Comedian and former “The Man Show” co-host Adam Carolla defended late-night host Jimmy Kimmel saying there’s a “definitive difference between blackface and doing a character who happens to be black.”
After taking heat for applying dark makeup to portray black characters on “The Man Show,” Kimmel recently issued an apology and announced a summer hiatus from ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
During a Saturday night “Watters World” appearance, Fox News host Jesse Watters asked Carolla about Kimmel’s contention, via statement, that people with “genuinely racist agendas” are “feign[ing] outrage.”
WATCH:
“I don’t know,” Carolla responded. “I didn’t read his apology or his statement.”
Stating that he didn’t want to “get in the weeds,” Carolla argued that such performances should be judged in their “context.”
“I can tell you that we have to make a definitive difference between blackface and doing a character who happens to be black,” he said. “If you want to remove Jimmy Kimmel from the equation, we can focus on Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy Fallon is doing Chris Rock, he’s doing it in context, there a context for it, fine. Jimmy Kimmel is doing Karl Malone, Jimmy Kimmel is doing Oprah, Jimmy Kimmel doing Snoop Dogg, there’s a context, it’s comedy. We need to get the jeweler’s loupe, we need to put away the jeweler’s loupe when it comes to comedians.”
Watters pushed back noting the “negative effect” black Americans experience when white people make their skin darker. (RELATED: ‘This One Is A Stretch’: Jamie Foxx Defends Jimmy Fallon After Blackface Sketch Resurfaces)
“I get it but they shouldn’t,” Carolla argued. “They should look at everything in the context. What is going on? We’re going to have to start speaking about the difference between what is intentional and what isn’t. Was there a noose hanging in Bubba Wallace’s garage? Yes, there was. Was it meant for him? No, it wasn’t. Okay, let’s put context into things. Katy Perry makes shoes that are black and puts a smiley face on it. Is the shoe doing blackface? We’ve lost our minds. The adults need to start speaking up.”