I think Downey has guts taking the role, it could cause trouble for his career, though I have to say the makeup is well-done, I would not have recognized him at all.
Ikrik, how does people not getting offended by black people dressing up as white not apply? Is it because there wasn't a history of it being done as oppression? I don't care about someone dressing up in whiteface.
Now, this is coming from someone born in '91, I can't remember the riots in L.A., for the longest time I thought racism pretty much ended when MLK was killed, that was as far as we took the subject in elementary school. But still, some of the things that are called racism seem pretty stupid to me. A while back, some rapper or another, a previous felon, was caught having a friend buy machine guns for him, which is against the law (called a straw purchase). On top of that, the rapper was not allowed to own any guns, much less machine guns, due to his criminal record, but of course, since he was black, it was decried as racism by... one of the usual suspects, leaning towards Jackson, but it has been a while.
I am sure there is real racism still about, but it isn't nearly as rampant as some people seem to insist, when I saw Resident Evil 5's trailer, know what I saw? Not the lone mighty white hero shooting a bunch of evil black guys, I saw the hero shooting a bunch of zombies. Do I have a problem, or is that how it should be?
I don't know if I will see this, that head things was pretty damn disgusting, but I don't see racism there, what I do see is the blackface surgery getting addressed in the movie.