The Thin White Duke alleged to be a Nazi salute. Bowie denied this, saying that he was simply waving and the photographer captured his image mid-wave. As early as 1976, Bowie began disavowing his allegedly pro-Fascist comments and said that he was misunderstood. In an interview that year in the "Daily Express", he explained that while performing in his various characters, "I'm Pierrot. I'm Everyman. What I'm doing is theatre, and only theatre... What you see on stage isn't sinister. It's pure clown. I'm using myself as a canvas and trying to paint the truth of our time on it. The white face, the
White savior White savior The term white savior, sometimes combined with savior complex to write white savior complex, refers to a white person who acts to help non-white people, with the help in some contexts perceived to be self-serving. The role is considered a modern-day version of what is expressed in the poem "The White Man's Burden" (1899) by Rudyard Kipling. The term has been associated with Africa, and certain characters in film and television have been critiqued as white savior figures. Writer Teju Cole combined the term and "industrial complex" (derived from military-industrial complex and similarly applied elsewhere) to coin "White