Rogin's Jazz Singer

I’m not going to say that Rogin’s essay, “Blackface, White Noise,” does not make some valid points; clearly there are instances where he provides valuable insight into the Warner Brother’s film, The Jazz Singer. I will say, however, that, in my opinion, the bad points far outweigh the good. At times I found myself questioning how he could possibly be referring to the Al Jolson film I’d seen. Rogin’s essay overflows with statements that are a stretch, at best. “The jazz singer escapes his Old World identity through blackface,” he writes, follows shortly with “The Jazz Singer [uses] black men for access to forbidden white women,” and then later with “Jack is the ‘master minstrel,’ […] his blackface double is his slave.” I understand the point he’s trying to make—the Jew uses the Black man in order to climb the White American ladder—but I’m afraid I feel that Rogin turns to the use of cheap tactics in order to validate his point (certainly this is evident in that last statement, a clear manipulation of the souvenir program’s words). His interpretation of the “erotic” “Blue Skies” love scene between mother and son, moreover, is more telling of Rogin’s own character than anything remotely relevant to the film or blackface minstrelsy.

Rogin cites the fact that Jack Robin’s “problems are with his father; none are with the gentiles” as another example of how the film “wishes” away the real context of conflict. He writes, “Cantor Rabinowitz’s hostility to American entertainment is not balanced by any American hostility to Jews […] Jack’s judenfrei-ing of the Rabinowitz name, so central to the story, as we shall see, responds only to the attractions of Americanization, not to prejudices against Jews,” which certainly leads one to believe that what Rogin must prefer is a documentary depiction of the life of the American Jew. Of course, that’s certainly not what The Jazz Singer is or was intended to be. Yes, the film ignored the injustices of real life. But was that the point of the film—to show them? If it was, then I retract my criticism of Rogin’s point, but if it’s not, which I feel is the case, then I say it is wholly fruitless to analyze the film in such a manner. Maybe I’ve missed the point, if so, please, Somebody, point it out.

What I find most upsetting, and saddening really, is the fact that in pushing his point (“Jack develops his character—expresses his interior, find his own voice—by employing blackface caricature.”) it almost feels as though Rogin is denying any identity other than that of the “Old World” to Jewish Americans. It sounds a bit as though he’s saying, without blackface, you have no identity—then again, maybe I’m stretching it a bit there myself. But, if “Raphaelson nor the intertiles acknowledge blackface as the instrument of that [Hebraic particularism to American universalism] transformation,” then might it be because it’s not? Maybe? Either way, the point cannot be evaded long, for when Rogin states that “blackface also gives Jack access to allegedly black qualities—intense emotionality and the musical expression that results from it,” here Rogin is clearly saying that Jack’s “tear” in his singing is the result of his blackface identity. I guess Rogin didn’t feel it necessary to pay any attention to the film where its clearly states that he gets his, as Rogin puts it, “emotionality and the musical expression that results from it,” from his Jewish father.

Then of course is Rogin’s point that the “delayed insight [the link between jazz, speech, and individual freedom] suggests why the first talking picture wanted to lay claim to jazz […] and why, in a racially hierarchical society, The Jazz Singer assigned freedom to a blackface ventriloquist rather than to an African American jazz musician.” It seems Rogin has forgotten the point he made previously about the Warner brothers being Jewish. It seems to me that what they wanted to do was represent themselves, tell their story, and blackface was a part of their history too—after all, Rogin does go through the trouble of making sure the reader knows Jolson is not the only Jew who’s made a name for himself by performing in blackface.

And, finally, how can I leave out Rogin’s argument that what every critic seems to miss is the fact that there is no jazz in The Jazz Singer: “Jazz may have been the Jazz Age’s name for any up-tempo music (Tin Pan Alley was selling most of its produc under the heading of ‘jazz’), but the indiscriminate use of the term no more excuses The Jazz Singer’s missing sound than blackface compensates for the absence of blacks.” A part of me just wants to really wish Rogin isn’t being serious. I mean, surely, he mustn’t only consider jazz to be bebop and the like. But alas, he is serious. Clearly ragtime does not constitute Rogin’s idea of jazz or the sound of jazz—someone should have told Scott Joplin.