Elegy for the minstrel show

[CalMeacham]

UVM MInstrel Shows:

The Vermont Cynic

Kake Walk: Time to right our wrongs

'Kake Walk' tradition died with the times

UVM's Kake Walk Featured Blackface Performers for Decades

[Aji_de_Gallina]

Here in Peru, there are several “Negritos” dances that come from colonial times. The interesting angle is that the dancers are actually native Peruvians or mestizos. Instead of blackface they wear masks and dresses imitating/paroding both the whites and blacks.
Video - Negritos de Huanuco

Negrillos de Chivay
Morenada

[BeagleJesus]

@kirkrapine

Inspired by this thread.

Despite the irreducible racism, its passing is in a way to be regretted – because it is perhaps the only uniquely American form of live stage entertainment ever invented. General drama goes back to ancient Greece, vaudeville was essentially the same thing as British music hall, the Broadway musical derives from European light opera, but the minstrel show was purely American.

As commercial entertainment, the minstrel show died out around 1910 – and not because of rising racial consciousness; that period was what African-American historians call the “nadir” of postbellum race relations in the U.S. It just couldn’t compete with general vaudeville. But it lived on for some time in community theater and college productions. Standalone blackface acts survived for a time in vaudeville, and can be seen in early cinema:

Babes on Broadway – One of Judy Garland’s and Mickey Rooney’s “backyard musicals.”

Judy Garland in blackface.

Eddie Cantor in blackface.

Eddie Cantor, again. This one is not so much a parody of black culture as a tribute to it, specifically to the Harlem Renaissance.

And then there was Al Jolsen. He actually liked blacks – he helped many break into showbiz, and always insisted they be treated as equals. And they liked him – he was the only white man allowed into Harlem’s all-black clubs. I guess in those days, not even blacks thought of a blackface act as racially offensive.

Part of the appeal, I think, was that a minstrel-show character was a kind of all-licensed fool. He (it was always he – the few female parts were played by men in drag) could say and do things that in the 19th Century would have been considered beneath the dignity of a white man, even while playing a white character on stage. But a negro was assumed to be a creature without dignity – and a creature without dignity has none to lose.

For most of American history, white America regarded black America with a curious mixture of fear, contempt, and affection. In the minstrel show we see only the contempt and affection – the characters are lovable fools, but harmless. The “black brute” stereotype does not appear.

In elementary school, in the '70s, I once watched a biopic of Stephen Foster – and it entirely glossed over the fact that he wrote most of his songs for the minstrel stage. We tend to forget that many songs we still sing – and might have sung in elementary school – were originally written to be sung by white men in blackface.

“Ring, Ring the Banjo” & “Old Folks at Home/Swanee River.”

“Some Folks Do”.

“Oh, Susannah”.

"Camptown Races’.

Now, none of this is authentic African-American folk music. It was mostly written by whites. Artistically, much minstrel-show material was very good – as witness its still being sung today. That is because minstrelsy was the most popular form of American stage entertainment in its heyday, and the talent goes where the money is.

Minstrel-show dancing, OTOH, was often authentic – the performers did field research, observing the dances slaves made up to amuse themselves. One characteristic dance was the “cakewalk,” a dance with a lot of high-stepping leg action that slaves made up to parody their masters’ ballroom dancing and generally haughty carriage. So, in the minstrel-show cakewalk, we see white people making fun of black people making fun of white people.

So you want to write a love poem to arguably The Most Racist Form of Entertainment Ever Created ™ and lament it’s passing into history.

Yes it is (somewhat) uniquely American…in all the wrong ways.

How the fuck am I Not supposed to think you’re racist?!?

[Chingon]

I think the idea is to try to draw you in to getting a warning, so don’t bite.

[Dorjan]

Fuck Minstrel Shows. Black entertainers participating in them do not absolve that racist form of entertainment in any way - it was the one of the very few “mainstream” forms of stage entertainment they were allowed to participate in, and they gotta eat. Being the only uniquely American form of live stage entertainment is not a worthy distinction, it’s just another highlight of how messed up America’s history can be.

[cochrane]

I think the passing of the minstrel shows is a plus for society, specifically because of the irreducible racism.

[CarnalK]

@kirkrapine

And yet, we still sing the songs.

No, we don’t. All those songs you listed are used nowadays to conjure up old timey feelings or make fun of old timers singing them. When was the last frigging time you sang Swanee River?

[Two_Many_Cats]

@Gyrate

Stephen Foster was an undeniable talent, but the lyrics of his songs have not aged well.

Plus he wrote a lot of songs about the South for a guy who rarely left Pittsburgh.

His family lost a plantation house in Kentucky, and apparently his mother never got past it. That’s why “My Old Kentucky Home” has the chorus, “Weep no more my lady, oh weep no more today.”

I like reading it as, “Goddamn Ma, shuddup about the freakin’ house. It’s GONE!! Deal with it for Chrissakes!”

[Prof.Pepperwinkle]

Standard SDMB nitpick: Did you mean “Eulogy for the minstrel show”?

[ASL_v2.0]

Elegy seems fine to me…

ETA: Not that I think the minstrel show warrants such a tribute.

[octopus]

@CarnalK

No, we don’t. All those songs you listed are used nowadays to conjure up old timey feelings or make fun of old timers singing them. When was the last frigging time you sang Swanee River?

Driving over I10 in Florida.

[carrps]

My dad had an LP back in the early 60s. I think he got it as a gift, or maybe it was one of the free records that came with our spiffy new hi fi. It was basically a minstrel show. I was embarrassed by it even as a young kid. There was one song I liked about a preacher going hunting on a Sunday and getting chased by bear. The tagline was “Oh, lord, if you can’t help me, for goodness sakes, don’t you help that bear.” It wasn’t sung in any kind of fakey dialect, so it didn’t seem so bad. It was just a funny song. And it didn’t have any racial inferences that I remember. The rest of the album? Cringey.

[Guinastasia]

@kirkrapine

It was required for the songs to be written.

Says who?

[kirkrapine]

@cochrane

I think the passing of the minstrel shows is a plus for society, specifically because of the irreducible racism.

Oh, I agree. And yet, it is a distinctive part of our cultural heritage. Perhaps it should not be so thoroughly forgotten as it seems to be – as mentioned above, I once saw a biopic of Stephen Foster that completely ignored minstrelsy; that’s no way to tell American cultural history.

[kirkrapine]

@Guinastasia

Says who?

Says the 19th-Century marketplace. The minstrel-show songs still known were written for that popular genre, and would not have been written had something else been more popular.

[kirkrapine]

@CarnalK

No, we don’t. All those songs you listed are used nowadays to conjure up old timey feelings or make fun of old timers singing them.

Or in the cartoon ash face trope – when it happens (which it doesn’t, any more, AFAIK), we almost always hear the first few notes of “Swanee River.” Which, as noted above, was the state song of Florida for a long time.

[Dale_Sams]

Does country music not qualify in the OP? What about Western shows with the like of Annie Oakley?

[Dale_Sams]

@kirkrapine

Or in the cartoon ash face trope – when it happens (which it doesn’t, any more, AFAIK), we almost always hear the first few notes of “Swanee River.” Which, as noted above, was the state song of Florida for a long time.

I think there’s a few Warner Bro cartoons not on the banned list that have Swanee River

[CarnalK]

@kirkrapine

Or in the cartoon ash face trope – when it happens (which it doesn’t, any more, AFAIK), we almost always hear the first few notes of “Swanee River.”.

I’m confused. Are you agreeing with me that you’re wrong?

[drad_dog]

Love and Theft by Eric Lott is a good book about minstrelsy.

It was a main tributary to all forms of modern popular music and entertainment, so it’s hard to cut it loose and damn it’s name. Some of the best scenarists, comedians and singers of their time did it.

It has a complicated history that lends itself to deeper thoughts but in threads it can come to grief.