What IS politically correct?

This past winter I was in my first production of Madame Butterfly. I was so excited when we began staging because the director pointed out that I, along with nine other chorus members would be the "Geisha." I knew that this would mean that I would get to wear a kimono and very amazing makeup that was common practice of the geisha. Some of the other women of the chorus were made into relatives of Butterfly. When we had our first meeting with the make up crew, we learned how to put on a "Geisha face." The make up was complete with white foundation to make the porcelain skin that was the trademark of a geisha. After this demonstration, she had a different meeting with the "family members" who had different makeup with a different hue of foundation to make them appear more "ethnic." The color of the make up is best described as a golden brown that gave almost a yellow appearance to the performers. The color was really unbecoming on them and looked almost ridiculous. But the color, coupled with the black eyeliner that was applied to make the eyes look flat and longer was truly stereotyping what a Japanese person would look like. Practices such as black face, and yellow face were popular during the Victorian era. Kift discusses this issue during the character section of the chapter. Since the Victorian era, it seems that blacking out ones face has fallen out of favor and has become a social taboo in our culture, but why is it still acceptable to stereotype and comment on other cultures in the name of art? It is no different whether the singers were wearing the "yellow face" for the production of Butterfly then if they had been wearing "black face" for a production of Porgy and Bess and yet one seems to still be tolerated in our culture and one is completely incomprehensible. Is it because of the history that black people have had in our nation? Didn't we too make other groups of people suffer such as the Japanese in the work camps of World War II? Shouldn't we be mutually sensitive to everyone's culture? Does the story of Madame Butterfly face the possibility of not being told well if the makeup isn't "racially accurate"?