Summary: Minstrel Misrule
MUSI 730 – Gerber – Assignment #2
February 28, 2017
- Zanger, Jules. “The Minstrel Show as Theater of Misrule.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 60, no. 1 (February 1974): 33-38.
Minstrel shows emerged as a theatrical genre by 1828 with the "Jim Crow" character and served as comedic entertainment for mainly white audiences in subsequent decades. The content of these shows was controversial due to the white characters in blackface, whose purpose was to exaggerate characteristics of African Americans. By 1842 and the opening of Daniel Decatur Emmet's troupe "The Virginia Minstrels" on Broadway and the Edmund Christy's creation of the "Christy Minstrels" in 1846, the formal features of the genre were set. Well-known blackface characters from Minstrel shows include Tambo and Bones, called End Men, and the white man, known as the Interlocutor. There are three main parts to a Minstrel show: 1. Dialogue that develops the relationship between the End Men and the Interlocutor, 2. The “Olio,” which contains the climax and Stump Speech, a monologue by a character in blackface, and 3. Burlesques and parodies of legitimate theatrical performances. Though the shows contained racist qualities by portraying the blackface characters as foolish and uneducated, the characteristics of the “high class” and pompous white character are also exaggerated.
Zanger describes how both the behaviors of the blackface and white characters are attacked through the same device of “caricature.” Though the blackface characters received much attention, they were not the sole focus of the comedy. Zanger claims that the white character was intended to receive the “butt” of the humor. The audience would firstly laugh at the white character for his pretentious and arrogant behaviors, and the foolish behaviors of the blackface characters served as secondary entertainment. The misrule of the minstrel show is that it was perceived primarily as a racist attack on African Americans, but according to Zanger, the white characters, and even the female characters that appeared on the stage, were also exaggerated to create a comical effect on the audience.
Significance
Though the blackface characters have received much attention due to the racist qualities of minstrel shows, the white character serves a comedic purpose just as much as the blackface characters. The behaviors of the white character are to exaggerate and mock the pompous behaviors observed in society, and though they are intended to be comedic, the white characters would also receive hostility from the audience. The qualities of racism are indeed present, but all of the characters received the technique of caricature based on perceptions in society.
Sources
Primary sources include text examples of Stump Speeches, one from “’If I May So Speak,’ a Burlesque Stump Oration,” featured in Dramas From the American Theatre written by Richard Moody in 1966, and another from Tambo and Bones – A History of The American Minstrel Stage written by Carl Wittke in 1930. Another primary source is an illustration of a dance featured in Dan Emmett and The Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy in 1962. Secondary sources include literature on American theatre alongside a historical account of the Lyceum movement, The American Lyceum: Town Meeting of the Mind, written by Carl Bode in 1956.