30 Rock episodes featuring blackface are being pulled at Tina Fey's request

Vulture

NBC Universal, 30 Rock creator Tina Fey and her producing partner Robert Carlock have requested four episodes featuring blackface be yanked from streaming services Hulu and Amazon Prime as well as  iTunes and Google Play amid the racial reckoning brought on by the police killing of George Floyd, reports Josef Adalian. The episodes are also being dropped from traditional TV. Some episodes were removed last week, some will be gone by the end of this week, Adalian reports. Two of the episodes feature Jane Krakowski’s Jenna Maroney in blackface from the third and fifth seasons, including the November 2008 episode "Believe in the Stars" in which Jenna and Tracy Jordan swap identities in order to determine whether black men or white women face more challenges in society. Jenna also appeared in blackface as NFL icon Lynn Swann in a spoof of Black Swan in December 2010. Another episode being pulled is from the Season 6 live episode “Live From Studio H," in which Jon Hamm wore blackface to spoof Amos ’n’ Andy. The fourth episode that is being removed is from the Season 5 live episode "Live Show," but the only episode that is being taken down is the East Coast version for unknown reasons. “As we strive to do the work and do better in regards to race in America, we believe that these episodes featuring actors in race-changing makeup are best taken out of circulation,” Fey wrote in a letter to the platforms that streamed or sold 30 Rock. “I understand now that ‘intent’ is not a free pass for white people to use these images. I apologize for pain they have caused. Going forward, no comedy-loving kid needs to stumble on these tropes and be stung by their ugliness. I thank NBC Universal for honoring this request.” When Jenna Maroney's second blackface episode aired in 2010, cultural critic Touré wrote that "somehow Tina Fey, the genius behind 30 Rock, the best sitcom on TV, can repeatedly put a character in blackface and succeed. How does she do it?" He added: "This works where so many other attempts at blackface have failed because Fey’s not using blackface as a simplistic visual way of turning a white person Black but as a complex tool that makes a multi-layered joke at the character’s expense. Jenna is a dimwit and the audience knows that for her to think blackening up is ok adds to the perception that she’s simpleminded."