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U.S. History 1877-Present 2: Minstrel Shows 62 Views
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Description:
Minstrel shows were pretty racist back in the day. It's a good thing they've been sticking to songs about the cowardly-brave Sir Robin in recent years.
Transcript
- 00:04
Let's talk about minstrel shows.... you know how people are always [Bart simpson grafiti and woman appears angry]
- 00:09
complaining the shows like South Park and Family Guy are too offensive well
- 00:13
popular entertainment in the good old days was way more offensive... Minstrel
- 00:18
shows were made up of parody sketches about african-american life performed by [Minstrel show sketch]
- 00:22
white actors in black makeup called black face...black performers later got in
Full Transcript
- 00:28
on the act as well and yes even though they were black they still wore [Black actors dancing in a show]
- 00:31
blackface it was just sort of you know racist dress code minstrel shows were
- 00:37
wildly popular in the North and the South they were also wildly dangerous to [Boy asking man to dance]
- 00:41
the perception of blacks there were a lot of different characters who popped
- 00:45
up in minstrel shows but the uniting factor was that blacks were portrayed as
- 00:49
silly stupid empty-headed which gave fuel to the argument well that they [Woman asking man to dance]
- 00:54
didn't deserve equal rights...laughter emancipation minstrel shows also showed
- 00:58
black characters longing for the good old days of slavery when they were [Black man jumping up and down in a show]
- 01:02
carefree and taken care of by their loving masters yikes so even though
- 01:07
minstrel shows were basically slapstick comedies with admittedly catchy songs [Bugs Bunny talking]
- 01:11
they did a ton of damage in reinforcing negative stereotypes throughout America
- 01:16
well the most well-known minstrel character was named Jim Crow who was [Jim Crow appears on stage]
- 01:21
invented by a white dude named Thomas Daddy Rice.. No, his real name wasn't
- 01:26
daddy.....
- 01:29
Rice was a frustrated performer sick of all his small roles in New York City [Rice looking unhappy]
- 01:33
in 1828 rice concocted a plan to knock everybody's socks off he brought out a
- 01:39
black steamboat baggage carriers clothes put burnt cork all over his face and [Finger touches burnt cork]
- 01:43
began to sing a slave song about Jim Crow and the crowd went wild Thomas Daddy
- 01:49
Rice finally got fame he was looking for with his performances
- 01:52
earning more money than any other performance for the bowery theatre in [Diagram of the bowery theater]
- 01:56
Manhattan..Rice's act became so popular that many other performers
- 02:00
started copying him and that's how the black-faced baby that became the entire
- 02:05
minstrel show genre was born there was one baby that just wasn't that cute... [Fire burning minstrel shows papers]
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