Blackface's appropriation, exploitation, and assimilation of African-American culture – as well as the inter-ethnic artistic collaborations that stemmed from it – were but a prologue to the lucrative packaging, marketing, and dissemination of African-American cultural expression and its myriad derivative forms in today's world popular culture.
Perhaps the most enduring effect of blackface is the precedent it established in the introduction of African-American culture to an international audience, albeit through a distorted lens.
Blackface in contemporary art remains in relatively limited use as a theatrical device and is more commonly used today as social commentary or satire. Another view is that "blackface is a form of cross-dressing in which one puts on the insignias of a sex, class, or race that stands in opposition to one's own." īy the mid-20th century, changing attitudes about race and racism effectively ended the prominence of blackface makeup used in performance in the U.S. In some quarters, the caricatures that were the legacy of blackface persist to the present day and are a cause of ongoing controversy.
Stereotypes embodied in the stock characters of blackface minstrels not only played a significant role in cementing and proliferating racist images, attitudes, and perceptions worldwide, but also in popularizing black culture. The famous Dreadnought hoax involved the use of blackface and costume for a group of high profile authors to gain access to a Military vessel. After which, you are to take some baby brushes and wipe off the dirt to give your hands a polish." Later, black artists also performed in blackface. This to be repeated until thoroughly blackened.
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Then they must be cracked open and kept dry until you wet your hands and rub it on your face. According to a 1901 source: "Blackface is best prepared by burning an ordinary cork on some wood shavings for best texture, while storing it on some sheet iron to keep it clean.
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Early white performers in blackface used burnt cork and later greasepaint or shoe polish to blacken their skin and exaggerate their lips, often wearing woolly wigs, gloves, tailcoats, or ragged clothes to complete the transformation. In both the United States and Britain, blackface was most commonly used in the minstrel performance tradition, which it both predated and outlasted. The Black and White Minstrel Show on television lasted until 1978. It was practised in Britain as well, surviving longer than in the U.S. The Dreadnought hoaxers in Abyssinian costumeīlackface was a performance tradition in the American theater for roughly 100 years beginning around 1830. In the United States, blackface declined in popularity beginning in the 1940s and into the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and was generally considered highly offensive, disrespectful, and racist by the turn of the 21st century, though the practice (or similar-looking ones) continues in other countries. Early in the 20th century, blackface branched off from the minstrel show and became a form in its own right. By the middle of the century, blackface minstrel shows had become a distinctive American artform, translating formal works such as opera into popular terms for a general audience. In the United States, the practice became common during the 19th century and contributed to the spread of racial stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation" or the " dandified coon". West minstrel show poster, originally published by the Strobridge Lithographing Company, shows the transformation from a person of European descent to a caricature of a dark-skinned person of African descent.īlackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non- black people to portray a caricature of a black person.
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