Al Roker Receives Backlash Dressing Up as White Character

After Megyn Kelly’s recent scandal defending blackface, the issue has been in the minds of TODAY viewers perhaps more than usual. So when Al Roker dressed up as Dr. Emmet Brown from Back to the Future, it is not surprising that he received backlash from viewers. Because the character is played by a white actor, some viewers were quick to point out the hypocrisy. Al Roker took to Twitter to address these comments, saying he can be the character without painting his skin, and a white person can dress up as a character played by a black actor without painting their skin. By the tone of his tweet, he was clearly tired of this issue being raised.

As we learned in class, white people make up the vast majority of people seen in TV, film, and other forms of media. Because of this, it seems unrealistic and unfair to limit people of color to the slim options provided for characters within their own race. While we have seen how meaningful representation can be through little boys dressed as the Black Panther or little girls dressed as Moana, these opportunities are still few and far between. To say that a black man cannot dress up as a character played by a white man is to blindly ignore the huge disparity in representation in the media.