Judy Garland Wore Blackface
Apparently I Shouldn’t Be Offended
Photos of Judy Garland in blackface from the 1939 movie Babes in Arms recently surfaced online.
I’d never seen the photos before nor had I ever heard of the movie, released the same year as The Wizard of Oz.
However, I know who Judy Garland is.
I’m aware of Garland’s sad and tormented childhood where she was sexually abused, overworked, fed drugs, and made to feel badly about her appearance with MGM’s founder Louis B. Mayer not only sexually abusing her but referring to her as his “little hunchback.”
I’ve seen a few documentaries on her life and how her later drug and alcohol dependency, which ultimately led to her death at only forty-seven years old from an accidental barbiturate overdose, was a result of “she, and other young performers [being] constantly prescribed amphetamines to stay awake and keep up with the frantic pace of making one film after another. They were also given barbiturates to take before going to bed so they could sleep.”
Growing up I loved The Wizard of Oz. I still love The Wizard of Oz. It came on every year, and it was like magic or a holiday to me.
I, like many Americans, know of Judy Garland as an extremely talented singer, actress, and performer — one of the…
