Oh, God. You knew it was going to happen. You knew that Paula Deen’s second act couldn’t last. Paula Deen’s Twitter account posted the above photo yesterday with the message “Lucyyyyy, you got a lot of esplainin’ to do!” The tweet was quickly deleted, but of course it was too late – multiple media outlets had taken screenshots and copied the photo. Shockingly, Paula isn’t the problem (or she’s not the biggest problem in this photo): that’s her younger son Bobby right beside her, in Desi Arnaz “brownface.” The real Desi wasn’t even that dark-skinned, you know? He was a light-skinned Cuban. Deen’s rep told media outlets:
“Paula Deen’s Social Media Manager posted a picture this morning of Paula and Bobby Deen dressed in costume as Lucy and Ricky, from I Love Lucy.This photograph is from a Halloween episode of Paula’s Best Dishes that aired in 2011. Paula immediately had this picture taken down as soon as she saw the post and apologizes to all who were offended. As such, Paula Deen Ventures has terminated their relationship with this Social Media Manager.”
The message seems to be “Of course we knew perfectly well that there were other notable examples of the Deen family’s racism, but we never intended to post those examples on social media!” It would be like someone in the Deen family “accidentally” posting the n-word on Twitter and firing their social media manager because the tweet went through. The racist act was not that the photo was posted on Twitter. The racist act was that Bobby Deen thought it was cool to dress up in brownface, because being “brown” is a costume, y’all.
Two years ago, Paula Deen’s empire began to crumble after multiple stories of her racism began to come out, including Deen’s admission during a deposition that she had used the n-word before. Most of the racist explosion/implosion happened in 2013, and Deen lost a lot of advertising, she lost tons of money and she lost her Food Network show (sort of, her sons still work with the network and Paula still shows up on their shows). Since 2013, she’s been quietly pulling her empire back together, to mixed results. I mean, I think she okay financially, but she really wants to rehabilitate her public image and I think she is being advised by some kind of crisis manager long-term. Money well spent, eh?
Photos courtesy of Paula Deen’s deleted tweet, WENN.
What. The. Hell. I’m so glad I ditched cable.
I’m pretty sure she’s no longer on cable. And no doubt this photo and the brown-face are racist, but the image was taken in 2011. Either the media manager is an ignorant twit, Paula approved this, or the media manager intentionally put this out there to cause her harm, by dredging up the past.
That’s been my theory too. She probably treated the social media manager like crap, and they went out with a bang.
Maybe s/he is of Cuban descent and found the image offensive?
The picture is from a Halloween show 4 years ago. It was no big deal. Her social media team was fired after releasing the photo.
It obviously was a big enough deal where the media manager was fired.
I showed my Cuban husband this photo and he wasn’t offended all he said is that’s the wrong shade of brown, “Cuban brown” is more milk chocolate
I think the point is that any caricature rendered by Deen is ‘loaded’ based on her past antics. Didn’t she have a plantation party complete with ‘slave’ servers? Anyway, Ricky Ricardo could have easily been represented with a wig, and the waves in his hair, everyone would have figured it out with the Lucy costume. Ricky did not have that skin shade, at all.
As usual, you are spot on, Kiddo.
Cubans come in all shades. It’s great that your husband wasn’t offended but other people were. I am just not a fan of this particular argument; i.e my Black, Hispanic, Jewish wasn’t offended so it must be okay. Different strokes for different folks and lots of people of color are sick of this brownface / blackface crap, even when people say they meant no harm.
But what about her caked on makeup? Do we call that bronze face?
Definitely a crime against make up fashion
Somewhere even the Kartrashians are saying “Damn Paula, you need to tone down the spackle.”
The Media Manager hates her. There is no other explanation, right?
Pretty much. It’s even in the caption–she’s got some ‘splainin’ to do about some newly unearthed photos? Maybe she lied to the person and then when the person found her secret stash of bigotry, he/she got fed up.
People! Keep your bigotry stash well hidden!
God bless Paula and her good ol’ fashioned deep-fried ignorance.
That woman will never learn because she can’t even understand why what she does is wrong. She’s that selfish and sheltered.
This won’t be the last time she screws up, she’s got plenty of prejudiced/racist hijinks left in her.
That’s why she’s ‘pologizin’ to those who were offended–not for the act, mind you. Not for doing something that she hadn’t realized was offensive and wishing she could take it back. Just, “if you’re offended, I’m sorry for you.” A nice, big F-U to the dark ones. Again.
Wow! That chip on your shoulder must get tiresome carrying around…
@Judd, it’s unclear what you’re talking about. Projecting much?
This. I am half-Southern, and can report it is exactly this sort of ‘humor’ that some threatened Southerners feel is ‘being taken away’ from them to enjoy ‘in public.’
As per usual, it’s all complicated; some other Southerners are far more aware & comfortable with acknowledging & appreciating differences than many people I’ve met… anywhere, elsewhere.
Paula & her ilk, however and evidently, are not. Caricature is not the same thing as acknowledgement or appreciation.
I love gut-honest humor, because it can actually draw all sorts of people together. This pathetic attempt, by contrast, is not that.
no, she won’t ever learn. like so many who grew up with that and (as some say) “grew up in a different time”, she’ll NEVER get it.
never mind the outright use of the N word, she couldn’t even understand why wanting to have a “plantation-themed” wedding with the black “help” dressed in slave-era clothes was offensive.
This woman annoys the hell out of me. The whole persona strikes me as FAKE! That laugh is sooooooooo….annoying and forced. She’s made her millions….just GO AWAY. She has terminal “foot in the mouth” disease. While I appreciate she crawled her way to the top…yes, I read her book which was a gift as I wouldn’t PAY for it…otherwise….I can barely watch her on TV…even interviews seem so rehearsed. The sons need to pick up the franchise and leave Momma on the porch churning butter…her favorite ingredient.
I came to detest her on TV – that overly exaggerated “yaaawwwlll” and that hideous laugh. Just speak normally!
i don’t necessarily think she’s okay financially. Didn’t she just sell that huge home she had in Savannah?
Savannahian checking in. Yes she has listed it but no takers yet. It’s actually a compound of multiple houses. Also FYI locals don’t care for her at ALL.
This is the home that Oprah and Gayle visited? IIRC, very, very extravagant, loaded with chandeliers?
I would like to know how her newer restaurants and stores are doing. She has one of each in a little resort area we visit. The store is usually packed, but then again, most will browse through any type of shop on that street.
Desi Arnaz was not particularly dark.
Not all Latinos are brown, Deen family. Some of us are light skinned, and others darker than that.
But heaven forbid you not be an ignorant fool.
That’s what makes it REEEEEEALLY ignorant to me. Nothing about that says Ricky/Desi. Where’s the hair? Those big 1950’s suits? A drum? A cigarette!? Anything! But the first thing that came to his mind was Latino=Brown. And none of those involved saw anything wrong with that when posing for the picture either.
In addition, he hasn’t made any effort to copy the real features of Desi Arnaz, such as the wavy hair or bandleader’s tux. That blue shirt looks like it was stolen from Ina Garten’s Food Network wardrobe.
Dumbass.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
There are so many people out there that just need to go away now …
Yep.
I believe her titles have been changed and she is now Queen of Dumbass, Duchess of Butter.
As someone from Europe, who only heard of blackface recently, on this site even, I think, I have a question.
If he put on a costume of a specific person, who happens to be dark skinned, is that different than puting on just blackface?
It’s an interesting question, but I think the answer is no, black or brown face is offensive even if you are pretending to be a specific person. There’s just too many negative associations with it for it to ever be ok. And this is sort of beside the point, but Desi Arnaz had almost the same complexion as Lucy. So they were trying to make sure you “knew” who he was supposed to be by making him “brown” because they don’t consider him white.
Ironically, when I saw the photo, all I could think is “who the hell is he supposed to be??” The makeup was completely unnecessary and made him look even LESS like Desi.
I’m from Asia but have heard of blackface. However, I have the same question.
In my country, we and the Caucasian folks are ok to dress up in Chinese, Malay, Indian, Japanese costumes and we even have a special occasion called Racial Harmony Day for the school-going kids and teens to know about each other’s cultures and dress up. But donning blackface or using weird makeup like slit eyes are frowned upon.
I’m from Malaysia, so same ethnic makeup as your country (Malays, Chinese, Indians and expats from various countries here and there). Black/brown face is NEVER okay but the dynamics of race in my/our countries are also different from race politics in the US.
What is deemed cultural appropriation here in the West (white people wearing bindis, native headdresses, etc) doesn’t really exist to the same degree as it does in Malaysia because of the absence of colonial power on the part of the dominant race against other races. Additionally, the dominant race – Malays – are economically most disadvantaged, which is also unusual. So a Chinese-Malaysian wearing the Malay baju kurung or a Malay wearing the Saree is not comparable to a white person donning a Native American headdress.
BUT brown/black/yellow face is still NEVER EVER okay, no matter where you’re from.
@ Franca – it was the same with me. I grew up with people doing blackface or wearing native headdresses during parties all the time and no one knew it was in any way offensive. They actually thought, and probably still think that it’s the opposite – a way of celebrating other cultures and everyone in here is always happy when people from other countries try to appropriate our culture – we finally feel noticed and worthy. I found out pretty recently on here that it’s offensive and I felt stupid for dressing up in a fringed dress and braids to look like Pocahontas as a kindergartner. But still it just isn’t talked about in my part of Europe, where up until recently there was no racial diversity. We didn’t have colonies, slavery in an American sense (we were slaves for other nations though) and due to communism, we lived in a little bubble, knowing only bits and pieces about western cultures. I first came on Celebitchy for gossip but after a few years, I can say it’s a pretty educational experience due to posts like this one.
Pretty much the same in my country. Almost no racial diversity, we never had colonies nor slavery, also had communism ( ours was at least self-imposed, we were never dependant on Russia), and the slight immigration we did have was from neighbouring countries. There is pretty much no racial diversity, no religious diversity, no ethnic diverstiy. Almost everyone is white, Croatian and Catholic.
My grandma is in her late 70s, and I don’t think she has ever seen a person of another race in person. No one ever heard of blackface.
Its due to the connotations in the US. In the past people used to make racist movies making fun of blacks in this country wearing black paint (because the actors were white). These movies portrayed blacks as stupid, ignorant, not worthy, etc. It was a way to demean and belittle blacks.
I have friends from Europe who also never heard of blackface or considered it racist. One of my friends from the netherlands grew up thinking that their Black Santa was a celebration of the culture. When she moved here for school she was shocked. So for people like her I get it. People here who pretend they don’t know the meaning behind it are just ignorant at this point. And there’s no excuse.
I actually have mixed feelings about this. I am generally rather annoyed from all the wanna-be-100%-political-correct stuff, but I do get that some things might offend others and so I try to be considerate. However, I sometimes just don’t see things as being offensive, at least not until someone explains to me that it might in fact be and I don’t even think I’m particularly ignorant. I am from Europe, too (from Germany) so this might be a reason, I don’t know. So for me it might be offensive if someone just puts on a black face and acts like an unintelligent person with the apparent intention to mock a certain group of people* as idiots . But if someone wants to dress like Dr. Dolittle or Beyonce or Shaft or whomever, why not put on a black face then. I just don’t get why that would be offensive. Now that I know some people might be offended by it, I would not do it myself, or let my kid (if I had any) do it. But I think it’s sad to have to consider such things while putting on a costume (especially for kids) should be fun and innocent.
* I think it’s also unsettling. May I say black people, colored people, people of color, …….. I caught me tiptoeing around this and then wrote “certain group of people” which is so stupid, also because I think we shouldn’t have to think about such things so much but be much more relaxed about it. Then again, I do get why people of color (?) are very critical, get offended, especially at the moment, especially in the USA. But still.. I think it’s sad.
There are plenty of ways to dress up as a character or person without having to darken your skin. Skin color is not a costume. Plain and simple. And what’s sad is that you think it’s such a hardship to have to consider whether or not you’re being offensive.
Because of the history behind why it is unacceptable to ‘put on a black face’. Beyoncé and a Shaft are not costumes, they are human beings, human beings that can be easily distinguished by one of their many characteristics that isn’t simply their skin tone. People’s skin tone is not a costume to be worn for your own amusement and then discarded once you are done playing dress up. This is true for all minority individuals if you google the words: Culture, Not Costume.
What you consider fun is proof of you being able to escape the reality and harsh pain that comes with that skin tone. For you it is a fun game while for others it is a legacy of struggle that lasts till today. Statistics are not on our side in anything except prison records and you think it’s a shame your child can not paint his skin to look like someone? Your child is lucky he will not be gunned down by police for the crime of being black.
I’m not holding it against you because you’re from Germany, but there’s something to be said about being aware of an issue so you can appreciate the full depth. I could not go to Germany and wave a Nazi Flag and say it’s a shame a once peaceful symbol was corrupted could I?
The Nazi flag isn’t the best comparison, since it’s different from the Swastika and actually illegal to wave around. However, comparing the negative connotations makes sense.
Ugh. She probably flies the Confederate flag, too.
She’s always down to let her freak flag fly.
Wow.
So racists think all Latinos are brown. Interesting… I am sure Desi Arnaz thought he was a white Cuban.
It is too late for Paula Dean and her son to get sensitivity training. She is just a bigot and needs to sit down away from broadcast tv.
What discussion happens before you apply dark makeup to your white face and think that this is OK.. Why? Why? I mean WHY? do you do this.
The guy that posted it was dumb.. but they obviously were posing for a picture. Thought it was fine. No one around them said.. HEY guys, since that whole craziness with the racial statements; maybe the dark face is not a good idea.. go wash that off.
Oh Paula.. One step forward, the 100 back.
Everybody there probably thought it was very funny. Because there’s a latino, and latinos have to be darker.
It’s not like his natural skin tone is very light in the first place, this wasn’t about being accurate but plain ignorant and racist.
Somehow this doesn’t surprise me.
Looking more closely at the photo…can anyone explain why the stuffed fake crows?
That’s what makes Paula so amazingly terrible. She was going for an ‘I Love Lucy’ spoof and made sure to get nearly everything wrong about it but definitely made sure to darken up her son’s face (and not his hands?) and not give him ANY of Desi’s characteriristics.
Not clothes. Not hair. Nope just extra dark skin and super thick brows. Geez this woman…
OMG. You aren’t going to believe this, but I looked it up. Two Black Crows was the name of a popular black-faced vaudeville act. I am now speechless.
…speechless, but this is the same woman who paid a cook of hers to dress up as Aunt Jemimah for her restaurant. Anything after that shouldn’t shock me.
Dude…just Googled and that wiki link was the first thing that came up.
Yeah maybe it was Halloween decorations but you have to admit that’s a weird coincidence.
God I cannot STAND this woman.
There is another crow sitting on her canister set in the far left of the picture. I see three crows and three ignorant clowns in that pic.
Yeah I saw the third crow. I also don’t think this family is clever enough to be that inconspicuously subversive. But it’s still a great pic for any Dean conspiracy theorists that might be out there 😉
I think this was a Halloween episode, hence the crows.
You could be absolutely right, it was just another thing that stood out to me in this cavalcade of the bizarre.
There are no words. Oh yes there are GO AWAY!!!
She seems like her family was offensive and racist and for years that’s just how it was. Like she lived in an unacceptable bubble and the universe had to slap her into waking up.
this reminds me of Julianna Houghs Halloween costume as crazy eyes from Orange is the new black. How can you live now and not know that is offensive? Do you live under a rock?
Or not have anyone around you that says “hey maybe that’s not a good idea?”
The arrogance that some whites think being black or brown is a costume. Rolling eyes.
Paula Deen and family. Lost cause.
I just don’t get the emotional or psychological thrill people get from blackface or brown face, in this case. What does it do for them? I just can’t begin to guess.
In this case, her son could have made one of those there she goes again faces & we would have gotten that he was supposed to be Ricky. But no, someone somehow said what? “Blacken up, he-he-he, blacken up, he-he-he. That will be so funny.” Everyone in the picture & everyone on set who laughed & helped with the gag are just as guilty as Paula.
Yeah I just want to know what the thought process is. I just don’t understand why there wouldn’t be a pause before you slather brown makeup on your white face like, “Hey, maybe this isn’t the best idea. Maybe, just maybe, this might offend people”.
This fcking family. So pathetically out-of-touch.
What I can’t figure out is how anybody could watch a single episode of I Love Lucy (endlessly rerun everywhere) and come away from it with the idea that Ricky Ricardo had brown skin. Are they blind?!? Of course, they’re off on the color of Lucy’s hair also.
The only explanation is people think blackface is meant to be funny. A gag. Almost like clown makeup.
God, she’s stupid.
I think Paula Deen would make an excellent running mate to Donald Trump.
Pretty good idea….
I hate that we’re still talking about this awful woman and her and her awful family 😑
I honestly don’t get what the big deal is with this. It’s a costume. When you dress up as something or someone you do what you can to make it as authentic as possible. To that guy, darkening his face made him feel the part more. It doesn’t appear he was insulting the Cuban nationality. Did Robert Downey Jr get this much shit when he played a black man in that Tropic Thunder movie? I also didn’t get the flak when Julliane Hough chose a costume of a different race. WTF is everyone so sensitive for. Is it some unspoken rule one can only dress up as their own race/nationality/culture? So silly.
Look up Desi Arnaz to see what he looked like.
He could’ve dressed up as Desi Arnaz without the brown face paint and people would still get it. Ditto to Julianne Hough. And, as mentioned above, Arnaz was fairer than this “authentic costume” portrays so???
Desi Arnaz is not a dark-skinned Cuban man. He was quite light-skin, so…in terms of authenticity its a big no. Furthermore Desi was more than a skin tone, her son didn’t bother to get his hair or clothing style right.
As for the rest of your comment willful ignorance is a choice. You’re choosing to be this uninformed and poorly educated. That’s pretty sad, you should make some effort to be informed. You’re halfway there because you managed to turn on your computer AND you’re on the Internet. From here the world could be your oyster.
I recognize your name and know you have been on here a while. The reason blackface is offensive has been explained politely, rationally, completely and frequently. If you don’t get it by now, you never will. I don’t think you’re stupid. You just don’t want understand for some reason. Usually, I find that if you are asking yourself “why is everyone else so sensitive,” you are being insensitive. Some people just can’t empathize with anyone else’s feelings unless they share those feelings. But I bet if you read about it and tried really hard to imagine yourself in that situation, you could understand if you really wanted to.
RDJ didn’t play a black man. He played a parody of a pretentious “method actor” who insisted on dying his skin to really “experience” what it was like to be a black man. That whole movie was Ben Stiller et al’s way of making fun of Hollywood’s douchebaggary.
Bobby Deen put on brownface to represent a man who was paler than Bobby Deen. It was both historically inaccurate and asshatIsh.
Exactly.
RDJ played Bobby Dean, basically. Or a guy that does stupid, thoughtless sh*t like Bobby Dean. The parody was to MOCK people like this guy.
Miley Cyrus managed to dress up as Nicki Minaj without putting on blackface and everyone still knew who she was. If you can’t beat Miley Cyrus for cultural sensitivity look at your life, look at your choices.
It’s astounding that they thought this was a good idea. Was she worried that viewers wouldn’t know it was supposed to be Desi?! Ridiculous. With her in Lucy’s costune, who else could it be? There wasn’t any reason to put makeup on “Desi,” brownface or otherwise.
I agree with everyone saying that she and her son are so without clues that they thought this would be cute. They will never get the point.
The best thing to come out of this fracas was the rise in visibility of culinary historian Michael Twitty, who wrote an incredible open letter to Paula Deen, and whose wonderful blog I’ve read ever since.
Just looking him up — Cool!
While I agree Paula Deen is a jerk of epic proportions, why isn’t BOBBY getting any ire? He’s a grown man and the makeup is on his face.
W T F????? How do people STILL think it’s okay to wear “brownface” these days?! I thought we had already been over this???? *SMH*
She’s an idiot for sure, but that incident happened in 2011. Obviously, before she got called out a year or two ago for her antics, she had done alot of utterly stupid things we didn’t even know about. This confirms the ignorance in that family, but I do think she’s been more careful since being lamb-basted by the media and public last year/year before. What she needs to do to cover all the bases is offer a blanket apology for her past views and lack of sensitivity bc I’m willing to bet there alot more pictures and incidents from her past that will come to light. Better to address it all so we don’t go through this every time somebody posts a picture or brings up a story from the past that proves once again that her family was blind to cutural sensitivity. Doesn’t mean they don’t still think that way, but I’m sure PR has taught them to filter what they actually put out there for mass consumption.
Who are the whites who think that Paula Dean’s antics are funny? She must have an audience of them. When are these whites going to face the reality of their crime against humanity, in the South? Why do they laugh about degrading others?
It is British colonialism that has riddled the world with racism. ” Southern traditions” descend from this root.
1) Hell if I know.
2) Exactly.
Stick a fork on her, I do nelieve she’s really done now.
I didn’t even know who it was supposed to be until I read the caption. Would have been alot more clever if the son put on a suit and tie, held a mini conga drum and struck a “BAA BAA -LUUU” pose! Then I and most I Love Lucy Fans would have known it was Lucy & Desi right away. She’s been blowing every gasket to convince people she’s really a nice loving person and now this (the picture was taken in 2011 but she posted it just yesterday). Just who are Paula Deens publicists???
SERIOUSLY, that’s what makes her such an impressive fool. She puts some genuine effort into being offensive.
Her ‘Lucy’ isn’t that great but I still figured it out but if not for other’s comments I wouldn’t have figured out the son was supposed to be Desi. Desi wasn’t even dark skinned! Also, why does he look like he’s wearing a woman’s cleaning uniform?
you can’t fix stupid.
This is actually pretty typical. I’m Portuguese, and like other Iberians, we are simply considered Europeans over there. They don’t use the term “hispanic” there; it’s only a US term meant to indicate people from Spanish speaking countries, though for the most part they only refer to Central and South America. However, it’s clear that many folks in the US think that people from Spanish speaking countries are all brown in some way. And the rest of you are right — it’s offensive to paint her son brown to indicate that he’s “Desi”, because obviously what it implies is that Desi wasn’t white enough for people to recognize him as Caucasian. That’s a truth that people from Iberia and Italy live with here in the US as well. So the offensiveness is the fact that somebody thinks that making a costume involving someone from said Spanish speaking countries needs to also get out the shoe polish. Even unconsciously, it’s a reminder that there’s a “white meter” and you’re not hitting high enough up on the scale. Brownface, blackface, redface, yellowface, whatever, it all amounts to demeaning another on the basis of race by caricature. Well, if hanging out with rodeo clowns like Paula Deen is what you get as a prize for being sufficiently “white”, I’ll be happy to continue to sit this one out. That lady looks like a clown supply just exploded all over her.
She’s as dumb as dirt. I can hardly blame her stupid son. He clearly wasn’t raised right.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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