Actor Dan Aykroyd has revealed that his Trading Places co-star Eddie Murphy didn’t object to the movie’s blackface scene in which Aykroyd’s character donned dark face paint and a rasta wig, while feigning a Jamaican accent.
Dan Aykroyd recalled shooting the scene in a recent interview with The Daily Beast for the movie’s 40th anniversary.
“Eddie and I were improvising there. Eddie is a Black [sic] man and his entourage were all Black people, and I don’t think they batted an eye,” the actor said.
“There was no objection then; nobody said anything. It was just a good comic beat that was truthful to the story.”
The “Ghostbusters” star on filming John Landis’ 1983 status-swap comedy, working with Eddie Murphy, and how he looks back at that blackface scene today. https://t.co/a6CxRBiXPC
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) June 24, 2023
Aykroyd said the scene couldn’t be done today.
“I probably wouldn’t choose to do a blackface part, nor would I be allowed to do it. I probably wouldn’t be allowed to do a Jamaican accent, white face or Black [sic],” he said. “In these days we’re living in, all that’s out the window. I would be hard-pressed to do an English accent and get away with it. They’d say, ‘Oh, you’re not English, you can’t do it.’”
As Breitbart News reported, Eddie Murphy took a stand against woke cancel culture, saying comedians shouldn’t have to say they’re sorry for jokes they told in the past.
“It’s almost like there was this thing where for the last couple years, people had to apologize for saying this and that. It seems like I’m seeing a couple comics going ‘You know what? Enough of this shit. I’m doing my thing and let the chips fall where they may,’” Murphy told the AP in 2019.
“That’s where I’m coming from,” he added. “I’m not planning to step on nobody’s foot or get in some controversy or turn over the applecart. I’m just going to be Eddie. Whatever comes out, that’s what it’s going to be.”
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