Los Angeles: Netflix has taken down an episode of its 2015 series "W/Bob and David", starring Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, over a blackface sketch. The removal of the episode comes after the streamer pulled "Little Britain" and "Come Fly With Me" over blackface characters.
According to Deadline, titled 'Know Your Rights', the sketch showed Cross in blackface as Gilvin Daughtry, the leader of Citizens Against Unlawful Abuse! Daughtry stops at a DUI checkpoint and interacts with an affable policeman (Keegan-Michael Key).
The driver constantly tries to force a confrontation with the officer and ultimately applies blackface, a type of makeup used by a non-black performer in an attempt to play a person of colour, in an effort to prove that "every race" has equal rights in the US. Daughtry then is tased and pepper-sprayed.
Cross defended the sketch said in a tweet on Monday, that the included video that since has been disabled, saying that the point of using blackface was to "underscore the absurdity". "Hey all, Netflix is going to pull this sketch from With Bob & David because the ridiculous, foolish character I play puts on 'black face' at one point. The point of this was to underscore the absurdity," he wrote.
Odenkirk, who has received acclaim and popularity for playing Saul Goodman in "Breaking Bad" and its spin-off "Better Call Saul", retweeted Cross' post echoing his partner's remarks.
"We considered every choice we made doing our show, and always aimed to make you laugh and think, and never make an obvious or easy point. that very much includes this sketch. Our comedy is always about the human element, never about making a political point," Odenkirk said.
The development comes as media companies reappraise content in the wake of protests over police brutality and systemic racism after the death of George Floyd, an African American man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota last month.
