Black men in Hollywood wearing dresses continues to be a hot topic, and more actors are coming out and sharing their thoughts about it.
Marlon Wayans was the latest actor to give his opinion on the conversation. Wayans has worn a dress for a role, most notably in the film White Chicks, as a character who was pretending to be a White woman.
Wayans was asked the question during an appearance on “The Cruz Show,” and said that the conversation was “silly” to him.
“You’re talking to a Black man that put on a dress,” Wayans said. “That conversation to me is silly because it’s a negative thing that is only in Black people. We have for some reason been programmed to look down on the craziest parts about our experience, that we’re supposed to not embrace our past, not embrace our history, not embrace our heroes, not embrace our different levels of comedy, and that we have to be this way.”
Wayans then pointed out how White actors are perceived differently than Black actors in Hollywood for wearing dresses.
“When Robin Williams puts on a dress in Mrs. Doubtfire and is nominated for an Oscar, White people think it’s brilliant,” Wayans said. “His community embraces him. When Dustin Hoffman puts on the dress in Tootsie and wins an Oscar, he’s labeled brilliant.
“Black people put on dresses and all of a sudden we’re labeled by our own people as something negative. We did White Chicks and that’s a classic. The whole thing about you putting on a dress and you’re selling out, that is not an artist’s mindset. When you are an artist, you go out and you create art,” he said.
