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Blackface Minstrelsy

Blackface minstrelsy was a popular form of entertainment that began in the 1830s and continued into the 20th century.  It consisted of white men rubbing shoe polish on their faces (donning “blackface”) and performing humorous skits and songs that relied on a variety of racist stereotypes. The video below is a blackface performance from 1950.  Watch the video, reflect on the questions below it, and read the analysis.

Questions to consider

Reflect on these questions before reading the analysis below:

 

How are black people portrayed in the mistrel performance? Observe the transition that the white actors undergo when donning blackface.

 

Why was this funny? Why do you think minstrelsy was so popular?

 

How do representations of black people in popular culture today compare with minstrelsy? How do other forms of popular entertainment more generally compare with minstrelsy? Think about comedians, reality tv, music videos, and other forms of popular entertainment.

Blackface minstrelsy and American society

Blackface minstrelsy represents much more than racist humor; it reveals some important aspects of American society during the mid and late 19th century (and arguably throughout all of American history up to the present). Minstrel shows were performed for largely poor white audiences, and relied on the restrictions and limits of the white working class experience in the 19th century.  As the United States industrialized, the lifestyle of working whites became more regimented; no longer were they able to work on their own time as farmers or craftsmen.  Many were required for the first time to work regular, often brutally long hours in unskilled, repetitive jobs.  This created anger and frustration among white workers, and forced them to suppress aspects of themselves (their previous freedom) in order to keep a job. Minstrelsy provided a convenient outlet for this suppressed anger.  At minstrel shows, white workers were allowed to blow off steam by viewing and participating in raucus racial debauchery, which capitalized on stereotypes of blacks as stupid, lazy, hypersexual, and pleasure-seeking.  These stereotypes were also conveniently the characteristics that were denied and suppressed by working whites in the new industrial economy. Minstrelsy provided whites with the opportunity to both express these needs and desires (albeit in a distorted form), and re-suppress them, by projecting them onto (assumed to be) inferior black bodies (60). So, not only did blackface minstrelsy perpetuate stereotypes that justified racial inequality, it created a safety valve for the pressures of white working class life.

           

Minstrelsy constructed a popular image of black people as lazy, stupid, hypersexual, and pleasure-seeking.  This was another reason why the black middle class had such an interest in performed respectability, and why DuBois felt double consciousness so keenly; they wanted to prove that black people didn’t live up to their most common stereotypes, while also working to improve the real lives of all African Americans.

© Copyright 2013 Charlie Birge. All rights reserved.

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