History Main / MinstrelShows

* In ''Film/TheJazzSinger'', Al Jolson plays a young Jewish man who longs to be a popular singer instead of a religious cantor as his father wants him to be. The songs that Jolson sings, however, are minstrel show tunes sung on {{blackface}}. The most popular song is "Mammy," which was often parodied in [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment bizarre]] [[Franchise/LooneyTunes Looney Tunes]] cartoons.

Minstrel shows were a type of entertainment that originated before the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar and continued to be popular throughout the 19th century and into the 20th. The show consisted of white performers appearing in {{blackface}}, often sitting in a semicircle on the stage and taking turns performing a variety of acts. The shows often had two emcees known as Mr. Tambo and Mr. Bones. The shows were heavily based on mocking and lampooning stereotypical black culture, but the music was also taken seriously for its artistic merit.

* {{Mammy}}: One of the stock characters, who sometimes went by the name "Aunt Jemima". [[note]]Yes, that's where the syrup originally got its name.[[/note]]

* StockShticks: Many of the stock minstrel jokes have [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny passed into folklore]]. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" "Why does a fireman wear red suspenders?" "Who was that lady I saw you with last night?" [[note]]"That was no lady-- that was my wife!"[[/note]]

* UnfortunateImplications: As well as the obvious racism, minstrel routines often included sexist material against black women and suffragettes.
* ValuesDissonance: Most audiences of the day would have seen minstrel shows as harmless good fun. Attitudes began to shift around the time of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar with increasing awareness of the evils of slavery; and by the turn of the twentieth century they had been mostly supplanted by {{Vaudeville}}. These days, of course, it's pretty much impossible to look at any Minstrel Show media without cringing at the blatant racism.

* Minstrel shows were the first uniquely American form of artistic expression. Like {{Vaudeville}} and {{Burlesque}}, they were were {{Variety Show}}s, featuring a mix of song, dance, sketch comedy and stand-up comedy. These forms combined with aspects of {{Operetta}} contributed to the development of American Musical Theater.

* The 1936 film version of ''Theatre/ShowBoat'' includes an in-story minstrel show performance of the song "Gallivantin' Aroun'", with Irene Dunne in blackface.

* In ''Film/TheJazzSinger'', Al Jolson plays a young Jewish man who longs to be a popular singer instead of a religious cantor as his father wants him to be. The songs that Jolson sings, however, are minstrel show tunes sung on {{blackface}}. The most popular song is "Mammy," which was often parodied in [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment bizarre]] Looney Tunes cartoons.

* UnfortunateImplications: Oh, ''man''... [[UpToEleven where to even begin]]?
** As well as the egregious racism, minstrel routines often included viciously sexist material against black women and suffragettes.

** In ''Film/HolidayInn'', released just a few years earlier in 1942, the comparable minstrel show sequence ''does'' include blackface.

* GospelChoirsAreJustBetter: Minstrel shows introduced spirituals (then called "Jubilees") to white audiences in the 1870s, marking (says {{Wikipedia}}) "the first undeniably black music to be used in minstrelsy."

* This [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDfWAr8ut_I PSA]] uses blackface rappers ''Shuck and Jive'' (black men wearing blackface) to demonstrate the minstrel-like buffoonery that a great deal of rap and hip-hop music is descending into. Notable in part because it was produced by hip-hop legend {{Nas}} (who does the voiceover at the beginning).

* In ''TheJazzSinger'', Al Jolson plays a young Jewish man who longs to be a popular singer instead of a religious cantor as his father wants him to be. The songs that Jolson sings, however, are minstrel show tunes sung on {{blackface}}. The most popular song is "Mammy," which was often parodied in [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment bizarre]] Looney Tunes cartoons.

* Creator/SpikeLee's 2000 film ''{{Bamboozled}}'' is about a black TV producer who creates a modern-day minstrel show. The producer intends for it to be a satire but, to his horror, [[SpringtimeForHitler it becomes popular]].
* In the ''AllInTheFamily'' episode "Birth of the Baby", Archie's lodge puts on a ministrel show. When Mike argues that this offends black people, Archie says that it won't, because they are not allowed in anyway.

* On ''MadMen'', Roger Sterling performs one at his wedding reception. As the series is set in the early 1960s and therefore on edge of where the such acts began to be commonly viewed as inappropriate, it causes a bit of uneasiness with some audience members.

* UncleTomfoolery: Basically the entire point was to play black stereotypes for laughs for white audiences, without any hint of the real-world struggles of slavery and segregation. Taken even more literally when black performers played with the same tropes, although, [[FairForItsDay to be fair]], that was the only chance most black performers had to be in front of wealthy white audiences in those days.

* Sir Rodney Glossop appears in blackface to entertain his fiancee's young son in one of Creator/PGWodehouse's Literature/JeevesAndWooster novels.

* NWordPrivilges: Interestingly, the N-word itself didn't appear much. The epithet of choice was the admittedly not much better "Darkies"-- though as noted, it wasn't really ever used outside of the minstrel shows themselves.

* {{Blackface}}: The standard attire for minstrel shows, in case the racist overtones weren't apparent enough already.

* ValuesDissonance: Most audiences of the day would have seen minstrel shows as harmless good fun. Attitudes began to shift around the time of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar with increasing awareness of the evils of slavery; and by the turn of the twentieth century they had been mostly supplanted by {{Vaudeville}}.

* ''Film/WhiteChristmas'' includes a minstrel show sequence as part of the ShowWithinAShow. The (white) performers are not in blackface.

* DelusionsOfEloquence - A common source of comedy in minstrel shows was portraying stupid and oafish black characters with delusions of sophistication.
* GrandfatherClause

* TheBBC ran its ''Black and White Minstrel Show'' on TV until '''1978'''. It continued as a stage show until '''1987'''. It's now pretty much '''the''' standard UK allusion for "embarassingly racist past pop culture".

* On ''MadMen'', Roger Sterling performs one at his wedding reception.

Minstrel shows were a type of entertainment that originated before the AmericanCivilWar and continued to be popular throughout the 19th century and into the 20th. The show consisted of white performers appearing in {{blackface}}, often sitting in a semicircle on the stage and taking turns performing a variety of acts. The shows often had two emcees known as Mr. Tambo and Mr. Bones. The shows were heavily based on mocking and lampooning stereotypical black culture, but the music was also taken seriously for its artistic merit.

* SpikeLee's 2000 film ''{{Bamboozled}}'' is about a black TV producer who creates a modern-day minstrel show. The producer intends for it to be a satire but, to his horror, [[SpringtimeForHitler it becomes popular]].

* This [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDfWAr8ut_I PSA]] uses blackface rappers ''Shuck and Jive'' (black men wearing blackface) to demonstrate the minstrel-like buffoonery that a great deal of rap and hip-hop music is descending into.

Despite the ValuesDissonance of the basic premise, the minstrel show is significant for several reasons:

* The minstrel show was one of the few ways for ''actual black performers'' to be seen by a large audience. Sadly, they would also appear in {{blackface}} and often disguised the fact that they were actually black. There were, however, several famous black minstrel show performers.

** Even Don Draper, by no means a paragon of progressive values (but a full generation younger than Sterling) is embarrassed by this by 1963.