Robert Downey Jr. Black Man Picture: Photo of white actor to portray an African-American in Tropic Thunder movie…

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Robert Downey, Jr. pic of white actor in black face and body…

I keep looking at the pic of Robert Downey, Jr. as a black man in the upcoming movie called Tropic Thunder.

(Too bad TropicThunder.com is already taken. I checked…)

The movie sounds fascinating — with Ben Stiller having first gotten the idea for the film 20 years ago, and the first movie he’s directed since 2001.

Anyway, the only way I can really tell that’s Robert Downey, Jr. is from his eyes — I’d know those Less Than Zero eyes anywhere.

“How long, Jane? How did it take you to *$%@ my best friend?”

Sorry — I had a Robert Downey, Jr. flashback to 1987 in a role so excellent that we know now why he played a drug addict so convincingly.

When he died at the end of Less Than Zero riding in that convertible, I think I might’ve almost cried.

Of course I’ve been watching his ups and downs and rooting for Downey to overcome his demons with the rest of the world.

And now that he seems to have a leg up on things, how will the black viewing public react to the picture of Robert Downey, Jr. as a black man?

Will Robert Downey Jr.’s black face…

…go over better than Ted Danson’s black face did back in 1993?

Maybe so.

Maybe not.

We’ll see.

African-Americans like me love Ben Stiller and Robert Downey, Jr. — yet the black face on a white man raises all sorts of issues that I’m sure will be bandied about.

Folks will be sure to ask why the role didn’t go to a real black man, to which the filmmakers’ reply will inevitably be because that would negate the whole white-man-playing-a-black-man-movie-within-a-movie plot line.

Just like when C. Thomas Howell went black for “Soul Man” — there was much controversy then.

I watched “Soul Man” when I was a teenager, and back then I didn’t see what the big deal was.

I just hoped it was educational for white boys in real life when C. Thomas Howell’s black character got pulled over by the cops.

Now I understand more about the dearth of roles for African-Americans in Hollywood films that just ticks this kind of thing off more so than people might assume it would…

But Stiller is a funny writer and actor, so it’ll be interesting to see how far the black-I’m-really-a-white-man controversy goes.

Black Like Me Did it Best…

Black Like Me is a book by John Howard Griffin that I read some time ago, but it’s about a real white man who took tanning pills and really turned his skin darker for a while and really lived like a black man.

He got beat up and lived in such a sad state.

That’s the best interpretation I’ve ever seen of a journalist really wanting to get the real story.

As Stiller said, it depends on the context and treatment of the storyline.

Black people complained that Soul Man and Ted Danson did it in a buffoonish manner of sorts.

Will Ben Stiller make us change our minds?






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