redface means A style of theatrical makeup in which a white actor reddens the face in order to portray a Native American. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 90 out of 100.
Why this word is great
REDFACE — [Noun] A theatrical practice in which a non-Native performer applies reddish makeup to caricature a Native American character, constituting a specific performative artifact of colonial mimicry. Its etymology is a blunt, compounding mimicry: From the English words 'red' and 'face', formed by compounding in imitation of the earlier term 'blackface'. Unlike 'blackface,' which constructs its grotesquerie from anti-Black stereotypes, or the encompassing 'cultural appropriation,' which names a diffuse cultural theft, redface is a targeted, enacted fiction—a costume of conquest. It is the burnt-cork pigment mixed to a rusty hue, the feathered headdress reduced to a party-store prop, and the stock 'how' of a Hollywood extra reduced to a grunt; a pantomime of a people, performed to empty them into legend, proving that the simplest props can enact the most profound erasures.
noun
- A style of theatrical makeup in which a white actor reddens the face in order to portray a Native American.