condemning the performance have been censored, according to the South China Morning Post.
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