Emerging as a 19th century entertainment genre grounded in racial caricature, blackface minstrelsy continues to linger in modern popular culture. Because of this, classroom discussions about minstrelsy may elicit uncomfortable, awkward, or silent refusals in reaction. Students may struggle with discussing historical blackface minstrelsy that often brings up racial issues and stereotypes in the present. Pictures, songs, makeup, or dialect from minstrelsy history in lectures sometimes echo present-day entertainment, just without the label of blackface minstrelsy. What models can be used to help stimulate productive conversations and what resources can teachers turn to for help with difficult classroom topics in modern-day diverse classroom settings?
Clip from Marlon Riggs documentary Ethnic Notions:
The composer, director, librettist, and actors of The Scottsboro Boys discuss how their musical adapted the minstrel format for their shows theme and time period:
Thomas Dartmouth Rice originated his Jim Crow character on the United States stage in 1828. Blackface minstrelsy quickly became a form of popular entertainment in the United States and Great Britain. The use of blackface predated the minstrel show format; the combination of the two proved nearly unstoppable in popularity and geographical reach. The practice of blackface refers to the applying of makeup to produce stereotypical facial features. Historically, actors applied greasepaint or burnt cork to create the façade of black skin.
From Spike Lees Bamboozled:
A Genealogy of Blackface Minstrelsy
Blackface minstrelsy might be closer than students initially think, even in the seemingly innocent movies of their childhoods. The main crow in this Dumbo song sequence is called Jim Crow. Notice the spats on his talons, the way he struts on the top railing, and his frayed clothes.
PBS documentary on Jim Crow segregation in the US
The Disney movie, Song of the South (1946), which was produced during Jim Crow America at the height of racial segregation, characterizes former slave Uncle Remus in a way that echoes the lyrics and songsheet from the song Old Folks at Home. The film takes place in Reconstruction-era Georgia. Multiple times in the film, black characters sing and dance. The main character in Old Folks at Home longs for the rural setting, and Remus thoroughly enjoys his rural home and retirement on the plantation. Remus also stands as one of the Old Folks at Home. In the movie, Uncle Remus looks after and cares for a young white boy, Johnny, whose grandmother owns a plantation. He tells animal tales to Johnny, in order to help the young boy cope with his parents separating and his new rural setting. Remus has an intimate connection to the animated portion of the film. He brings Johnny into it, and Johnny eventually masters access without needing Remus.
This characterization of Remus connects blackface minstrelsy conventions to present-day movies. Remus has a magical connection to another world, he uses dialect very similar to that used in blackface minstrelsy sketches, and he sacrifices repeatedly for Johnnys happiness. The structure of the film places Remus in service to Johnny repeatedly; Johnny comes of age because of Remuss wisdom and actions.
Spike Lee identified this kind of dramaturgy and characterization as the “Magical Negro.” He defined the magical negro as a black spiritual character exists solely to help the main, white character along his or her journey in the movie. Uncle Remus did that in Song of the South, and John Coffey does it in The Green Mile (1999).
John Coffey uses dialect in The Green Mile, and though differs significantly from the way Remus speaks in Song of the South, Coffeys character echoes Uncle Remus. In the scene above, Coffey longs to be free and to rest, which echoes the happy retirement in Old Folks at Home and Remuss confined situation. Tellingly, Coffey has magical and spiritual wisdom which helps the main character, played by Tom Hanks, throughout the movie. Coffeys performance presents a very different character than the one who sings Old Folks at Home. On the other hand, Coffeys performance shows remnants of blackface minstrelsy conventions in present-day entertainment. These two genealogical examples show just two ways in which blackface minstrelsy conventions still echo within other time periods and forms of US entertainment.
So now what? Blackface minstrelsy persists. Will it disappear on its own? What can teachers do within a classroom to help students envision different futures for performance in the US? Performance, as a process, involves breaking down and analysis in order to build up and create a final piece. Musicians, dancers, and actors rehearse sections or scenes, in order to build the final piece of music, number, or play. Recognizing the trend need not end in blanket disparagement of all African American or black characters in US film, television, dance, music, and theatre. The next step involves building back up – responding to, critiquing, and creating new possibilities.
Performance, History, and the Classroom
Requiring students to break down and analyze performances will assess students comprehension and analysis of historical processes and classroom materials. Both E. Patrick Johnson and Ethel Young-Minor found performance useful in their African American literature courses. Johnson went so far as to assigned students to perform a character from within the texts examined. Young-Minor assigned students to perform a section of verse, and then instructed them to continue the performance with their own response in free verse. These two options present a range of possibilities for performance in the classroom: performing directly from a script or song, responding to a script or song in performance, and some combination of the two. As a historical process, blackface minstrelsy, its practices and conventions, stand as a somewhat different case due to its incredibly sensitive nature.
A Teacher’s Guide to Teaching Blackface Minstrelsy
Dealing with minstrelsy as history and performance, as past and present, can cover multiple pedagogical objectives:
- To contextualize, specify, and analyze historical blackface minstrelsy
- To locate, trace, and comprehend blackface minstrelsys inheritance in US popular culture
- To differentiate between a historical mode of performance, its continuing influences, and adaptations or revisions of that historical mode
- To develop performances as responses and advocacy towards changing prevalent conventions in popular culture
The process of breaking down history, in order to build a performance can:
- Provide students with methods to trace historical continuity and change
- Empower students to make positive choices towards changing established trends
- Show how culture is transmitted and adapted in performance across time, text, sound, and media
- Encourage students to analyze popular entertainment and material culture
To prepare for a lecture or section on blackface minstrelsy, instructors should consider:
- Familiarizing themselves with histories and historiographies of blackface minstrelsy.
- Discover how literature of the nineteenth century, including some classics taught in high schools, drew on blackface minstrelsy conventions
- Review Uncle Toms Cabin a prime example of literature that drew on minstrelsy and the plays, stereotypes, and material cultural artifacts inspired by Stowes novel
Classroom Discussions
The conventions of blackface typically refer to the dialect, characterizations, and dramaturgy of blackface sketches. If you choose to show students primary sources relating to blackface minstrelsy, have them think through these questions:
- Dialect refers to the way in which black characters spoke on the minstrel stage.
- What did characters say?
- How did they say it?
- Did their way of speaking indicate intelligence? What argument is being made through this cadence and diction?
- Characterization refers to the qualities and actions of black characters on the minstrel stage.
- What did characters choose to do on the minstrel stage?
- How did they do it?
- What did the characters look like on the minstrel stage?
- Dramaturgy refers to the dramatic structures of blackface sketches.
- How did the character change in the minstrel scene? Did they remain static or unchanging?
- What did that change show about the character and the minstrel world?
- What was the conflict of the minstrel scene?
The conventions of blackface can be far more difficult for students to recognize or identify in popular culture without the stereotypical makeup (or in the case of cartoons, exaggerated drawing style). By tracking the presence of dialect, characterization, and dramaturgy in texts, music, or film, echoes of blackface minstrelsy emerge in both expected and unexpected places in popular culture.
Janelle Monáe, in her music video for Q.U.E.E.N., uses dance, costume, music, and rap in contrast to anti-black stereotypes
Some Final Notes of Caution
Instructors should exercise great caution when dealing with pictures, songs, scripts, texts, caricatures, and language of the era blackface minstrelsy was producedprimarily in both Antebellum and Jim Crow America. Educators may not be prepared for the reactions within the classroom, or those outside of the classroom. Exposing students to historical scripts may foster tension among students, and even communicate the acceptability of using minstrelsys stereotypes in the present. Be clear that your classroom is a safe place to discuss these complex feelings and emotions regarding the past and present.
Classroom discussions surrounding race in historical entertainment or present-day entertainment may bring up difficult moments in the classroom. The following sources contain exercises and/or accounts of handling difficult classroom moments when dealing with racially charged topics:
- Omi Osun Jones, Lisa L. Moore, Sharon Bridgforth,eds, Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010)
- Bruce McConachie, Theatre of the Oppressed with Students of Privilege, in Teaching Performance Studies, eds. Nathan Stucky and Cynthia Wimmer, pp. 247260. (Carbondale & Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002).
- Maris Schweitzer, Laura Levin, Cassandra Dee Ball, and Megan McDonald, Elephants in the Classroom: A Forum on Performance Pedagogy, in Canadian Theatre Review, 147, 7485.
- Eng-Beng Lim, Lisa Duggan, and José Esteban Muñoz, The Performance and Pedagogy of Neoliberal Affect, as a part of Critical Stages, ed. Patrick Anderson, in Theatre Survey, 51:1, 127133.
In conclusion, integrating performance history in the classroom can present both risks and rewards to instructors, students, and the school community. Coaching students of these stereotypes histories requires a great deal of trust. As with any assignment, instructors can and should evaluate the usefulness of their pedagogical objectives, the courses focus, and time available inside and outside of the classroom to fully engage critically with texts. All suggestions here remain recommendations, not hard rules or guarantees.
Acknowledgment
My most heartfelt thanks to Kathryn Miller Haines of The Center for American Music Library in Pittsburgh
For more information:
- Visit the U.S. History Scene reading lists for the Civil War, African American History and the Long Civil Rights Movement