Re: Fwd: A new klezmermusical in Berlin

[Bloom <bloom...>]

Wolf wrote:

>What I can't quite grasp were blacks who performed with burnt cork .
>Would this be a way of fooling the audience into thinking that even
>a genuine  black person on stage was, behind the make-up, white -- and
>therefore non-threatening?
>
>Any thoughts from the "heartless and soulless ethnomusicologists"
>who may have studied this phenomenon?

I hesitate to respond, since I'm not well-educated on this topic - but
since no one else responded, I'll throw in what I think I know, and let
someone else correct me if necessary.

As I understand it, blacks were allowed to perform in vaudeville if they
portrayed stereotypical blacks, just as Jews were allowed to perform if
they portrayed stereotypical Jews.  If you were a "stage Jew", you might
use putty to make your nose look bigger.  If you were a "stage nigger", and
your skin wasn't dark enough to fit the stereotype, then you had to put
burnt cork on your face.  In either case, the act you performed had to
reinforce the image that the audience already had of your ethnic group.
Just a case of giving the audience what they wanted.


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