History Main / MinstrelShows

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

* Bowdlerise: Many songs that were written for minstrel shows remain popular today, notably the works of Stephen Foster, but are generally described as "early American songs" and are treated as children's songs without reference to their minstrel origins. Most of the racist language is quietly Bowdlerized.

* SelfCensoredRelease: Many songs that were written for minstrel shows remain popular today, notably the works of Stephen Foster, but are generally described as "early American songs" and are treated as children's songs without reference to their minstrel origins. Most of the racist language is quietly {{Bowdlerize}}d.

* BleachedUnderpants: Many songs that were written for minstrel shows remain popular today, notably the works of Stephen Foster, but are generally described as "early American songs" and are treated as children's songs without reference to their minstrel origins. Most of the racist language is quietly {{Bowdlerize}}d.

Minstrel shows were a type of American 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, named for the percussion instruments they traditionally played: a tambourine and a pair of animal ribs. The shows were heavily based on mocking and lampooning stereotypical black culture, but the music was also taken seriously for its artistic merit.

* In ''Everybody Sing'' (1938), Judy Garland breaks into Broadway by way of a minstrel-show production.

* In the Jazz Age generally, minstrelsy somehow synergized with the Harlem Renaissance to produce forms of minstrelsy apparently intended (by their white performers) as tributes to contemporary African-American art rather than mockery. Eddie Cantor was big on this. In ''Ali Baba Goes to Town'' (1937), the eponymous Connecticut-Yankee-style time traveler, at the court of Harun al-Rashid, puts on blackface and leads a crowd of actual Africans in performing a big song-and-dance production, "Swing Is Here to Sway."

** At the end of ''WesternAnimation/FreshHare'', when the firing squad prepares to execute Bugs, Elmer tells him that he can make [[LastRequest one last wish]]. Bugs suddendly sings "Dixie" and the scene then, in a NonSequitur, transitions into a minstrel show, where Elmer, Bugs and the firing squad, now all in blackface, perform the chorus of "Camptown Races".

* TheCoconutEffect: Actual Black performers often had to use blackface makeup to accentuate their lips in order to look more like a white actor in blackface.

* FairForItsDay: Firstly, as stated above this was one of the few ways that ''actual black performers'' could be seen by a large audience. Secondly, all the black characters were deliberately dressed in the most dapper clothes possible specifically to curtail the stereotype of black people as uncultured barbaric savages. Thirdly, we must remember that there was a time when just ''having a black character in the first place'' was enough to piss off the Klan.

** Similarly, the trend of cartoon characters wearing white gloves (e.g. Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny) originated in minstrel shows, but there's been no real push to drop them from character designs.

* 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, usually giving a romanticized version of slaves happy with plantation life. 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.
* 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}}. Even then, they were still romanticized for years and were regularly and affectionately referenced in pop culture until the 1960s, when the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement similarly shed light on the evils of segregation and wider Black disenfranchisement. Following this, it's pretty much impossible to look at any Minstrel Show media without [[DudeNotFunny cringing at the blatant racism]].

[[quoteright:236:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/minstrel_show.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:236:[[ValuesDissonance Neither fun nor famous these days.]]]]

* StockJokes: Many of the stock minstrel jokes have [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny passed into folklore]]. "[[ChickenJoke 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]]

* StockShticks: Many of the stock minstrel jokes have [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny passed into folklore]]. "[[ChickenJoke 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]]

* 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}}. Even then, they were still romanticized for years and were regularly referenced in pop culture until the 1960s, when the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement similarly shed light on the evils of segregation and wider Black disenfranchisement. Following this, it's pretty much impossible to look at any Minstrel Show media without [[DudeNotFunny cringing at the blatant racism]].

* 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 [[DudeNotFunny cringing at the blatant racism]].

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

Although minstrel shows no longer exist, they have had an enormous impact on American pop culture, with minstrel songs such as ''Camptown Dances'' and ''Oh! Susanna'' becoming highly familiar tunes, and many modern listeners being unaware of their minstrel origins. Many people in modern times might also be unaware that the popular joke "Why did the chicken cross the road?" is connected to minstrel shows as well. Some people such as film director Creator/SpikeLee have argued that modern American entertainment media starring black people is rooted in the legacy of minstrel shows.

Although minstrel shows no longer exist, they have had an enormous impact on American pop culture, with minstrel songs such as ''Camptown Dances'' and ''Oh! Susanna'' becoming highly familiar tunes, and many modern listeners being unaware of their minstrel origins. Many people in modern times might also be unaware that the popular joke "Why did the chicken cross the road?" is connected to minstrel shows as well. Some people such as film director Creator/SpikeLee have argued that modern American entertainment starring black people is rooted in the legacy of minstrel shows.

Although minstrel shows no longer exist, they have had an enormous impact on American pop culture, with minstrel songs such as ''Camptown Dances'' and ''Oh! Susanna'' becoming highly familiar tunes, and many modern listeners being unaware of their minstrel origins. Some people such as film director Creator/SpikeLee have argued that modern American entertainment starring black people is rooted in the legacy of minstrel shows.

Although minstrel shows no longer exist, they have had an enormous impact on American pop culture, with minstrel songs such as ''Camptown Dances'' and ''Oh! Susanna'' becoming highly familiar tunes, and many modern listeners being unaware of their minstrel origins. Some people such as film director Creator/SpikeLee have argued that modern American entertainment starring black people are rooted in the legacy of minstrel shows.