{"id":479,"date":"2020-03-09T20:54:09","date_gmt":"2020-03-10T01:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/?p=479"},"modified":"2020-03-09T20:58:40","modified_gmt":"2020-03-10T01:58:40","slug":"josephine-baker-popular-culture-and-primitivism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/2020\/03\/09\/josephine-baker-popular-culture-and-primitivism\/","title":{"rendered":"Josephine Baker, popular culture and primitivism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Anastasia Soundtrack- Paris holds the key to your heart\" width=\"580\" height=\"326\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6aNuEEHT-WA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As for many other individuals of my generation 20<sup>th<\/sup> Century Fox\u2019 <em>Anastasia <\/em>(1997) is a fond memory dazzled with nostalgic glitter. It is, if nothing else, an interesting attempt on 20<sup>th<\/sup> Century Fox\u2019 part to capture the Disney-formula, with historical negligence, princesses, songs and all. There comes a time in every young girl\u2019s or boy\u2019s life where they realize that the Disney-portrayal of history is not of the highest accuracy. The historical accuracy of <em>Anastasia<\/em>, temping though it might be, is not the subject of this blog post.<\/p>\n<p>The song \u201cParis holds the key to your heart\u201d serves the purpose within the movie to establish Paris in the 1920s. The champagne coupes, the fashions of Gabrielle Chanel and Cancan dancing are all part of our romanticized view of this particular time and place. Woody Allen\u2019s <em>Midnight in Paris <\/em>(2011) provides some enjoyable commentary on this tendency. The creators of <em>Anastasia <\/em>also reference a lot of people present in the Parisian scene: Sigmund Freund, Auguste Rodin and maybe most interestingly Josephine Baker in a more kid-friendly version of the infamous banana ensemble (timestamp 1:08). The African American singer and dancer was propelled into fame when she made her Parisian debut in 1925 with <em>La Revue Negre <\/em>and her \u201csavage\u201d dancing style. Her persona has since become a part of popular culture and is often referenced, mostly visually.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNegrophilia\u201d was a term coined by French writers and critics of the period, describing the fascination and attraction to black media. From dance and music in Baker\u2019s case to the visual arts like select works by Pablo Picasso, several attempts were made to satisfy the hunger for \u201cotherness\u201d, be that of a varying degree of accuracy. It was brought on by several factors like influences from the West-African colonies and colonialism and as a reaction to industrialization and progress, thus escaping into the \u201cprimitive\u201d. Baker\u2019s visit could not have been timelier, and her success made her stay in France. What Picasso described as simultaneous repulsion and attraction, this \u201cnegrophelia\u201d, inspired writers to explain why. Andr\u00e9 Levinson\u2019s theory was that the \u201crhythmic superiority\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> and percussive nature of \u201cthe Negro dancer\u201d, as opposed to the ballerina, was due to \u201can innate gift, not a conscious art\u201d. This \u201cgift\u201d would have wasted away in \u201cthe cultivated human being\u201d, and the fascination came from recognizing this yet being unable to reproduce it. We must understand Levinson as a man of his time, ethnocentric as he was. His account gives insight to the dualistic nature of Bakers popularity. She was the toast of Paris, but not due to a talent she cultivated on her own, according to Levinson.<\/p>\n<p>Source:<\/p>\n<p>Levinson, Andr\u00e9. \u201cThe Negro Dance: Under European Eyes\u201d. <em>Andr\u00e9 Levinson on Dance: Writings from Paris in the Twenties<\/em>. ed. Joan Acocella and Lynn Garafola. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1991<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJosephine Baker\u201d. <em>Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica<\/em>.2019 . <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Josephine-Baker\">https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Josephine-Baker<\/a>. [Accessed March 9<sup>th<\/sup>, 2020].<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a>Levinson 1991: p.70-71<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As for many other individuals of my generation 20th Century Fox\u2019 Anastasia (1997) is a fond memory dazzled with nostalgic glitter. It is, if nothing else, an interesting attempt on 20th Century Fox\u2019 part to capture the Disney-formula, with historical negligence, princesses, songs and all. There comes a time in every young girl\u2019s or boy\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3329,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3329"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":482,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions\/482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}