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| Publications [#45258] of Daniel H. Foster
Papers/Articles/Chapters in Books
- D.H. Foster. "From Minstrel Shows to Radio Shows: Racism and Representation in Blackface and Blackvoice." Journal of American Theatre and Drama (Spring, 2005).
Abstract:
The minstrel show is widely understood as a
performance that takes place far outside
the
realm of realism, relying as it does on
tools of caricature and affect. The
exaggerated gestures, the clownish dress,
and the burnt cork itself that gives the
performers their color and their name all
point away from realism. However, what has
repeatedly been overlooked, or rather gone
unexplored, is the degree to which some
minstrels sought aural realism while
flouting visual realism. The present paper
explores this topic of vocal authenticity
by
comparing three somewhat distinct periods
in
the evolution of the minstrel show: ante-
bellum, post-bellum, and the 1920’s and
30’s, when minstrel shows were reborn on
the
radio. Following this genre from its birth
to its death on the visual stage, as well
as
its rebirth on radio, we can discern in the
performers’ voices both the degree of
realism and the kind of cultural work that
blackface and “blackvoice” achieved during
each of these critical stages.
In terms of vocal mimesis, the ante-bellum
minstrels who took to the stage from
approximately 1800 to 1840 honed their
skills at imitating pidgin, Creole, and
black vernacular English—achievements that
have only recently been appraised by
linguists as accurate representations of
African-American dialects. However, as the
minstrels became more popular toward the
end
of the nineteenth century, their vocal
imitations became more mannered, more a
kind
of literary dialect and theatrical
vernacular that began to follow its own
rules and conventions. This
standardization
not only made the shows into the more
stereotypical performances we tend to think
of today as minstrel shows, it also
heralded
their demise. The performers began to lose
touch with the elements of folk roots and
traditions that had made the minstrel show
more than simply a cultural tool for racist
political action.
Dying but not quite dead, the minstrel show
was then revived by radio during the 1920’s
and 30’s. This time, though, determining
the ratio of realism to racism was
complicated by the obvious absence of those
visual trappings that had previously made
the shows so clearly unrealistic and
offensive. Moreover, in blackvoice
programs
such as Amos ’n’ Andy, built as they were
upon the conceit of characters who had
moved
from the country to the city, the world of
the rural folk was brought to that of the
urban masses. While the content of these
shows recalls and reactivates the aura of a
vanishing folk ritual, the medium reminds
us
that this is a commercialized, urban
entertainment and a stereotyping of the
worst sort. With neither the vocal agility
of the early minstrels to assure us that
blackvoice radio shows were not entirely
racist, nor the visual evidence to ensure
us
that they were, when radio revived the
minstrel show it did so in much more
ambiguous terms than had been the case
before, making the question of realism and
thus racism not only more important but
also
more problematic.
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