Talk:Madame Butterfly (play)

Removal of sentence and link

Earlier today I added a brief sentence explaining the practice of yellowface, ie white actors playing Asian roles, and linking to that article. This was removed, which obviously I disagree with. More puzzlingly, the edit summary described the deletion as a copyedit, which is not accurate. Instead of reverting, I would rather discuss here. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 12:14, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Carbon Caryatid, I didn't remove the link. I moved it to a See also section and under the correct title of the article Portrayal of Asians in American theater. This article is not about the practice of yellowface, it's about a specific play, Madame Butterfly. The statement that "White actors playing Asian roles is known as yellowface" reads like a tacked on factoid. It doesn't belong in the lede of this article and since this a play, it is also inappropriate to link it as you did to Portrayal of East Asians in Hollywood. Incidentally, the article you linked to begins with "Yellowface is a form of theatrical makeup" as does Portrayal of Asians in American theater. Those articles don't define yellowface as the practice itself, although they probably should. In fact, neither of the articles actually talk about the make-up itself and provide several examples of non-Asian actors portraying Asians without using special makeup at all. They also devote large sections to Asians playing Asians. Those articles have a huge disconnnect between their ledes and their actual content, and as I said are very tangential to this article. Hence the change I made to your original edit. Voceditenore (talk) 16:23, 25 October 2017 (UTC)