Amid recent controversy over politically incorrect content, Hulu has decided to remove an episode of the television show “The Golden Girls” from Hulu that some perceived to contain a blackface reference.
This past weekend, the streaming platform made the choice to remove the 1988 episode “Mixed Blessings” (Season 3, Episode 23). In the episode, Dorothy's (Bea Arthur) son Michael introduces his older black fiancée Lorraine to the rest of the gang. Dorothy is resistant to the marriage not because of race, but due to the age difference, while Lorraine’s family is worried about their daughter marrying a white man.
The scene in question is where Rose (Betty White) and Blanche (Rue McClanahan) are wearing matching brown mud masks when meeting Lorraine’s family.
Rose references their appearance saying, "This is mud on our faces, we're not really black."
People quickly took to Twitter to defend the show, explaining the differences between wearing mud masks and performing in blackface.
“Y’all pulled that Golden Girls episode that wasn’t even blackface,” one user wrote. “Right now it feels very much like the entertainment industry and culpable white people within it are using these performative gestures to get out of doing the work that needs to be done.”
Y’all pulled that Golden Girls episode that wasn’t even blackface. Right now it’s feels very much like the entertainment industry and culpable white people within it are using these performative gestures to get out of doing the work that needs to be done.
— Leslie Mac (@LeslieMac) June 28, 2020
"I haven’t heard one person, not a one, have ‘Remove the episode of The Golden Girls, in which characters wear mud face masks ‘ as a demand," wrote another user.
I haven’t heard one person, not a one, have ‘Remove the episode of The Golden Girls, in which characters wear mud face masks ‘
— Anthony V. Clark (@anthonyvclark20) June 29, 2020
as a demand.
Y’all doing everything else but change! https://t.co/bd9RRSrmKE
The beloved series isn’t the first to take a hit by the woke censorship movement. Episodes from television shows like "Community" and "30 Rock" have been removed over blackface. "The Office" made the decision to edit out a scene showing similar content in one of its episodes.
Late-night television hosts Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel have come under fire after old video footage surfaced of the two of them performing in sketches wearing blackface. However, no disciplinary action was taken against the two of them by NBC, even though the same network fired talk show host Megyn Kelly after she questioned why blackface was racist in Halloween costumes.
"The Golden Girls" sets a new precedent going forward. Viewers can expect an episode of a show that simply features characters wearing a mud mask to be removed and since this is only an issue being referenced in 2020, Americans should get ready for a wave of censored content going forward.