Touched By An Angel Is Getting A Second Life On TikTok (For The Worst Reason)
One of the most disappointing ways in which modern TV shows age poorly involves having episodes where white performers don blackface. "30 Rock" has many questionable moments, including incorporating blackface on several occasions. And Jimmy Fallon has huge regrets for donning blackface on "Saturday Night Live." To add to the list, an episode of the hit 1990s series "Touched By an Angel" is getting scrutinized on TikTok for putting lead actor, Roma Downey, in offensive makeup.
@heartthrobert The racism episode of Touched By An Angel did not age well. #90s #1990s #90skid #90kids #touchedbyanangel #7thheaven Touched By An Angel black face blackface
People are noting the tone-deaf storyline for Season 5, Episode 23 — "Black Like Monica." Normally, Monica is an angel who goes down to Earth to help mortals with their various crises of faith. The episode sees Monica become Black to help solve the murder of a Black man in a small town, causing her to experience racial prejudice first-hand. Downey takes on blackface throughout the duration of the story, and at the end, she prays to become white again, saving her from racist men who wanted to kill her when she was Black.
Needless to say, the clip's getting roasted online, with the hosts of the above TikTok making fun of the wig Downey wears when sporting blackface. Similar derision came from @heartthrobert, who points out how Downey in blackface looks awfully similar to Rachel Dolezal, who made headlines as a white woman pretending to be Black. It's a bizarre episode, but as @heartthrobert says, that may be due to the fact "Black Like Monica" was written and directed by white people who clearly didn't have the best handle on the Black experience in America.
Black Like Monica remains incredibly problematic in how it goes about its message
Did the "Touched By an Angel" blackface episode have good intentions? Probably, seeing as the overarching message is that racism is bad. However, the way it goes about it was all wrong, as many people online are pointing out. The episode title seemingly derives its name from the 1961 book "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin, a journalist who wore blackface in the Deep South to chronicle the Black experience. A similar process was done by Sam Forster, who released "Seven Shoulders" this year. White people don't need to pretend to be Black to understand a prejudiced society; there are numerous accounts from actual Black people detailing such struggles, so it'd be best to simply listen to them.
What makes "Black Like Monica" all the stranger is that it includes a cameo appearance from the real-life Rosa Parks, who may not have been aware of the episode's more controversial aspects. The story concludes with Tess, played by the late, great Della Reese, telling Monica, "You can't go on preaching against the darkness until you can see it in yourself. And there aren't too many politically correct ways to do that." It's an odd statement, almost as though the show is waving away the problematic nature of having a white actor use blackface instead of just having a Black actor play Monica if this was really the story they wanted to tell.
The episode lives on in the worst way, with people pointing out plenty of things that don't add up. Take this observation from @dhoodson on X (formerly known as Twitter): "Notice how she prayed to be white again & not to end racism."