Tag Archives: Popular Entertainment

Blackface: The New Big Trend in Entertainment Strikes Gold

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The Plaindealer, a newspaper of Topeka, Kansas, built to serve its African-American population, no longer exists. It died some thirty years after its owner, Nick Chiles, passed away. It was, as the Kansas Historical society states, “among the strongest Black newspapers in the nation, and the longest running.” It ran for over 50 years, from 1899 to 1958.

Newspapers in general are an excellent example of something that existed for an incredibly long time and almost immediately died with the rise of the digital age. The Plaindealer wrote about their predictions for the future of entertainment in their 1931 article about Blackface in entertainment.

The Cover of the January 31st, 1931 edition of the Topeka Plaindealer. The headline reads “Does Black Face Acting Expert a Magic Spell over American Audiences?”
by George Santa

In this edition of the Plaindealer, Santa writes about the popularity of Blackface acting in films of the time. He writes that “It seems peculiarly significant that blackface acting has had such tremendous acceptance in the United States. There appears to be some degree of actual “luck” attendant upon all those who have adopted it.” Throughout the article, he lists and highlights different actors who have achieved great success from making use of blackface, including Al Jolson, Correll and Gosden, the creators of incredibly popular Radio Sitcom “Amos n’ Andy”, Ethel Barrymore, and Eddie Cantor. Bert Williams was highlighted several times throughout, often as a “predecessor” and a model for other blackface actors.

At the very end of the article, Santa considers the success that blackface and minstrelsy has granted its actors. He calls to attention how frankly odd the practice is. He writes that “The whole condition is one which would lend itself undoubtedly to the analysis of psychological experts. It has no counterpart either here or abroad.” He never explains why blackface might be so popular among audiences, but he does make very clear that the audience demands what the actors are putting out, not the other way around. Actors were putting on blackface in reaction to what people demanded. He offers one possible reasoning at the very end. “The tragic condition of the American Negro in the popularity of the blackface artist paradoxically gives rise to a much more hilariously funny form of entertainment than any situation in the United States. Nor does the acceptability show any signs of abating,” Santa writes.

Santa’s article on the film industry provokes quite some thought. Why did audiences find blackface so entertaining? At what point did actors like Ethel Barrymore decide to cave and blacken their faces in order to find success? Did they realize what they were doing was morally dubious, to say the least? The article serves an interesting purpose, which is to let the reader wonder about these questions themselves, as it offers little explanation, and focuses primarily on exposing these popular actors for donning blackface. After all, the title asks “Does Blackface”, rather than “Why does Blackface”. I can only assume the answer that Santa offers is yes.

William F. Cody: A Brief Story of America’s First Potential Sell-Out

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After The Songs of Hiawatha was “dropped” in the 1850’s, there was a general divide in the act of preserving, viewing, and conceiving the Native American-European settler dynamic in the late 1800’s: one that was rooted in trivializing various tribes, and one that focused on a scientific interest in Native American culture. While notable musicologists, such as Alice Fletcher, focused on the latter of the divided cultural conquests, American bison hunter/showman William F. Cody, a.k.a. Buffalo Bill, led the charge on the belittlement side of the coin with his “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” variety show. With a bison-hunting career that quickly turned into a celebrated and brief scouting stint with the Fifth Army, Cody was slowly transformed into the star-studded cowboy he is considered today through various “vaudeville-esque” shows, inexpensive pulp-fiction magazines, and investments in hotels, mines, coal and forms of tourism.

Although Cody was known as a strong supporter of the “fair” treatment of Native Americans, his entire career was based off of creating a romanticized, Western-based reality that exploited countless stereotypes. This notion can find it’s needed support in the study of Cody’s entire career as a sell out, cowboy performer, but I, in an attempt to showcase the extremity of trivialization, will prove my point with the cover page of an 1881 Wild Bill dime novel entitled: “Heroes of the Plains.” One of the first details to take note of is in the front-piece title page, where a descriptive list of the characters is given. Listed in bold and bright text towards the top of the page is a list of seven white, heroic character names, while the only mention of the “celebrated Indian fighters” is found in much smaller text below in the “and other” category of characters. Cody, while exploiting his respect for the Native American community by referring to their characters as “celebrated,” also is clearly portraying the white, American cowboys as the heroes of the story, giving the Native Americans the stereotypical role of the villains. 19th century Americans east of the Mississippi lacked the cross-cultural contact between Native Americans and Europeans, and it was through these trivial, typecast “Buffalo Bill” adventure stories that they developed a misconstrued conceptual framework of the various tribes and cultures. This “heroes vs. villains” theme can also be seen through the artwork displayed on the cover page. While the two stars of the story, Wild Bill and Buffalo Bill, are presented in ornate, golden frames, the only Native American shown clearly is brandishing a threatening dagger towards a hunched over, white settler, defending himself from an attack. In a devastatingly bloody history of white men conquering, conforming, and destroying Indian tribes, it’s hard to imagine a Native American as a “savage foe,” but in a culture built upon shows such as Cody’s, it is still, to this day, a reality.

 

Bruel, James. 1881. Wild Bill and Buffalo Bill. Heroes of the plains, or, lives and wonderful adventures of Wild Bill, Buffalo Bill… and other celebrated Indianfighters.” http://www.americanwest.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/Graff_467