Performers

When examining blackface as a concept, it is invaluable to look at who is wearing that “face”, and what identity they are attempting to represent by substituting one face for another. Those who perform in blackface carry the identity of the blackface image onto the stage and perform it for the audience. This section will demonstrate that the stage presence of blackface is a symbolic representation of dominance, exploitation and a paradoxical relationship with a constructed racial other.

Minstrel performers were often expected to be able to sing, dance and play instruments.

The premier venue of blackface was the minstrel show, a white-controlled entertainment paradigm in America. Pre-Civil War, the actors were white and performing for white audiences, a primary theme was the “happy slave”. Portrayals of cheery, good-natured and humorous slaves allayed tensions of the slave dynamic. Post-Civil War, the emphasis shifted to a dynamic of longing for the “good old days” as well as portraying foolish dandies, emancipated men who wasted money on fancy clothes and aped the gestures and mannerisms of the refined. After the Civil War, black performers were more common, but they were scarcely accepted. Black performers faced terrible conditions and even danger in their troupes. In this way, the minstrel dynamic remained, on stage and behind the scenes, a reflection of white control over society, where the black identity is held as lesser.

The “Jim Crow” archetype was derived from T.D. Rice.

While being held as subordinate, the African culture and people encapsulated in the blackface identity are an exploited resource that enriched the performance tradition at the expense of those caricatured concepts. The dynamics of slavery and, post-Civil War, the Reconstruction era position of the emancipated African-American are beyond the scope of this website, though it can be intuited through the tone of related performances that there is an intensely exploitative set of forces in play there. Here, the most critical exploitative component of blackface is the appropriation of African-American cultural components. Minstrelsy had the corrosive effect of spreading and rooting stereotypes of the African people, the most damning of which is the denial and degradation of African traditional culture. The dance, song and spiritual concepts of African-Americans were shown as nonsense while at the same time providing minstrel performers with material as these traditional or folk concepts were adapted for the stage. Thus, the African culture is robbed of aesthetic, artistic and spiritual value so that it could be used for monetary gain in the white-dominated entertainment business. While it can be said that minstrel performances may be some people’s only chance to experience these cultural features and as near to an accurate portrayal as such concepts might have ever received, that effect is overshadowed by the blatant commercialization and caricature of the African tradition and the denial of its original sources.

These archetypal caricatures are the result of blackface stereotypes.

Blackface’s most effective and enduring historical aspect is the construction of African-Americans as a racial “other” in American society. It wasn’t uncommon for even a black performer to have to perform in blackface, creating and maintaining the construction of auniformly and unrealistically exaggerated representative of African-Americans on the stage. This image of African-Americans as both unusual and interchangeable reduces them to a concept, as opposed to individuals, engendering an opportunity to dehumanize as well as interact with African-American identity. A performer in blackface, especially a white one, can explore the features of the African-American, albeit in a warped way, with no real risk to their societal position. They can view African-Americans and culture with scorn, derision, or even fear, and yet retain the ability to view or perform it as much as their curiosity or other motives might drive them. Using blackface as a disposable “other” also allowed the relief of social tension. This is exemplified by the caricature of slaves or emancipated men serving as foils for, respectively, the “wage slavery” dynamic of smaller farmers or industrial workers and those struggling with the influx of African-American workers following the Civil War. Interestingly, black performers and audience members in post-Civil War times could also use the identity of blackface to mock or lament the disenfranchising society they faced, their disposable “other” serving as a safety mechanism for their performance and a small relief of the pressure that could lead to greater descent. When a performer dons blackface, they are inescapably drawn into a paradigm effecting their actions, opportunities and interactions with the social and racial environment. It is only by considering this paradigm that blackface can be understood.