This was, by far, a much easier film to watch than last week's. What amazed me most was the incredible leaps that the film industry took in just a few years. This films was much more like those we know today.
I have to say, I don't think I'd ever seen blackface until now. I mean, yes, I'd seen a couple of scenes, as there was in The Jazz Singer and in other films I'd watched when I was younger, but I'd never seen an entire film where two characters were in blackface the entire time. It made me uncomfortable. But I can't help but wonder if I would have been uncomfortable before having spent the last few weeks discussing the subject critically. I know I definitely felt uncomfortable during those times I laughed. Are we not supossed to laugh? Is that wrong?
Something else I found striking was the way language was such an integral part of the performance. I mean, the actors were clearly using a kind of "dialect" when speaking as Amos and Andy. This definitely made me think of our previous readings on the topic and certainly how dialect is so wrapped up in stereotype.
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I guess I'm out of the loop. I didn't see the comedy as so incredibly offensive. Correll and his partner were performing a sketch or a couple of comedic bits. The fact that they are silly doesn't necessarily mean that they were prejudiced against blacks. Take early Vaudeville performances. Many performed the same silly bits with a straight man and a comic without blackface or an accent. Check out the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis Colgate Hour. They perform similar bits and it is about entertainment - not race. I think academics nowadays are making too much out of this. I can see that many other representations--such as those in cartoons--appear to maintain certain stereotypes, but at the same time, that is just the signature of good comedy. Today, it's about lesbians, gays, liberals, religious people, and anyone else who won't scream too loudly about being a target. I really think that the Amos and Andy show is a far cry from the blackface minstrelsy of the 1800s. I don't think it encouraged--although it didn't necessarily discourage--lynching, Jim Crow laws, etc. I really think we need to stop having such a violent reaction to this artform and consider it for what it was-good and bad. Maybe Correll and his partner took certain liberties that we are uncomfortable with but by no means could they be categorized with the lynch mobs of the 1930s.
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