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Adam Tantillo
Professor Murray
Foundations of Theatre II
December 4, 2012
Blackface in American Performance
Blackface, the theatrical practice of creating a caricature of an African
American person, usually involving a darkening of the face, and accentuating the
eyes and lips, has been used for racist, comedic and political purposes, in the United
States. Blackface first gained some popularity in the late 1600’s when many
prominent actors, including Edwin Forrest, played story telling characters, in
blackface, to juxtapose the rugged, mountain men leads. Blackface got very popular
in the mid 1800’s with the introduction of minstrel shows. Vaudeville is another
type of show, similar to minstrel shows where blackface gained popularity again.
These shows often also featured women in blackface playing men, or women, which
created much humor in the switching of gender and race. In the twentieth century
blackface has been used in the first talkie, The Jazz Singer in 1927, which started Al
Jolson, who spent a large portion of the show in blackface. More recently The San
Francisco Mime Troupe used blackface as a political tool to show the ridiculousness
of segregation in the sixties. Blackface as a political tool can either be used as a
racist, degradation of African American culture or it can be used to create humor
and encourage political change from the laughter.
Minstrel shows started with the performance of Jump Jim Crow, a song and
dance by Thomas Dartmouth Rice and evolved from this starting point. Many
different actors were doing blackface in different styles, but in 1843 four famous
actors came together and put on a show each doing their separate acts and minstrel
shows were born. Minstrel shows “helped blur the boundaries separating races,
genders and classes.” The minstrel shows toed the “line between celebration and
criminality or violence” (Ashby 12). “This formal slipperiness was a way of
tempering and deflecting the clanging political pressures imposed” (Lhamon 32).
Minstrel shows also featured black actors in blackface pretending to be white actors
acting like African Americans. The audience found this technique more real because
they were actually watching African Americans play the stereotypes. This practice
“the performance a sense simultaneously of authenticity while adding an implicit
subversive element by the blackface mask concealing not a white but a black face”
(Recchio 38). Thus enforcing the stereotypes, but also turning them on their head
because of how backwards it is. This upheaval of culture and societal roles really
undermined the power structure of the society’s race boundaries to show just how
ridiculous slavery is. Minstrel shows are one of the first places where black actors
were allowed to perform with white actors, which was tremendously
groundbreaking for the time. The minstrel show, although it existed in a racist
period in time, broke ground for black and white actors playing together on the
same stage. Also the structure of minstrel shows is still seen in today’s culture with
variety shows and sketch comedy, such as Saturday Night Live and Mad TV.
Women in minstrel shows were often portrayed in blackface, but only those
women who were not beautiful or skinny enough to be sex symbols. This was often
a practice in early American theatre because women were, in society, lower on the
social ladder than men, seen in their inability to vote, and their “unstable legal
status” (Recchio 39). A famous manager for women minstrel actors said, “This one’s
so big and ugly the crow out front will razz her. Better get some cork and black her
up” (Ashby 125). This practice was very popular for bigger, homely actors, and
many would use blackface as a way to open their careers up to get other roles.
Women who played blackface roles had very mixed feelings about it. Some believed
that they were getting opportunities they would not have been afforded without
blackface, and they thought that they could act wild and free where as in their
normal face they had to act contained and subdued. Others resented it and tried
desperately to rid themselves of it. The fact that women could lose themselves and
be wild and emotionally uncontained on stage was revolutionary, and many white
actors did not have this option.
Minstrel shows leads directly into Vaudeville, which takes elements from the
minstrel shows, like blackface performance, as well as from every form of low art in
the country. They had acrobats, jugglers, magicians, animals and everything.
Vaudeville often would take text, like operas, or Shakespeare, and dumb them down
for their less educated audience. Vaudeville played heavily on racial stereotypes
especially for African Americans, and these “stereotypes exacted a costly economic,
psychological and creative toll.” Astutely noted by a black Vaudeville actor, “It was
inconvenient being black in America.” Vaudeville often pushed the boundaries of
“respectability” as well as sexuality and often disrupted “what was supposed to be
an orderly, well-mannered world.” (Ashby 132) The disruption of society, through
blackface, sexuality and distortion of social hierarchy pushed people out of their
comfort zones, and made people want to make a change. This is an element of
theatre that is still extremely present in today’s theatre. It is called the V-Effect in
Brecht’s epic theatre, and it has a history through Vaudeville.
Later in the century the first talkie, a movie with sound, is produced which is
the 1927 groundbreaking film The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson. Jolson though
much of the movie wears blackface and sings/dances in a very minstrelesque
fashion. The movie is based on the play by the same name, even though not a single
life of dialogue from the play is seen in the film. The film has a negative stigma
surrounding it because it does present Jolson “masquerading as an AfricanAmerican man – that is, as a grotesque, degrading approximation of one” (Musser
196). This movie starts a shift from stage theatre to movies becoming the dominant
visual media. This movie broke ground for the competition between movies and
theatre for customers.
A very potent, hard-hitting example on modern blackface use is The San
Francisco Mime Troupe’s use of blackface in The Minstrel Show or Civil Rights in a
Cracker Barrel. This performance, which first showed in 1965, was a very classic
minstrel performance. It had the actors in blackface paint, big lips and eyes, white
gloves and tuxedos. These men performed the old racist skits and songs to a modern
audience, which was very shocking to the audience of the day. The performers were
arrested multiple times for this show. The show used the racism and the humor to
show just how ridiculous and how serious segregation is in this country. The Mime
Troupe has a motto: “Engagement, commitment, fresh air.” This show most
definitely fulfills all these categories. It engages the audience in a humorous manner.
It commits to showing the issue and tries to evoke a change. And this show is so
fresh. This type of theatre had not been done in this degree in so long. The breaking
down of the barriers of what is acceptable to show on stage is huge from this. Also
using theatre to evoke a social change.
Blackface, a racist technique, can be used in such a way that does not deny its
racism, but rather uses it to evoke emotion and create a change in the audience.
Blackface has been used through history as not only a tool for change, but also to
help facilitate stereotypes and keep African American oppressed. In today’s society
blackface is still used in the sake of comedy. This is seen in the 2008 movie Tropic
Thunder, where Robert Downy Jr. plays a white method actor who dyes his skin
black so he can play a black man in a movie. Throughout the entire film jokes are
being made about his new race. This shows how ridiculous this practice is, and it
shows a good sense of humor to be able to laugh at something as racist as blackface,
which helped to shape theatre and performance history in America.
Works Cited:
Ashby, Leroy. With Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture Since
1830. Louisville: University Press of Kentucky, 2006. 11-133. Print.
Forbord, Austin. Stage Left. 2012. Video. StageLeft-movie.com, San Francisco. Web. 7
Dec 2012. <http://stageleft-movie.com/educators/>.
Lhamon, W.T. Jr. Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop.
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1998. Print.
Musser, Charles. "Why Did Negroes Love Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer: Melodrama,
Blackface and Cosmopolitan Theatrical Culture." Film History. 23. (2011): 196222. Print.
Recchio, Thomas. "The Serious Play of Gender: Blackface, Minstrel Shows by Mary
Barnard Horne." Nineteenth Century Theatre & Film. 38.2 (2011): 38-50. Print.