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Female impersonation is a type of theatrical performance where a man dresses in women's clothing for the sole purpose of entertaining an audience. While the term female impersonator is sometimes used interchangeably with drag queen, they are not the same. Drag as an art form is associated with queer identity whereas female impersonation may come from a wide a range of gender identity paradigms, including heteronormativity. Additionally, many drag artists view drag as a lived form of self-expression or creativity, and perceive drag as something that is not limited to the stage or to performance. In contrast, female impersonation is specifically limited to performance and may or may not involve an LGBTQI point of view.
Blackface is the practice of performers using burnt cork or theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of black people on stage or in entertainment. Scholarship on the origins or definition of blackface vary with some taking a global perspective that includes European culture and Western colonialism. Scholars with this wider view may date the practice of blackface to as early as Medieval Europe's mystery plays when bitumen and coal were used to darken the skin of white performers portraying demons, devils, and damned souls. Still others date the practice to English Renaissance theatre, in works such as William Shakespeare's Othello.
The Black and White Minstrel Show is a British light entertainment show on BBC prime-time television that ran from 1958 to 1978. The weekly variety show presented traditional American minstrel and country songs, as well as show tunes and music hall numbers, lavishly costumed and often presented with cast members in blackface. A popular stage show, based on the TV show with the same title, ran from 1962 to 1972 at the Victoria Palace Theatre, London. This was followed by tours of UK seaside resorts until 1989, and tours in Australia and New Zealand. From early in its history, and increasingly throughout its run, the show received criticism for its racist premise and content.
The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century. The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of comically portraying racial stereotypes of African Americans. There were also some African-American performers and black-only minstrel groups that formed and toured. Minstrel shows stereotyped blacks as dimwitted, lazy, buffoonish, cowardly, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people specifically of African descent.
Bamboozled is a 2000 American satirical black comedy-drama film written and directed by Spike Lee about a modern televised minstrel show featuring black actors donning blackface makeup and the resulting violent fallout from the show's success. It features an ensemble cast including Damon Wayans, Jada Pinkett Smith, Savion Glover, Tommy Davidson, and Michael Rapaport.
Master Juba was an African-American dancer active in the 1840s. He was one of the first black performers in the United States to play onstage for white audiences and the only one of the era to tour with a white minstrel group. His real name was believed to be William Henry Lane, and he was also known as "Boz's Juba" following Dickens's graphic description of him in American Notes.
White Chicks is a 2004 American comedy film directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans from a screenplay co-written by Wayans, Xavier Cook, Andy McElfresh, Michael Anthony Snowden, with additional contributions by and starring Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans. It also stars Jaime King, Frankie Faison, Lochlyn Munro, and John Heard. In the film, two black male FBI agents go undercover as white women by using whiteface to protect two hotel heiresses from a kidnapping plot targeting socialites.
Sam Hague was a British blackface minstrel dancer and troupe owner. He was a pioneering white owner of a minstrel troupe composed of black members, and the success he saw with this troupe inspired many other white minstrel managers to tour with black companies.
Francis Leon was an American vaudevillian actor best known as a blackface minstrel performer and female impersonator. He was largely responsible for making the prima donna a fixture of blackface minstrelsy.
Mickey's Mellerdrammer is a 1933 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by United Artists. The title is a corruption of "melodrama", thought to harken back to the earliest minstrel shows, as a film short based on Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin and stars Mickey Mouse and his friends who stage their own production of the novel. It was the 54th Mickey Mouse short film, and the fourth of that year.
Stereotypes of African Americans are misleading beliefs about the culture of people with partial or total ancestry from any black racial groups of Africa whose ancestors resided in the United States since before 1865, largely connected to the racism and the discrimination to which African Americans are subjected. These beliefs date back to the slavery of black people during the colonial era and they have evolved within American society.
The stump speech was a comic monologue from blackface minstrelsy. A typical stump speech consisted of malapropisms, nonsense sentences, and puns delivered in a parodied version of Black Vernacular English. The stump speaker wore blackface makeup and moved about like a clown. Topics varied from pure nonsense to parodies of politics, science, and social issues, as well as satirical commentary on political and social issues. The stump speech was a precursor to modern stand-up comedy.
"Miss Lucy Long", also known as "Lucy Long" as well as by other variants, is an American song that was popularized in the blackface minstrel show.
Coon songs were a genre of music that presented a stereotype of Black people. They were popular in the United States and Australia from around 1880 to 1920, though the earliest such songs date from minstrel shows as far back as 1848, when they were not yet identified with "coon" epithet. The genre became extremely popular, with White and Black men giving performances in blackface and making recordings. Women known as coon shouters also gained popularity in the genre.
Luke Schoolcraft was an American minstrel music composer and performer. He appeared in numerous minstrel shows throughout the North after the American Civil War.
The Jim Crow persona is a theater character developed by entertainer Thomas D. Rice (1808–1860) and popularized through his minstrel shows. The character is a stereotypical depiction of African-Americans and of their culture. Rice based the character on a folk trickster named Jim Crow that had long been popular among enslaved black people. Rice also adapted and popularized a traditional slave song called "Jump Jim Crow" (1828).
Outta Season is a 1969 album by Ike & Tina Turner, released on Blue Thumb Records in the US and Liberty Records in the UK. The album contains their signature live song "I've Been Loving You Too Long."
Blackface in contemporary art covers issues from stage make-up used to make non-black performers appear black, to non-black creators using black personas. Blackface is generally considered an anachronistically racist performance practice, despite or because of which it has been widely used in contemporary art. Contemporary art in this context is understood as art produced from the second half of the 20th century until today. In recent years some black artists and artists of color have engaged in blackface as a form of deconstruction and critique.
Brownface is a social phenomenon in which a white or light-skinned person attempts to portray themselves as a "brown" person of color, but less overtly and with a lighter complexion than traditional blackface. It is typically defined as a racist phenomenon, similar to blackface.
References
- ↑ Hilary Miller (24 March 2014). "Nick Cannon Wears Whiteface, Sparks Internet Debate". HuffPost. Retrieved 2020-06-21.
- 1 2 "white-face". The Oxford English Dictionary (3 ed.). 2015. sense 4.
- ↑ "Negro Minstrelsy". New York Clipper. 16 April 1870.
- ↑ Harmetz, Aljean (November 26, 1992). Round Up the Usual Suspects: The Making of Casablanca—Bogart, Bergman, and World War II . New York: Hyperion. p. 143. ISBN 978-1562829414.
- ↑ "Race Representations in Watermelon Man". Washington University. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
- ↑ Davies, Helen; Ilott, Sarah, eds. (27 July 2018). Comedy and the Politics of Representation: Mocking the Weak. Springer. p. 87. ISBN 9783319905068 . Retrieved 20 July 2020.
- ↑ Weston, Christopher (2020-06-10). "Does White Chicks Have A Future On Netflix? Little Britain Removal Sparks Wider Debate On Race!". HITC.com.
- ↑ McFarland, Melanie (6 March 2006). "On TV: 'Black. White.' is uncomfortable, revealing reality TV". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
- ↑ Lewis, Hilary (31 March 2014). "Nick Cannon on 'Whiteface' Controversy: 'I Was Doing a Character Impression; Blackface Is About Oppression' (Video)". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved 16 July 2021.
- ↑ Reid, Shaheem (14 June 2007). "Chamillionaire Busted By 'Hip Hop Police' For Ridin' Dirty With Jay-Z, Dr. Dre CDs". MTV.com. Archived from the original on October 19, 2012. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
- ↑ Desmond-Harris, Jenée (October 29, 2014). "Don't get what's wrong with blackface? Here's why it's so offensive". Vox . Archived from the original on May 23, 2019. Retrieved January 10, 2019.
- ↑ Hannaham, James (28 June 2004). "Beyond the Pale". New York Magazine.