ShmoopTube

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

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]

Full Transcript