Blackface Minstrelsy In African-American Culture
There is a clear through-line in our nation’s history of blackface. As a detrimental tradition, the practice reflects a collectively low opinion of African-Americans, so much so that it became feasible to reduce an entire group of people to caricatures. When Rondrich describes minstrelsy as the “first truly American band” based on its origin within and its reflection of our past beliefs, I found it a sickeningly accurate statement. It is rather astonishing how music has been used to disseminate racially charged imagery—in this situation, Adorno’s fears of music perpetuating group-thought was startlingly supported.
Beyond the racial elements, the growing popularity of blackface minstrelsy reflects how low-quality entertainment (more colloquially,
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This is not to say it is a morally upright practice, or even morally-laden at all, but it is entirely feasible. Context versus content is a key consideration in examining any media artifact. The use of blackface versus the consumption of blackface performances demonstrates two different ideas—especially when African-American performers and even black sympathizers engage in the production practice. The use itself became such a standard mode of presentation that, for the sake of commercial effectiveness, was adopted. The consumption, then, is something …show more content…
In a time where sampling is a staple of hip-hop and other predominant, modern genres, it is not unreasonable for an artist to take ownership of past artifacts, even those which once were oppressed or used for oppression, as a way to reclaim the artifact itself, to subvert it, or otherwise reconstitute meaning.
When we examine remixing and sampling in pop music in an academic way, we must consider how it is consumed by and therefore affects a non-academic audience. Understanding the audience is foundational to communication, after all. Radio listeners will not necessarily know where sampled pieces originate from, let alone their original contexts. And those effects should be further examined in the future.
That said, Sia’s use of “gray-face” paint in her new video for “The Greatest” as a way to unify the identities of all the young dancers, who vary in race and gender, could be seen, arguably, as a means of reconstituting the use of face painting in a modern era. As opposed to creating caricatures, this video creates a reality which we must
History Of The Rabbit's Foot Company
1582 Words | 7 PagesIn early 1900, Patrick “Pat” Chappelle founded The Rabbit’s Foot Company (or, The Rabbit Foot Minstrels) as a roaming, tented minstrel company. Chappelle, equipped with a strong entrepreneurial spirit and notable talent as a banjo guitarist, was to become the figurehead of one of the most successful vaudevillian entities in U.S. history, and, perhaps most importantly, the first exclusively black-owned and operated traveling variety shows in the country. Despite this evolution to “variety show,” The Rabbit’s Foot Company “came forth in the unmistakable form of a minstrel show.” To define, minstrel shows oft manifested as sketch, musical, and variety performances that targeted and mocked black people using blackface and exaggerated stereotypes
Essay On Blackface Minstrelsy
704 Words | 3 PagesAt first, the act was predominantly done by white people who wore black faces to depict how African-Americans spoke and acted, but eventually, there was a recorded increase in African-Americans themselves who too wore the black faces. The acts included a variety of comic acts, African-American music, comic skits, and dancing (Minstrel Show). However, with the shows’ popularity, it was also quite clear that the acts were highly depicted as racist towards the African Americans. This notion comes about from the fact that the acts portrayed African Americans as lazy, ignorant, and as those who loved music and dancing regardless of any other facet of life. Surprisingly, the history of the minstrel acts has over the time infatuated both black artists in the modern day and a clique of white artists locally referred to as “wiggers” which translates to white artists who want to act as black artists (Blacking Up: Hip-Hop 's Remix of Race and Identity).
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Analysis Of Alvin Ailey's Cry
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1000 Words | 4 PagesEthnicity and Hollywood Racism is always issues which take a huge part of American history. Until the twenty-first century, although people tried to make the country becomes the freedom and equality nation, these issues are still happening everywhere. According to "In Living Color: Race and American Culture," Stuart Hall argues that racism is still widespread in the society and "it is widely invisible even to those who formulate the world in its terms" (qtd. in Omi 683). Indeed, situations about race quietly exist in the movie industry, which "has led to the perpetuation of racial caricatures" to the majority audiences and even minority audiences (Omi 629).
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