Al Jolson Clip: The Jazz Singer

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Al Jolson Clip The Jazz Singer

• Born 1886 (maybe) and died 1950
• Warner Brothers film The Jazz Singer made Al
  Jolson a megastar
• According to Ronald Sanderswriting about the
  Jewish immigration experienceJewish actors put
  on blackface because both groups had suffered at
  the hands of oppressors and lived close to their
  pain
• New songs stressed the promise of the new country
  and the need to push through the struggles
• Blackface helped them stay connected to the pain
  of their past, but keeping it hidden as well

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Bert Williams in blackface The only black
performer in The Ziegfield Follies
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BeginningsIn 1828, white performer Thomas
Daddy Rice appeared on stage in blackface,
singing the Jim Crow song (he had heard it
performed by a black man and borrowed it)
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Soul Man (1986)C. Thomas Howell dons blackface
to play a white, pampered Harvard student using
color change to win a scholarship, a scholarship
that rightfully belongs to another.He learns
that his easy way out isnt as easy as he
thought.
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Bamboozled clip2000 Spike Lee film starring
Damon Wayans as Harvard educated writer who
proposes a revival of the minstrel show employing
black actors in even blacker face out of utter
frustration with his network boss
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Blackface Lives on UNICEF in Germany, Kate Moss
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Controversy

• UNICEF is running ads in Germany with children in
  blackface using mud, purportedly to show a
  commonality with African children.
• Kate Moss appeared on the cover of Independent
  (Red) in 2006 in blackface. The issue focused on
  real life challenges faced by African-American
  women. Kate Moss, rich and white, was regarded as
  an inappropriate choice to represent
  African-American women.

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Fads?Ganguro and Yamanba Girls
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Blackface Parties
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New Approaches The Defiant Thomas Brothers and
Mark Steven Greenfield
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Mark Steven Greenfields Art