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ETHNIC NOTIONS: PORTRAITS OF PREJUDICE (TV)

Summary

This documentary, narrated by Esther Rolle, surveys racist imagery in American popular culture from the ante-bellum South through World War II using illustrations, advertisements, sheet music, greeting cards, minstrel shows, cartoons, film, and television. Larry Levine and Barbara Christian, both from the University of California, Berkeley, discuss the persistence of stereotypes and how they have effected society, including blacks themselves; and society's view of African Americans. With various examples of pre-Civil War materials and clips from the 1947 cartoon "Uncle Tom's Cabana" and the 1932 film "Rhapsody in Black and Blue," the program discusses the stereotype of the simple, docile, laughing black man that first appeared in the early 1800s -- the sambo. Choreographer Leni Sloan talks about the origins of the term "jim crow" and the first "Ethiopian delineator" T.D. Rice, the white comedian who performed an exaggerated version of the "jim crow" dance in blackface. Pat Turner of the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and George Fredrickson of Stanford University, talk about the co-emergence of minstrelsy with the Abolitionist movement and the American desire to see slavery as a "benign, beneficent institution." The program briefly discusses the creation of the character "Zip Coon," a dandy and buffoon who tried to imitate whites, as a response in the North to free blacks. Using a 1934 clip of Hattie McDaniel in "Judge Priest" and earlier illustrations, the program next covers the stereotype of the mammy, and Christian elaborates on how her image provided both a contrast to white women and an indictment of black families. Fredrickson, Erskine Peters, and Turner explain the emergence of a view of blacks as "brutes" and "savages," particularly after the Civil War. The program cites writings of the time, both ethnographic and fictional, that portrayed blacks as inherently violent and looked back nostalgically to plantation life, contrasting those depictions with photos of lynchings of African Americans. A range of examples from newspapers, greeting cards, and film trace the caricatures of black children, called pickaninnies, as "animal-like" and "sub-human," often subjected to "comic violence," as in the postcards of black children being threatened by alligators. Moving into the twentieth century, the program discusses new stereotypes that emerged like the "urban coon"; how black men performing in blackface began "impersonating the impersonator"; and the way all media, even World War I Army films, continued to caricature blacks. The actor Bert Williams is highlighted as an example of a performer who had to struggle with these stereotypes: this portion includes footage from Williams's performance in "Natural Born Gambler" and Sloan portraying Williams in a one-man show. The persistence of racial stereotyping and blackface, even for blacks, is emphasized in examples ranging from Al Jolson in "The Jazz Singer" to "Judge Priest with Stepin Fetchin" (1934) to Paul Robeson in "The Emperor Jones" (1935), and in the particularly virulent racial caricatures in cartoons, advertisements, product labels, and household knickknacks. Collector Jan Faulkner describes the "total distortion of the black image," made "laughable and grotesque," in these everyday objects. A segment combining footage of Ethel Waters singing "Darkies Never Dream" with images and sound from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech illustrates the transition to the 1960s. Although the more extreme caricatures have faded, Fredrickson, Christian, and Turner argue that there is not much difference in the 1970s and 1980s, and Sloan concludes that there is still an "exclusion of dramatic images, of realistic images" to consider.

Cataloging of this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 2003.

Details

  • NETWORK: PBS
  • DATE: February 1, 1988 10:00 PM
  • RUNNING TIME: 0:58:20
  • COLOR/B&W: Color
  • CATALOG ID: T:75219
  • GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
  • SUBJECT HEADING: African-Americans (See also: Blacks); Popular culture; African-American Collection - News/Talk
  • SERIES RUN: PBS - TV, 1988
  • COMMERCIALS: N/A

CREDITS

  • Marlon Riggs … Producer, Director, Writer, Researcher
  • Keris Salmon … Associate Producer
  • Deborah Hoffman … Production (Misc.), Editor
  • Isaac Mizrahi … Production (Misc.), Assistant Editor
  • Calvin Roberts … Production (Misc.), Videographer
  • Mary Watkins … Music by
  • Esther Rolle … Narrator
  • Leni Sloan … Performer, Writer, Bert Williams Monologue
  • Rene Collins … Performer, Two-man Minstrel Skit
  • Derique McGee … Performer, Two-man Minstrel Skit
  • Ernie Fosselius … Voice
  • Jeffrey Friedman … Voice
  • Janet Keller … Voice
  • Marlon Riggs … Voice
  • Barbara Christian
  • Jan Faulkner
  • George Fredrickson
  • Al Jolson
  • Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • Lawrence Levine
  • Hattie McDaniel
  • Erskine Peters
  • T.D. Rice
  • Paul Robeson
  • Leni Sloan
  • Patricia Turner
  • Ethel Waters
  • Bert Williams