Modern Day Minstrel Show

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(Of course, I could have blogged about the documentary, "Black in America"... it was very good and I hope that everyone got a chance to tune in and watch it. But, I'm sure that everybody and his or her mother will blog about it so, I'd like to do a post about something else. Come on, indulge me...)

Robert Downey, Jr. is starring in a new movie called "Tropic Thunder", in which he is going to play the role of a black man. I've seen the previews and while it looks funny, I have to wonder to myself why white people in Hollywood have always found white actors appearing in blackface so humorous.

As a child, I often remember watching movies on UHF (Remember that term? If you can't, I don't want to hear about it!) that were made in the 1930's and 40's. I especially liked the gangster movies with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. If I had been an alien from some other planet and watched my fill of these movies, I would've thought that black people either didn't exist in America until 1960 or that the few that were here were only meant to be servants or comic relief to white people.

When I heard my parents, aunts, and uncles talk about the rich full lives they lead back then, it used to make me wonder why none of this was ever portrayed on the screen. I don't have to ask that question now... I know the answer. I don't have to tell you either... you know the answer. So, it used to puzzle me that when I did see someone black in a movie, they were usually a porter, butler, or maid. And, if it was a man, he was usually "jigging" and afraid of his own shadow.

I remember that one movie in particular had a huge impression on me. It was a horror movie and the old black character, Stepin' Fetchit, was in it. He was a porter on a train and there was a black female zombie in one scene with him. He asked her where she was from and she replied, "When I was alive, I lived in New York." He laughed, then his eyes grew so wide that they practically stretched out of his head, and he said, "WHEN YOU WAS ALIVE? LAWD HAVE MERCY!" After that, he ran at top speed through the cars of the train and the white people yukked it up.

When I was in the Air Force Reserves, they showed us the movie "Gone With The Wind" and when Butterfly McQueen said, "AH DON KNOW NOTHIN' 'BOUT BIRFIN NO BABIES!"... again, the white people yukked it up. I felt like going through the floor. My point here is that they did a good enough job using real black people and making them act like fools. Why should they put on blackface and denigrate us even further?

The once popular radio show "Amos & Andy" (and, I know this aired before many of you were born... me too but, my parents told me about it) was actually two white actors pretending to be black. I understand it was a big hit in the 1930's and 40's. Then, it became a television show in the 50's in which actual blacks were used to further perpetuate these stereotypes. (We had a family friend who had videotapes of this show and insisted on showing them at every family gathering. When his house caught on fire, the first thing me and my brother wondered was, if those tapes burned up with the rest of his house!)

All of this brings me back to "Tropic Thunder". Here we are in this day and age when all of this coonery and buffoonery is supposedly a thing of the past and there are still people with the gall to put a white actor in blackface and have him pretending to be black! Did we learn nothing from Spike Lee's brilliant (but, under appreciated) movie, "Bamboozled"? I've seen "The Jazz Singer" with Al Jolson, "Holiday Inn" with Bing Crosby, and "Babes on Broadway" with Mickey Rooney (Hey, I was a weird kid, what can I say!)... and the coonery and blackface did not amuse me.

I also read about "minstrel shows" and they amused me even less. I didn't even like The Wayons Brothers in "White Chicks", in which they flipped the script. I thought they looked freakish and ghoulish. I haven't seen "Tropic Thunder" yet but, the critics are lauding Robert Downey, Jr.'s "courageous" performance. Courageous? For who? Necessary? I think not! Will it be amusing? I'll have to let you know after I actually see it.

Maybe I'm just drinking a big bottle of "Haterade"... I don't know. You tell me. But, in the words of The Field Negro... "the jigging must stop" and the minstrel shows must end!