# SOTSDMBMG:  Cabin in the Sky

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sotsdmbmg-cabin-in-the-sky/486787>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [February 20, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sotsdmbmg-cabin-in-the-sky/486787 "2009-02-20T23:42:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sotsdmbmg-cabin-in-the-sky/486787/21 "2009-02-27T00:57:22Z")

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> [@twickster](#):
>
> Interesting stuff, **Lamia** – I’d never really thought about how the “unintegrated” (in terms of the framing of the numbers) musicals could function to maintain various racial and other “real-life” assumptions.

Griffin does point out that, although the “unintegrated musicals” tended to present black performers in limited and often stereotypical roles, at least they _had_ black performers. (And despite having an all-black cast, it’s not as if _Cabin in the Sky_ was free from racial stereotypes.) He also suggests that the unintegrated nature of the musical numbers would in some cases have given the performers more artistic freedom. If the number didn’t need to have anything to do with the story, there would have been a better chance of black performers being allowed to do their signature number, a song by a black composer, a song or dance popular among African-Americans at the time, etc.

But on the other hand, as in the scene **ElvisL1ves** describes, black performers could still be very limited in these movies in that they were typically restricted to ONLY doing a musical number. They’d appear for their song and dance and then disappear at the end, often without ever interacting with any of the white characters.

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