Bet You Didn’t Know: Secrets Behind the Making of “Coming to America”
- By
Veronica Wells
Whiteface
Whether the director’s wife made racist comments or not, Landis himself thought it would be interesting for Murphy to play off the “blackface” phenomenon. Landis read that in the early 1900s Jewish comedians often wore blackface to portray stereotypical/racist depictions of African Americans so he decided to have Eddie play a Jewish man in “whiteface” for the now-famous barbershop scene.
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