Julianne Hough Forced To Apologize For Her Offensive Halloween Costume

Well, Julianne Hough received a lot of negative feedback after photos of her dressed as “Crazy Eyes” from the show Orange Is the New Black appeared online.

As you can see down below, she decided to “blackface” it up and really commit to her costume. This caused many people online to get upset. They found the costume offensive and demanded an apology from Hough, and they eventually received one.

She tweeted out the following, [more…]

“I am a huge fan of the show Orange is the New Black, actress Uzo Aduba, and the character she has created. It certainly was never my intention to be disrespectful or demeaning to anyone in any way. I realize my costume hurt and offended people and I truly apologize.”

This story is very interesting because I just had to write a story about a teen who dressed up as a bloody Trayvon Martin. The guy in that photo was also sporting blackface, but that is not why I found his costume offensive. His costume was offensive for a number reasons and it would have been just as offensive if a black teen did the same thing.

In Julianne Hough’s case, she could have dressed as Crazy Eyes without the black face and everything would have been fine.  As an entertainer, Hough should have the common sense to know that black face was used to propel negative black stereotypes.  White people used the black face paint along with wide red lips and portrayed characters such as the “happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation” or the “dandified coon“.

I’m not sure how the Wayans’ brothers got away with making a movie with “White Face” but that’s another topic for another story.

Crazy Eyes is my favorite character on that show, as well. If I had any creativity at all, I might even try to dress up as her for Halloween. But I guess that would be racist sexist…