White celebrities, college students and even elected officials have made similar claims of ignorance over past and current controversies involving blackface.īut NMAAHC is clear on this: “Minstrelsy, comedic performances of ‘blackness’ by whites in exaggerated costumes and makeup, cannot be separated fully from the racial derision and stereotyping at its core.Version 5.0 of John’s Background Switcher for Windows brings a couple of notable changes and a bunch of bug fixes. She apologized, but her show was ultimately canceled. Back when I was a kid that was OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.” “Because you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface on Halloween, or a black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween. In a 2018 segment on “Megyn Kelly Today” about political correctness and Halloween costumes, the former NBC host said that when she was growing up, it was seen as acceptable for a white person to dress as a black person. Megyn Kelly's 'blackface' comments show her true face Such negative representations of black people left a damaging legacy in popular culture, especially in art and entertainment. He eventually died “from something as simple and as pathetic as overwork,” Hanners wrote. His shows were very popular and he’s even credited with inventing tap dance, according to John Hanners’ book “It Was Play or Starve: Acting in Nineteenth-century American Popular Theatre.”ĭespite Lane’s relative success, he was limited to the minstrel circuit and for most of his life performed for supper. William Henry Lane, known as “Master Juba,” was one of the first black entertainers to perform in blackface. It was the only way they could work – as white audiences weren’t interested in watching black actors do anything but act foolish on stage. The characters were so pervasive that even some black performers put on blackface, historians say. Al Jolson performed in blackface in “The Jazz Singer,” a hit film in 1927, and American actors like Shirley Temple, Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney put on blackface in movies too. Its influence extended into the 20th century. By 1845, minstrel shows spawned their own industry, NMAAHC says. Though early minstrel shows started in New York, they quickly spread to audiences in both the North and South. Metropolitan Opera to stop blackface makeup in 'Otello' As part of a traveling solo act, Rice wore a burnt-cork blackface mask and raggedy clothing, spoke in stereotypical black vernacular and performed a caricatured song and dance routine that he said he learned from a slave, according to the University of South Florida Library.Ī promotion from the company advertising the upcoming production drew small ire for its glossy photo of Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko, who will play Otello, in heavy bronze makeup. One of the most popular blackface characters was “Jim Crow,” developed by performer and playwright Thomas Dartmouth Rice. But to the black community, they were demeaning and hurtful. The performances were intended to be funny to white audiences. White performers darkened their skin with polish and cork, put on tattered clothing and exaggerated their features to look stereotypically “black.” The first minstrel shows mimicked enslaved Africans on Southern plantations, depicting black people as lazy, ignorant, cowardly or hypersexual, according to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). The origins of blackface date back to the minstrel shows of mid-19th century. Getty Imagesīlackface isn’t just about painting one’s skin darker or putting on a costume. American actors and comedy partners Charles Correll (L) and Freeman Gosden lean against each other in blackface makeup in a 1949 promotional portrait.
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