History 477

Devine

Spring 2013

Study Questions – Blackface Minstrelsy

Toll, “The Evolution of the Minstrel Show”

1. How did minstrelsy combine both European and African folk traditions to create a unique hybrid that appealed to mass audiences? What were some of these folk traditions?

2. How were blacks portrayed in literature and drama before the 1850s? How did these portrayals reveal white attitudes about black character? How did they serve white interests?

3. Why was minstrelsy entertaining to antebellum audiences? What aspects of the performance itself kept people coming back for more? What was new in minstrelsy? What elements of traditional or folk culture – both African and European – did it incorporate in original ways?

4. Why were Stephen Foster’s sentimental plantation ballads popular with northern urban audiences? Why did these songs resonate with people who had never been to a plantation?

5. What evidence does Toll cite in arguing that some minstrel performers “borrowed” extensively from black cultural forms? Given that such performers carefully studied African-American behavior and folk culture, were they providing “authentic” portrayals of blacks in their shows?

6. How was the white folk culture of the U.S. frontier incorporated into minstrelsy?

7. How did minstrelsy shape white Americans’ views of blacks? How might this process deepen anti-black prejudices?

8. What was the three-part structure of the post-1850 minstrel show? What were the roles of the “endmen” and the “interlocutor”?

9. How had minstrelsy changed between the 1820s and 1860s?

Toll, “Images of Negroes in Antebellum Minstrelsy”

1. Why is studying minstrelsy a useful way of discerning whites’ changing attitudes about blacks? Why did the shows closely reflect these changing attitudes?

2. How did minstrels portray blacks? How did some of these portrayals also serve the purpose of both mocking upper class whites and educating lower class whites?

3. Before the 1850s, why were many whites ambivalent about slavery? How did the minstrel shows reflect this ambivalence? How did the shows reinforce what whites wanted to believe about blacks?

4. What potentially “subversive” elements did minstrel shows contain? How did minstrels use the very black stereotypes they perpetuated to show white masters being “fooled”?

5. How did minstrels appeal to the egalitarianism and sentimentalism of their northern audiences when portraying southern slavery? How did the characters of the “Yaller Gal,’ “Old Uncle,” and “Mammy” help serve this purpose?

6. Why were black fugitives in the North never portrayed positively in minstrel shows? How did this reflect a pandering to the sensibilities of the audience?

7. Why did black minstrel characters longing to return to the plantation resonate with white audiences?

8. What events during the 1850s changed white northerners’ attitudes toward blacks and resolved their ambivalent feelings about slavery? How was this change reflected in minstrel shows?

9. How did the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin affect minstrelsy? How was minstrels’ portrayal of Uncle Tom in keeping with their portrayal of blacks in general?

Finson, “Antebellum Minstrelsy and the Carnivalesque”

1. How does the author explain “carnival” or the “carnivalesque”? How is the carnivalesque both humorous and implicitly subversive?

2. How is “mummery” or “transvesting” a safe way to rebel publicly against authority?

3. Why does the author consider the primitive minstrel characters “Jim Crow” and “Zip Coon” political symbols that support Jacksonian positions? How did their humor and songs play to lower class resentments of “genteel” Americans?

4. What are some of the prominent themes in antebellum minstrel songs? Why might these themes appeal to a northern, urban, working-class audience? Why did racist audiences also sympathize with the “black” characters in the minstrel show?

5. How did minstrel songs play to their audiences’ populism and patriotism?

6. How can portrayals of “primitives” (i.e. blacks in minstrel shows) reveal both admiration and disdain on the part of the performers and audiences? How did minstrelsy reveal the complicated feelings whites harbored toward blacks?

Driver, “The Mirth of a Nation”

1. How has the legacy of blackface minstrelsy affected contemporary black comedy?

2. Why does the author believe black comedians like Chris Tucker and Chris Rock have simply reverted back to minstrelsy stereotypes in their acts? Is he right?

3. “Hip-hop and coon comedy,” the author contends, “both commodify black stereotypes and pass them off as an expression of racial authenticity.” Do you agree?

4. Have minstrel characterizations somehow been conflated with being “authentically black”? If this is the case, why would be it both ironic and tragic?