14-03-2025
Joni Mitchell wore blackface 50 years ago – now she's facing backlash for it
Joni Mitchell is facing a social media backlash over her use of blackface in the 1970s.
The Canadian-American artist, one of the world's most celebrated songwriters, has come under renewed scrutiny for her former black 'alter-ego', named Art Nouveau.
The 81-year-old musician, best known for her association with California's beatnik counterculture, used to dress up in blackface, complete with an Afro, a pimp suit and a wide moustache, in the mid-1970s and early 1980s.
Mitchell's 'alter-ego' featured prominently on the cover of her 1977 album Don Juan's Reckless Daughter.
However, following a viral rendition of her song California by Amanda Seyfried, the Mamma Mia actress, on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the artist's controversial history has come under the spotlight from younger generations.
One social media user wrote on X: 'Can I be the brave annoying Gen Z [person] and say yeah, I don't care for her because she did black face.'
A fellow social media user said: 'Just found out Joni Mitchell did blackface in the 80s during the era of my favourite album no one talk to me.'
Another critic claimed she had a 'problematic history,' while others said she was now 'being cancelled on TikTok'.
It came after Seyfried, 39, appeared on the US television programme on March 5, during which she performed a rendition of California to pay tribute to the US state that 'deserves a lot of love right now' after devastating wildfires earlier this year.
A clip of the performance gained traction, notching up 38.3 million views and 5.1 million likes on the FallonTonight TikTok account. It has led, in turn, to a new generation discovering Mitchell's back catalogue.
However, in subsequent viral videos, users have also expressed dismay over their discovery of her Art Nouveau character.
The artist previously said she created the persona after being inspired by a black man she saw walking down Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles in 1976 and decided to dress up as him for a Halloween fancy dress party.
'I saw this black guy with a beautiful spirit walking with a bop,' Mitchell told writer Angela LaGreca.
'As he went by me he turned around and said: 'Ummm mmm, looking good sister, lookin' good.' Well, I just felt so good after he said that. It was as if this spirit went into me.
'So I started walking like him. I bought a black wig, I bought sideburns, a moustache. I bought some pancake make-up. I was like, 'I'm goin' as him'.'
The artist revisited the character intermittently over the following six years. The last appearance of the 'alter-ego' was in an unreleased 1982 short film called The Black Cat in the Black Mouse Socks.
Mitchell's decision to embody the persona was controversial at the time, with Ken Padgett, an American historian, telling the BBC in 2016: 'Even in 1976, this caricature was outrageous and offensive.'
The singer has addressed the controversy on numerous occasions but has also claimed to not feel white.
She once told LA Weekly: 'I don't have the soul of a white woman. I write like a black poet. I frequently write from a black perspective.'
In a previous interview with New York magazine, the singer claimed she could identify with the experiences of black males.
She said: 'When I see black men sitting, I have a tendency to go – like I nod like I'm a brother. I really feel an affinity because I have experienced being a black guy on several occasions.'
