David DeFeis
American heavy metal singer
David DeFeis (born January 4, 1961) is an American singer, songwriter and producer. He is the main composer, leader and sole constant member of the heavy metal band Virgin Steele.
Biography.
DeFeis comes from a theatrical family: his father is a Shakespearian actor who runs the theatre company "The Arena Players Theatre" while his sister Doreen is a gifted opera singer who performs all over Europe.
A big fan of European classical music, at 9–10 years old he was introduced to rock music by hearing the band Stalk, with his brother Damon (on organ and piano) and his sister Danae (on vocals), playing in the basement beneath his room. Damon DeFeis was later in the band Creation with future Kiss drummer Eric Carr, and died in the Gulliver's nightclub fire in 1974.
He began piano lessons at the age of eight. By age eleven, he began his career with Long Island's local heavy metal band Phoenix.
At 16 years old, he met for the first time his future partner Edward Pursino when DeFeis's band at the time, Mountain Ash, was auditioning for a gig at the high school dance. Mountain Ash was mainly a Black Sabbath cover band and, after the performance of the song "War Pigs", Pursino came over and introduced himself to DeFeis.
At the beginning of the 1980s, together with Jack Starr and Joey Ayvazian, he started the first line-up of the band Virgin Steele. They debuted in 1982 with the song "Children of the Storm" included in the compilation "U.S. Metal Vol. II".
In 1985, the guitarist Edward Pursino replaced Starr. Among the years, in their longtime relationship in Virgin Steele, DeFeis and Pursino released a lot of heavy metal classics such as the albums: "Noble Savage", "Invictus", "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Part I", "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Part II".
DeFeis collects swords: his collection includes more than 20 items. In studio, sometimes he uses his swords to create particular effects for the Virgin Steele songs, and during the concerts he usually burns a sword on stage.
Voice and musical style.
DeFeis is a classically trained pianist, with a bachelor's degree in composition from S.U.N.Y. Stony Brook. As vocalist, he is self-taught, possessing around four octaves and a four notes: E2-B6. He said he was very much influenced by guitar players like Jimmy Page, Brian May and Eddie Van Halen, because he wanted to do with his voice what they did with their guitars. He is also influenced by rock singers like Freddie Mercury, Robert Plant, David Coverdale, Ronnie James Dio and Ian Gillan.
The major part of the lyrics DeFeis writes are mythological, dealing with subjects from especially Greek, Sumerian and Christian mythology. All of them are based on real life in some form or another.
Metal opera and theatre.
Between the end of the 1990s and the 2000s (decade), he wrote music for actors based on the Oresteia and the Greek myths related by Aeschylus. According with German artists Walter Weyers and Martina Krawulsky, with the name "Klytaimnestra": "The House of Atreus" Metal Opera (musically available on the Virgin Steele's albums "The House of Atreus Act I", "The House of Atreus Act II") was performed on stage in Germany theaters by Landestheater Production.
The premiere of "Klytaimnestra" in Memmingen, June 5, 1999, has been the first ever regular musical theatre show based on heavy metal concepts.
After "Klytaimnestra" success, David DeFeis & Landestheater Production extracted a second metal opera musical, named "The Rebels", from the previous Virgin Steele's albums of the Marriage of Heaven and Hell trilogy ("The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Part I", "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Part II", "Invictus").
In 2003, the same team released a third Metal Opera, named "Lilith", based on the material of album "Visions of Eden". "Visions of Eden" was later on published in CD in 2006.
Producer.
DeFeis owns his personal recording studio called: "The Hammer of Zeus" (sometimes also called "The Wrecking Ball Of Thor").
Virgin Steele's albums are produced by DeFeis.
He also produced albums released by other artists such as: "Out of the Darkness" and "No Turning Back" by Jack Starr, "Nightmare Theatre" by Exorcist, "Stay Ugly" by Piledriver, "The Sign of the Jackal" by Damien Thorn, "Sin Will Find You Out" by Original Sin.
References.
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Angels of the Apocalypse
Angels of the Apocalypse is the second full-length album by Timo Tolkki's Finnish metal opera project Avalon, released on May 16, 2014 in Europe and four days later in North America.
It is the second part of the trilogy created by Tolkki, written as a prequel to the previous album "The Land of New Hope".
As with the previous effort, several heavy metal singers were invited to play the characters of the story of the album, with female vocalist Elize Ryd of Amaranthe reprising her role and Floor Jansen (Nightwish, ReVamp) playing the main character. The rest of the cast includes Fabio Lione (Rhapsody of Fire, Angra), David DeFeis (Virgin Steele), Simone Simons (Epica), Caterina Nix (solo Chilean singer who is having her debut album produced by Timo Tolkki) and Zachary Stevens (ex-Savatage, Circle II Circle).
Background and recording.
The album started to be composed in August 2013 in Greece, to where Timo travelled to seek inspiration.
In October 2013, Timo Tolkki launched a news website for the project in which he announced the album, which was provisionally titled "Avalon II". Tolkki also announced he would be working with former Stratovarius bandmates Tuomo Lassila (drums) and Antti Ikonen (keyboards).
In late January, Tolkki revealed the name of the album and the remaining singers. Timo also announced that there will be a contest for guitar and keyboard players, with the winners getting a chance to perform a solo with him in one of the songs.
Once again, the artwork was created by French artist Stanis W. Decker.
Timo stated he created some songs with a specific singer in mind. The title-track will clock around 10:00. He also described the music of the album as "darker and heavier" than its predecessor, which was necessary due to the "Apocalyptic scenes described in the lyrics".
References.
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The Black Light Bacchanalia
The Black Light Bacchanalia is the twelfth album by New York power metal group Virgin Steele. It was released via SPV/Steamhammer on October 22, 2010 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, on October 25, 2010 in the rest of Europe, and on November 9, 2010 in the U.S.
The album is issued in CD format, limited edition digipak (with a bonus CD) and 3,000 copies worldwide boxset (with triple LP vinyl with a book, CD and extensive packaging).
With a duration of over 11 minutes, "To Crown Them with Halos (Parts 1 & 2)" was the longest track Virgin Steele had ever recorded until it was surpassed by the 13-minute "The Ritual of Descent" from their 2023 album "The Passion of Dionysus".
Track listing.
All music and lyrics by David DeFeis
Reception.
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />It is a long album...close to 80 minutes. The album (to be really brief) concerns the reversal of all things. Once conquered by invading cultures, older Pagan deities become the demons from the new religion. The Black Light Bacchanalia is a reversal of the sacred sexual customs, and the final desecration of the 'Goddess Principle,' switching from matrilineal descent to patrilineal descent, with the rise of the idea of the Mountain-Fire God...And it also has to do with ancient fears such as the fear of the sun not rising...Lyrically it is a kind of continuation of the story I told on the last album...Musically it is quite something else...
References.
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Light in the Darkness (band)
Light in the Darkness was an Italian pop rock band formed in Italy in 1988. The band recorded two albums in the 90s and toured extensively in their own country as well as in Europe, with performances also in Asia and North America. They composed various songs, including "Tablet of Carmel" (1989) and Shape Europe" (1994),
The band's classic line-up consisted of founding members Olinga Mazlum and Fabio Bolsi (piano and vocals), Vargha Mazlum (violin and vocals), Victor Sobhani and Alessandro Giua (guitar and vocals), Corrado Todrani (guitar, drums, and vocals), and vocalists Emilia Mazlum, Gloria Mazlum, Giulia Kheyrkhah, Roberta Kheyrkhah, Jalan Youssefian, Sharim Youssefian, Nadia Sobhani, Omid Varjavandi and Nima Sanai.
History.
Formation and early years (1988–1990).
The Mazlum brothers, Olinga, Emilia, Gloria and Vargha had created and been involved in the 80s with the theatrical group 'Il Risveglio' and had performed extensively around Italy. In late 1988, the Mazlum brothers along with other youth, including Fabio Bolsi, Victor & Nadia Sobhani, Alessandro Giua, Corrado Todrani, Giulia & Roberta Kheyrkhah, Jalan & Sharim Youssefian and Omid Varjavandi, met with the intention of forming the band, which took the name 'Light in the Darkness'. The name of the band comes from a song written by Mark Spiro and performed by Leslie & Kelly few years earlier. The band first met in Perugia in the winter of 1988 to compose their first songs and had their first performance in Rimini.
The band had the peculiarity of having interchangeable background singers who would, from time to time, join the band on the various tours.
In the spring of 1989, they held concerts in Perugia, Verona, Perugia, Catania, Bologna. During their summer tour of 1989, Light in the Darkness had their first introduction to an international audience at the European Youth Conference in San Marino. After the conference, they went on tour with performances in Portici and Paola. They returned to Portici again in September for a further concert, and the year ended with another concert in Fiesole. Portici is one of the most densely populated city in Europe and has been facing significant problems of social degradation, crime, and poor quality of life. In early 1990, they held concerts in Gela, Portici, Ischia, Velletri and Verona. During their stay in Bari to prepare for the tournee, the group was the victim of an attack by some drunk men, resulting in injury to their keyboard player, Olinga Mazlum. Nevertheless, the tour went on according to schedule, starting with Campobasso, followed by Ljubljana (Slovenia), Zagreb (Croatia), Portici, Ercolano, Catania, Cagliari, Sassari and ending in Bastia, in the island of Corsica, France for a Mediterranean conference attended by Hand of the Cause Rúhíyyih Khánum. In the fall, they had concerts in Monza, Velletri, Firenze, L'Aquila, Monza and Prato and then returned for the end of the year to Ljubljana and Zagreb.
In Ljubljana and Zagreb there was a very strong response from the public. Particularly high was the interest from the mass media; various radio stations interviewed the band, some TV stations broadcast live concerts and many newspapers reported about their concerts. This brought them to become more international focused, particularly on the Eastern European countries at a difficult time of regime change and where the population was particularly eager for a message of change and personal transformation.
In the spring of 1991, a few more concerts followed in Italy, in Pescara and Firenze. Their third tournee brought them to Poland with concerts in the cities of Gdańsk, Wroclaw and Kraków, and then to Romania, where they participated in the First Bahá'í Youth Conference of the ex-eastern block in Neptun. Then they returned to Italy with concerts in Portici and Acuto and then back to Romania to hold concerts in Timișoara and Drobeta-Turnu Severin. In the fall of 1991, they took a break from touring to record their first album, 'Just as a flame'.
Career peak (1990–1993).
1992 started with concerts in Monza, Ancona and Portici, followed by their fourth tour which brought them to some new Eastern European countries like Slovakia (with concerts in Bratislava, Trnava and Martin), Czech Rep. (with concerts in Znojmo, Kyjov and Brno), Hungary (with concerts in Abaliget by the lake Balaton, Pécs, Békéscsaba and Szeged), and Albania (with concerts in Tirana, Shkodër and Durrës). Albania had just opened to the west that year and faced a severe economic crisis. At the end of the year, the group was invited to perform at a prestigious worldwide event, the second Baháʼí World Congress, in New York. The band ended the year with some more concerts in Zagreb.
1993 started with concerts in Italy, in the cities of Rieti and Verona. Their fifth tournee brought them back to Albania with concerts in the cities of Patos, Berat, Fier, passing through Edirne (Turkey), and then they headed to Bulgaria (Burgas, Ruse and Varna) and Romania (Costinești) passing through Edirne in Turkey. Mantua was their last Italian concert of 1993.
In early 1994, they returned for a few concerts in Croatia (Pazin, Poreč and Pula) that were followed by a series of concerts in Italy, in the cities of Scandicci, Grosseto, Mantua, Florence, Lucca, Livorno and Campobasso. In spring, they were invited to participate to the election of the first Slovenia-Croatian Bahá'í Regional Assembly. Their sixth tournee saw them performing in Germany (Berlin, Zerbst, Leipzig and Dresden), from where they headed to the Baltic states, performing in Lithuania (Ukmergė and Visiginas), Latvia (Jelgava) and Estonia (Pärnu). One of their most famous songs, 'Shape Europe' was released on the occasion of this tour, an anthem for Europe's youth to embrace and work for a better world.
Breakup (1994).
The summer tour of 1994 was a watershed for the band. When the tour ended, many members quit the band, and new members were invited to join. Although this second experience was short-lived, it still brought the band to a few more concerts that year in Parma, Italy, and helped them record their second album, 'It's Just One'.In 1995, the 'new' band had a few concerts in Italy in Voghera, Portoferraio, Bologna and Povoletto and embarked on its last tour, which took them to Slovenia (Skofja Loka, Ljubljana, and Kranj), Lithuania (Kaunas, Vilnius and Klaipėda) and Hungary (Zánka-Köveskál). In spring, they had their last concert in Genoa and after In the month of December, the group unanimously decided to split up.
Re-formation (1996).
In 1996, though, there was a final revival, as they were requested to represent the International Bahá'í community at the United Nations Habitat II conference in Istanbul, Turkey. Light in the Darkness performed two more concerts, one in Bursa and one at the UN conference itself. For their collaboration at the UN conference, they received a certificate of appreciation from the organizing committee. The band members are now scattered throughout the world and are still involved in performing arts: Olinga Mazlum is a music teacher; Alessandro Giua is a solo singer, producer, and voice actor; Vargha Mazlum is a producer and a filmmaker; Jalan Youssefian is a photographer and fashion designer; Gloria Mazlum is a singer; Omid Varjavandi is a dancer; Emilia Mazlum is a videomaker; and so forth.
Discography.
Studio albums
References
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Blackface
Theatrical makeup caricaturing Black people
Blackface is the practice of performers using burned cork, shoe polish, or theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of black people on stage or in entertainment. Scholarship on the origins or definition of blackface vary with some taking a global perspective that includes European culture and Western colonialism. Blackface became a global phenomenon as an outgrowth of theatrical practices of racial impersonation popular throughout Britain and its colonial empire, where it was integral to the development of imperial racial politics. Scholars with this wider view may date the practice of blackface to as early as Medieval Europe's mystery plays when bitumen and coal were used to darken the skin of white performers portraying demons, devils, and damned souls. Still others date the practice to English Renaissance theater, in works such as William Shakespeare's "Othello".
However, some scholars see blackface as a specific practice limited to American culture that began in the minstrel show; a performance art that originated in the United States in the early 19th century and which contained its own performance practices unique to the American stage. Scholars taking this point of view see blackface as arising not from a European stage tradition but from the context of class warfare from within the United States, with the American white working poor inventing blackface as a means of expressing their anger over being disenfranchised economically, politically, and socially from middle and upper class White America.
In the United States, the practice of blackface became a popular entertainment during the 19th century into the 20th. It contributed to the spread of racial stereotypes such as "Jim Crow", the "happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation", and "Zip Coon" also known as the "dandified coon".
By the middle of the 19th century, blackface minstrel shows had become a distinctive American artform, translating formal works such as opera into popular terms for a general audience. Although minstrelsy began with white performers, by the 1840s there were also many all-black cast minstrel shows touring the United States in blackface, as well as black entertainers performing in shows with predominately white casts in blackface. Some of the most successful and prominent minstrel show performers, composers and playwrights were themselves black, such as: Bert Williams, Bob Cole, and J. Rosamond Johnson.
Early in the 20th century, blackface branched off from the minstrel show and became a form of entertainment in its own right, including Tom Shows, parodying abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin". In the United States, blackface declined in popularity from the 1940s, with performances dotting the cultural landscape into the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. It was generally considered highly offensive, disrespectful, and racist by the late 20th century, but the practice (or similar-looking ones) was exported to other countries.
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Early history.
There is no consensus about a single moment that constitutes the origin of blackface. Arizona State University professor Ayanna Thompson links the beginning of blackface to stage practices within the Medieval Europe miracle or mystery plays. It was common practice in medieval Europe to use bitumen and soot from coal to darken skin to depict corrupted souls, demons, and devils in blackface. Louisiana State University professor Anthony Barthelemy stated, "“In many medieval miracle plays, the souls of the damned were represented by actors painted black or in black costumes... In [many versions], Lucifer and his confederate rebels, after having sinned, turn black.”
The journalist and cultural commentator John Strausbaugh places it as part of a tradition of "displaying Blackness for the enjoyment and edification of white viewers" that dates back at least to 1441, when captive West Africans were displayed in Portugal. White people routinely portrayed the black characters in the Elizabethan and Jacobean theater (see English Renaissance theatre), most famously in "Othello" (1604). However, "Othello" and other plays of this era did not involve the emulation and caricature of "such supposed innate qualities of Blackness as inherent musicality, natural athleticism", etc. that Strausbaugh sees as crucial to blackface.
A 2023 article appearing on the National Museum of African American History and Culture website, asserts that the birth of blackface is attributable to class warfare: Historian Dale Cockrell once noted that poor and working-class whites who felt “squeezed politically, economically, and socially from the top, but also from the bottom, invented minstrelsy” as a way of expressing the oppression that marked being members of the majority, but outside of the white norm.By objectifying formerly enslaved people through demeaning, humor-inducing stock caricatures, "comedic performances of 'blackness' by whites in exaggerated costumes and make-up, [could not] be separated fully from the racial derision and stereotyping at its core". This process of "thingification" has been written about by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, "The whole idea of a stereotype is to simplify", and by Aimé Césaire, "Césaire revealed over and over again the colonizers’ sense of superiority and their sense of mission as the world’s civilizers, a mission that depended on turning the Other into barbarians".
History within the United States.
Blackface was a performance tradition in the American theater for roughly 100 years beginning around 1830. It was practiced in Britain as well, surviving longer than in the U.S.; "The Black and White Minstrel Show" on television lasted until 1978.
In both the United States and Britain, blackface was most commonly used in the minstrel performance tradition, which it both predated and outlasted. 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. According to a 1901 source: "Be careful to get the black even around the eyes and mouth. Leave the lips just as they are, they will appear red to the audience. Comedians leave a wide white space all around the lips. It makes the mouth appear larger and will look red as the lips do. If you wish to represent an old darkey, use white drop chalk, outlining the eyebrows, chin, whisk- ers or a gray beard." Later, black artists also performed in blackface. 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.
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. In some quarters, the caricatures that were the legacy of blackface persist to the present day and are a cause of ongoing controversy. 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".
By the mid-20th century, changing attitudes about race and racism effectively ended the prominence of blackface makeup used in performance in the U.S. and elsewhere. Blackface in contemporary art remains in relatively limited use as a theatrical device; today, it is more commonly used as social commentary or satire. 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'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.
19th century.
Lewis Hallam, Jr., a white blackface actor of American Company fame, brought blackface in this more specific sense to prominence as a theatrical device in the United States when playing the role of "Mungo", an inebriated black man in "The Padlock", a British play that premiered in New York City at the John Street Theatre on May 29, 1769. The play attracted notice, and other performers adopted the style. From at least the 1810s, blackface clowns were popular in the United States. British actor Charles Mathews toured the U.S. in 1822–23, and as a result added a "black" characterization to his repertoire of British regional types for his next show, "A Trip to America", which included Mathews singing "Possum up a Gum Tree", a popular slave freedom song. Edwin Forrest played a plantation black in 1823, and George Washington Dixon was already building his stage career around blackface in 1828, but it was another white comic actor, Thomas D. Rice, who truly popularized blackface. Rice introduced the song "Jump Jim Crow", accompanied by a dance, in his stage act in 1828, and scored stardom with it by 1832.
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />First on de heel tap, den on the toeEvery time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow.I wheel about and turn about an do just so,And every time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow.
Rice traveled the U.S., performing under the stage name "Daddy Jim Crow". The name "Jim Crow" later became attached to statutes that codified the reinstitution of segregation and discrimination after Reconstruction.
In the 1830s and early 1840s, blackface performances mixed skits with comic songs and vigorous dances. Initially, Rice and his peers performed only in relatively disreputable venues, but as blackface gained popularity they gained opportunities to perform as "entr'actes" in theatrical venues of a higher class. Stereotyped blackface characters developed: buffoonish, lazy, superstitious, cowardly, and lascivious characters, who stole, lied pathologically, and mangled the English language. Early blackface minstrels were all male, so cross-dressing white men also played black women who were often portrayed as unappealingly and grotesquely mannish, in the matronly mammy mold, or as highly sexually provocative. The 1830s American stage, where blackface first rose to prominence, featured similarly comic stereotypes of the clever Yankee and the larger-than-life Frontiersman; the late 19th- and early 20th-century American and British stage where it last prospered featured many other, mostly ethnically-based, comic stereotypes: conniving Jews; drunken brawling Irishmen with blarney; oily Italians; stodgy Germans; and gullible rural people.
1830s and early 1840s blackface performers performed solo or as duos, with the occasional trio; the traveling troupes that would later characterize blackface minstrelsy arose only with the minstrel show. In New York City in 1843, Dan Emmett and his Virginia Minstrels broke blackface minstrelsy loose from its novelty act and "entr'acte" status and performed the first full-blown minstrel show: an evening's entertainment composed entirely of blackface performance. (E. P. Christy did more or less the same, apparently independently, earlier the same year in Buffalo, New York.) Their loosely structured show with the musicians sitting in a semicircle, a tambourine player on one end and a bones player on the other, set the precedent for what would soon become the first act of a standard three-act minstrel show. By 1852, the skits that had been part of blackface performance for decades expanded to one-act farces, often used as the show's third act.
In the 1870s the actress Carrie Swain began performing in minstrel shows alongside her husband, the acrobat and blackface performer Sam Swain. It is possible that she was the first woman performer to appear in blackface. Theatre scholar Shirley Staples stated, "Carrie Swain may have been the first woman to attempt the acrobatic comedy typical of male blackface work." She later portrayed the blackface role of Topsy in a musical adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe anti-slavery novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by composer Caryl Florio and dramatist H. Wayne Ellis. It premiered at the Chestnut Street Opera House in Philadelphia on May 22, 1882.
The songs of Northern composer Stephen Foster figured prominently in blackface minstrel shows of the period. Though written in dialect and politically incorrect by modern standards, his later songs were free of the ridicule and blatantly racist caricatures that typified other songs of the genre. Foster's works treated slaves and the South in general with sentimentality that appealed to audiences of the day.
White minstrel shows featured white performers pretending to be black people, playing their versions of 'black music' and speaking ersatz black dialects. Minstrel shows dominated popular show business in the U.S. from that time through into the 1890s, also enjoying massive popularity in the UK and in other parts of Europe. As the minstrel show went into decline, blackface returned to its novelty act roots and became part of vaudeville. Blackface featured prominently in film at least into the 1930s, and the "aural blackface" of the "Amos 'n' Andy" radio show lasted into the 1950s. Meanwhile, amateur blackface minstrel shows continued to be common at least into the 1950s. In the UK, one such blackface popular in the 1950s was Ricardo Warley from Alston, Cumbria who toured around the North of England with a monkey called Bilbo.
As a result, the genre played an important role in shaping perceptions of and prejudices about black people generally and African Americans in particular. Some social commentators have stated that blackface provided an outlet for white peoples' fear of the unknown and the unfamiliar, and a socially acceptable way of expressing their feelings and fears about race and control. Writes Eric Lott in "Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class": "The black mask offered a way to play with the collective fears of a degraded and threatening – and male – Other while at the same time maintaining some symbolic control over them."
Blackface, at least initially, could also give voice to an oppositional dynamic that was prohibited by society. As early as 1832, Thomas D. Rice was singing: "An' I caution all white dandies not to come in my way, / For if dey insult me, dey'll in de gutter lay." It also on occasion equated lower-class white and lower-class black audiences; while parodying Shakespeare, Rice sang, "Aldough I'm a black man, de white is call'd my broder."
20th century.
In the early years of film, black characters were routinely played by white people in blackface. In the first filmic adaptation of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1903), all of the major black roles were white people in blackface. Even the 1914 "Uncle Tom" starring African-American actor Sam Lucas in the title role had a white male in blackface as Topsy. D. W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" (1915) used white people in blackface to represent all of its major black characters, but reaction against the film's racism largely put an end to this practice in dramatic film roles. Thereafter, white people in blackface would appear almost exclusively in broad comedies or "ventriloquizing" blackness in the context of a vaudeville or minstrel performance within a film. This stands in contrast to made-up white people routinely playing Native Americans, Asians, Arabs, and so forth, for several more decades.
From the 1910s up until the early 1950s, many well-known entertainers of stage and screen also performed in blackface. Light-skinned people who performed in blackface in film included Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Buster Keaton, Joan Crawford, Irene Dunne, Doris Day, Milton Berle, William Holden, Marion Davies, Myrna Loy, Betty Grable, Dennis Morgan, Laurel and Hardy, Betty Hutton, The Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers, Mickey Rooney, Shirley Temple, Judy Garland, Donald O'Connor and Chester Morris and George E. Stone in several of the "Boston Blackie" films. In 1936, when Orson Welles was touring his "Voodoo Macbeth"; the lead actor, Maurice Ellis, fell ill, so Welles stepped into the role, performing in blackface.
As late as the 1940s, Warner Bros. used blackface in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942), a minstrel show sketch in "This Is the Army" (1943) and by casting Flora Robson as a Haitian maid in "Saratoga Trunk" (1945). In "The Spoilers" (1942), John Wayne appeared in blackface and bantered in a mock accent with a black maid who mistook him for an authentic black man.
In "Holiday Inn," Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds sang “Abraham,” a song honoring Lincoln’s birthday, in shoe-polish blackface. The band behind them and the waiters were also in blackface.
Blackface makeup was largely eliminated even from live-action film comedy in the U.S. after the end of the 1930s, when public sensibilities regarding race were beginning to change and blackface became increasingly associated with racism and bigotry.
Still, the tradition did not end all at once. The radio program "Amos 'n' Andy" (1928–1960) constituted a type of "oral blackface", in that the black characters were portrayed by white people and conformed to stage blackface stereotypes. The conventions of blackface also lived on unmodified at least into the 1950s in animated theatrical cartoons. Strausbaugh estimates that roughly one-third of late 1940s MGM cartoons "included a blackface, coon, or mammy figure". Bugs Bunny appeared in blackface at least as late as "Southern Fried Rabbit" in 1953.
Singer Grace Slick was wearing blackface when her band Jefferson Airplane performed "Crown of Creation" and "Lather" at "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" in 1968. A clip is included in a 2004 documentary "Fly Jefferson Airplane", directed by Bob Sarles.
The 1976 action comedy "Silver Streak" included a farcical scene in which Gene Wilder must impersonate a black man, as instructed by Richard Pryor. In 1980, an underground film, "Forbidden Zone", was released, directed by Richard Elfman and starring the band Oingo Boingo, which received controversy for blackface sequences.
Also in 1980, the white members of UB40 appeared in blackface in their "Dream a Lie" video, while the black members appeared in whiteface to give the opposite appearance.
"Trading Places" (1983) is a film telling the elaborate story of a commodities banker and street hustler crossing paths after being made part of a bet. The film features a scene between Eddie Murphy, Jamie Lee Curtis, Denholm Elliott, and Dan Aykroyd when they must don disguises to enter a train. Aykroyd's character puts on full blackface make-up, a dreadlocked wig and a Jamaican accent to fill the position of a Jamaican pothead. The film, being an obvious satire, has received little criticism for its use of racial and ethnic stereotype due to it mocking the ignorance of Aykroyd's character rather than black people as a whole, with Rotten Tomatoes citing it as "featuring deft interplay between Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, "Trading Places" is an immensely appealing social satire".
"Soul Man" is a 1986 film featuring C. Thomas Howell as Mark Watson, a pampered rich white college graduate who uses "tanning pills" to qualify for a scholarship to Harvard Law only available to African American students. He expects to be treated as a fellow student and instead learns the isolation of 'being black' on campus. He later befriends and falls in love with the original candidate of the scholarship, a single mother who works as a waitress to support her education. He later "comes out" as white, leading to the famous defending line: "Can you blame him for the color of his skin?" Unlike "Trading Places", the film was met with heavy criticism of a white man donning blackface to humanize white ignorance at the expense of African American viewers. Despite a large box office intake, it has scored low on every film critic platform. "A white man donning blackface is taboo," said Howell; "Conversation over – you can't win. But our intentions were pure: We wanted to make a funny movie that had a message about racism."
Parades.
In the early 20th century, a group of African American laborers began a marching club in the New Orleans Mardi Gras parade, dressed as hobos and calling themselves "The Tramps". Wanting a flashier look, they renamed themselves "Zulus" and copied their costumes from a blackface vaudeville skit performed at a local black jazz club and cabaret. The result is one of the best known and most striking krewes of Mardi Gras, the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club. Dressed in grass skirts, top hat and exaggerated makeup, the Zulus of New Orleans are controversial as well as popular. The group has, since the 1960s, argued that the black and white makeup they continue to wear is not blackface.
The wearing of blackface was once a regular part of the annual Mummers Parade in Philadelphia. Growing dissent from civil rights groups and the offense of the black community led to a 1964 city policy, ruling out blackface. Despite the ban on blackface, brownface was still used in the parade in 2016 to depict Mexicans, causing outrage once again among civil rights groups. Also in 1964, bowing to pressure from the interracial group Concern, teenagers in [[Norfolk, Connecticut</a>], reluctantly agreed to discontinue using blackface in their traditional minstrel show that was a fundraiser for the [[March of Dimes]].
21st century.
[[File:Bamboozled (2000 film) poster.jpg|upright|thumb|Poster for [[Spike Lee]]'s movie "[[Bamboozled]]" (2000)]]
Commodities bearing iconic "darky" images, from tableware, soap and toy marbles to home accessories and T-shirts, continue to be manufactured and marketed. Some are reproductions of historical [[Cultural artifact|artifacts]] ("[[wikt:negrobilia|negrobilia]]"), while others are designed for today's marketplace ("fantasy"). There is a thriving [[niche market]] for such items in the U.S., particularly. The value of the original examples of darky iconography (vintage negrobilia [[collectable]]s) has risen steadily since the 1970s.
There have been several inflammatory incidents of white college students donning blackface. Such incidents usually escalate around [[Halloween]], with students accused of perpetuating racial stereotypes.
In 1998, [[Harmony Korine]] released "[[The Diary of Anne Frank Pt II]]", a 40-minute three-screen collage featuring a man in blackface dancing and singing "[[My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean]]".
Blackface and minstrelsy serve as the theme of African American director [[Spike Lee]]'s film "[[Bamboozled]]" (2000). It tells of a disgruntled black television executive who reintroduces the old blackface style in a series concept in an attempt to get himself fired and is instead horrified by its success.
In 2000, [[Jimmy Fallon]] performed in blackface on "[[Saturday Night Live]]", imitating former cast member [[Chris Rock]]. That same year, [[Harmony Korine]] directed the short film "Korine Tap" for "Stop For a Minute", a series of short films commissioned by [[Dazed & Confused (Magazine)|Dazed & Confused]] magazine and FilmFour Lab. The film featured Korine tap dancing while wearing blackface.
[[Jimmy Kimmel]] donned black paint and used an exaggerated, accented voice to portray [[National Basketball Association|NBA]] player [[Karl Malone]] on "[[The Man Show]]" in 2003. Kimmel repeatedly impersonated the NBA player on "The Man Show" and even made an appearance on [[Crank Yankers]] using his exaggerated [[African-American Vernacular English|Ebonics/African-American Vernacular English]] to prank call about [[Beanie Babies]].
In November 2005, controversy erupted when journalist [[Steve Gilliard]] posted a photograph on his blog. The image was of African American [[Michael Steele]], a politician, then a candidate for [[United States Senate|U.S. Senate]]. It had been doctored to include bushy, white eyebrows and big, red lips. The caption read, "I's simple [[Sambo (racial term)|Sambo]] and I's running for the big house." Gilliard, also African-American, defended the image, commenting that the politically conservative Steele has "refused to stand up for his people". (See .)
In a 2006 reality television program, "[[Black. White.]]", white participants wore blackface makeup and black participants wore whiteface makeup in an attempt to be better able to see the world through the perspective of the other race.
In 2007, [[Sarah Silverman]] performed in blackface for a skit from "[[The Sarah Silverman Program]]".
"[[A Mighty Heart (film)|A Mighty Heart]]" is a 2007 American film featuring [[Angelina Jolie]] playing [[Mariane Pearl]], the wife of the kidnapped "[[The Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]]" reporter [[Daniel Pearl]]. Mariane is of multiracial descent, born from an Afro-Chinese-Cuban mother and a Dutch Jewish father. She personally cast Jolie to play herself, defending the choice to have Jolie "sporting a spray tan and a corkscrew wig". Criticism of the film came in large part for the choice to have Jolie portraying Mariane Pearl in this manner. Defense of the casting choice was in large part due to Pearl's mixed racial heritage, critics claiming it would have been impossible to find an Afro-Latina actress with the same crowd-drawing caliber of Jolie. Director [[Michael Winterbottom]] defended his casting choice in an interview, "To try and find a French actress who's half-Cuban, quarter-Chinese, half-Dutch who speaks great English and could do that part better - I mean, if there had been some more choices, I might have thought, 'Why don't we use that person?'...I don't think there would have been anyone better".
A 2008 imitation of [[Barack Obama]] by American comedian [[Fred Armisen]] (of German, Korean, and Venezuelan descent) on the popular television program "[[Saturday Night Live]]" caused some stir, with "[[The Guardian]]"'s commentator asking why "SNL" did not hire an additional black actor to do the sketch; the show had only one black cast member at the time.
Also in 2008, [[Robert Downey Jr.]]'s character Kirk Lazarus appeared in [[brownface]] in the [[Ben Stiller]]-directed film "[[Tropic Thunder]]". As with "Trading Places", the intent was satire; specifically, blackface was ironically employed to humorously mock one of the many [[:Category:Entertainment scandals|foibles of Hollywood]] rather than black people themselves. Downey was even nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal. According to Downey, "90 per cent of my black friends were like, 'Dude, that was great.' I can't disagree with [the other 10 per cent], but I know where my heart lies."
Once more in 2008, comedian [[Frank Caliendo]], who is well known for his [[Impressionist (entertainment)|impressions]], used blackface to do an impression of former NBA player and sports analyst [[Charles Barkley]]. Caliendo defended his use of blackface by comparing it positively to [[Ted Danson]]'s infamous use of it in 1993 at a [[New York Friars Club|Friars]] [[Roast (comedy)|Roast]], which Caliendo said was "the wrong thing to do".
In the November 2010 episode "[[List of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episodes#Season 6 (2010)|Dee Reynolds: Shaping America's Youth]]", the TV show "[[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]]" comically explored if blackface could ever be done "right". One of the characters, Frank Reynolds insists that [[Laurence Olivier]]'s blackface performance in [[Othello (1965 British film)|his 1965 production of "Othello"]] was not offensive, while Dennis claimed it "distasteful" and "never okay". In the same episode, the gang shows their [[fan film]], "[[Lethal Weapon]] 5", in which the character Mac appears in blackface. In the season 9 episode "The Gang make Lethal Weapon 6", Mac once again dons black make-up, along with Dee, who plays his character's daughter in the film. Later in the series, the episode "[[The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 7|The Gang Makes "Lethal Weapon 7"]]" addresses the topic again along with the removal of their films from the library.
A 2012 [[Popchips]] commercial showing actor [[Ashton Kutcher]] with brown make-up on his face impersonating a stereotypical Indian person generated controversy and was eventually pulled by the company after complaints of racism. In the TV series "[[Mad Men]]", set in the 1960s in New York City, the character [[Roger Sterling]] appears in blackface in the season 3 episode "My Old Kentucky Home". [[Julianne Hough]] attracted controversy in October 2013 when she donned blackface as part of a Halloween costume depicting the character of "Crazy Eyes" from "[[Orange Is the New Black]]". Hough later apologized, stating on Twitter: "I realize my costume hurt and offended people and I truly apologize."
[[Billy Crystal]] impersonated [[Sammy Davis Jr.]] in the [[84th Academy Awards|2012 Oscars]] opening montage. The scene depicts Crystal in black face-paint wearing an oiled wave wig while talking to [[Justin Bieber]]. In the scene Crystal leaves a parting remark to Bieber, "Have fun storming the [[Führer]]", a poor association to his famous line in "[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]", "Have fun storming the castle".
The skit was remarked as poor taste, considering he was chosen as the "safer" choice after [[Eddie Murphy]] bowed out following producer and creative partner [[Brett Ratner]]'s homophobic remarks.
[[Victoria Foyt]] was accused of using blackface in the trailer for her [[Young adult fiction|young adult]] novel "[[Save the Pearls: Revealing Eden]]" as well as in the book and its artwork.
Performer [[Chuck Knipp]] (who is white and gay) has used drag, blackface, and broad racial caricature to portray a character named "Shirley Q. Liquor" in his cabaret act, generally performed for all-white audiences. Knipp's outrageously stereotypical character has drawn criticism and prompted demonstrations from Black, Gay and [[transgender]] activists.
The [[Metropolitan Opera]], based in New York City, used blackface in productions of the opera "[[Otello]]" until 2015, though some have argued that the practice of using dark makeup for the character did not qualify as blackface.
On February 1, 2019, images from [[Governor of Virginia]] [[Ralph Northam]]'s medical school yearbook were published on the far-right website "[[Big League Politics]]". The photos showed an image of Northam in blackface and an unidentified person in a [[Ku Klux Klan]] hood on Northam's page in the yearbook. A spokesman for [[Eastern Virginia Medical School]] confirmed that the image appeared in its 1984 yearbook. Shortly after the news broke, Northam apologized for appearing in the photo.
Blackface performances are not unusual within the Latino community of Miami. As Spanish-speakers from different countries, ethnic, racial, class, and educational backgrounds settle in the United States, they have to grapple with being re-classified vis-a-vis other American-born and immigrant groups. Blackface performances have, for instance, tried to work through U.S. racial and ethnic classifications in conflict with national identities. A case in point is the representation of Latino and its popular embodiment as a stereotypical Dominican man.
In the wake of [[George Floyd protests|protests over the treatment of African-Americans]] following the [[murder of George Floyd]] in 2020, episodes of popular television programs featuring characters in blackface were pulled from circulation. This includes "[[The Golden Girls]]", "[[The Office (American TV series)|The Office]]", "[[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]]", "[[30 Rock]]", "[[Community (TV series)|Community]]", and "[[Scrubs (TV series)|Scrubs]]", among others.
Stunt doubles.
White men are the main source of stunt doubles in American TV and film productions. The practice of a male performer portraying standing-in for a female actor is known as "wigging". When the stunt performer is made up to look like another race, the practice is called a "paint down". Stunt performers [[Janeshia Adams-Ginyard]] and Sharon Schaffer have equated it in 2018 with blackface minstrelsy.
Digital media.
Digital media provide opportunities to inhabit and perform Black identity without actually painting one's face, which, in a way, some critics have likened to blackface and minstrelsy. In 1999, Adam Clayton Powell III coined the term "high-tech blackface" to refer to stereotypical portrayals of [[List of black video game characters|black characters in video games]]. David Leonard writes, "The desire to 'be Black' because of the stereotypical visions of strength, athleticism, power and sexual potency all play out within the virtual reality of sports games." Leonard's argument suggests that players perform a type of [[identity tourism]] by controlling Black avatars in sports games. Phillips and Reed argue that this type of blackface "is not only about whites assuming Black roles, nor about exaggerated performances of blackness for the benefit of a racist audience. Rather, it is about performing a version of blackness that constrains it within the boundaries legible to [[white supremacy]]."
In addition, writers such as [[Lauren Michele Jackson]], Victoria Princewill and [[Shafiqah Hudson]] criticized non-Black people sharing animated images, or [[GIF]]s, of Black people or Black-skinned [[emoji]]s, calling the practice "digital blackface". Writers [[Amanda Hess#The New York Times|Amanda Hess]] and Shane O'Neill have elaborated on their work, pointing out that GIFs of women of color, in particular, have been most frequently used to express user's emotions online. Hess and O'Neill also suggest that the emoji app [[Bitstrips|Bitmoji]] uses "black emotional reactions and verbal expressions" and designs them to fit non-Black bodies and faces. Writer [[Manuel Arturo Abreu]] refers to this phenomenon as "online imagined Black English", where non-Black users engage in [[African-American Vernacular English|African American Vernacular English]], or AAVE, on the internet without understanding the full context of the particular phrase being used.
Following these critiques, the term "digital blackface" has since evolved with the rise of other social media and digital media technologies. In 2020, writer Francesa Sobande wrote on the digital representations of Black people, defining digital blackface as "encompassing online depictions and practices that echo the anti-Black underpinnings of [[Minstrel show|minstrelsy shows]] involving non-Black people 'dressing up' and 'performing' as though they are Black". Sobande's argument suggests that this acts as a "digital expression of the oppression that Black people face" outside of the internet, where they can be viewed as an objectified type of "[[Commodity#Commodification of labor|commodity or labor tool]]".
Since the criticisms made by these writers, instances of digital blackface have varied in type across the internet. In 2016, a controversy emerged over social media app [[Snapchat]]'s [[Bob Marley]] filter, which allowed users to superimpose dark skin, dreadlocks, and a knitted cap over their own faces. A number of controversies have also emerged about students at American universities sharing images of themselves appearing to wear blackface makeup. In 2020, two high school students in Georgia were expelled after posting a "racially insensitive" [[TikTok]] video that used racial slurs and [[Stereotypes of African Americans|stereotypes]] about Black people.
Senior writer [[Jason Parham]] suggests that the social media app [[TikTok]], and its [[TikTok#Viral trends|viral trends and challenges]], has become a new medium for 21st century minstrelsy. Parham argues that "unlike Facebook and Twitter, where instances of digital blackface are either text-based or image-based, TikTok is a video-first platform" where "creators embody Blackness with an auteur-driven virtuosity—taking on Black rhythms, gestures, affect, slang". Examples of these controversial trends and challenges have included "the Hot Cheeto Girl", which is said to mimic [[stereotype]]s of Black and Latin women, the "#HowsMyForm" challenge, which plays on racist stereotypes of Black people and other racial groups, and other perceived instances of [[cultural appropriation]], such as "[[blackfishing]]".
In 2021, conversation around digital blackface gained further traction after [[Oprah Winfrey]]'s interview with [[Meghan, Duchess of Sussex|Meghan Markle]] and [[Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex|Prince Harry]], where Winfrey's reactions during the interview began to circulate the internet in the form of [[meme]]s. A widespread [[Instagram]] post by the Slow Factory Foundation, an activist group founded by [[Céline Semaan Vernon]], calling attention to digital blackface led to many critiques and criticisms about whether or not it was appropriate for non-Black people to continue sharing these images of Winfrey.
Universities.
In 2021, music professor [[Bright Sheng]] [[Bright Sheng#Blackface controversy (2021)|stepped down from teaching]] a [[University of Michigan]] [[musical composition]] class, where he says he had intended to show how [[Giuseppe Verdi]] adapted [[William Shakespeare]]'s play "[[Othello]]" into his opera "[[Otello]]", after showing the [[Othello (1965 British film)|1965 British movie "Othello"]], whose actors received 4 [[38th Academy Awards|Oscar nominations]], but in which the white actor [[Laurence Olivier]] played [[Othello (character)|Othello]] in blackface, which caused controversy even at the time. Sheng allegedly failed to give students any warning that the movie contained blackface, and his two subsequent apologies failed to satisfy his critics, with the wording of the second one causing further controversy. There was disagreement over whether showing the blackface performance constituted racism. Evan Chambers, a professor of composition (as is Sheng), said "To show the film now, especially without substantial framing, content advisory and a focus on its inherent racism is in itself a racist act, regardless of the professor's intentions", while David Gier, dean of the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, said: "Professor Sheng's actions do not align with our School's commitment to anti-racist action, diversity, equity and inclusion" But Robert Soave, a senior editor at "[[Reason (magazine)|Reason]]" magazine, said that the university had violated the principle of [[academic freedom]], that showing the movie was neither a racist act nor approval of racism, and that the university owed Sheng an apology for unfairly maligning him, and he compared it to Sheng's earlier experience of surviving the Chinese [[Cultural Revolution]].
Black performers in blackface.
[[File:Hotmikado.jpg|left|thumb|upright|A poster for the 1939 [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] show "[[The Hot Mikado (1939 production)|The Hot Mikado]]" using blackface imagery]]
19th century.
By 1840, black performers also were performing in blackface makeup. [[Frederick Douglass]] generally abhorred blackface and was one of the first people to write against the institution of blackface minstrelsy, condemning it as racist in nature, with inauthentic, northern, white origins. Douglass did, however, maintain: "It is something to be gained when the colored man in any form can appear before a white audience."
When all-black minstrel shows began to proliferate in the 1860s, they often were billed as "authentic" and "the real thing". These "colored minstrels" always claimed to be recently freed slaves (doubtlessly many were, but most were not) and were widely seen as authentic. This presumption of authenticity could be a bit of a trap, with white audiences seeing them more like "animals in a zoo" than skilled performers. Despite often smaller budgets and smaller venues, their public appeal sometimes rivaled that of white minstrel troupes. In March 1866, Booker and Clayton's Georgia Minstrels may have been the country's most popular troupe, and were certainly among the most critically acclaimed.
These "colored" troupes – many using the name "Georgia Minstrels" – focused on "plantation" material, rather than the more explicit social commentary (and more nastily racist stereotyping) found in portrayals of northern black people. In the execution of authentic black music and the [[percussion instrument|percussive]], [[polyrhythm]]ic tradition of "[[Juba dance|pattin' Juba]]", when the only [[musical instrument|instruments]] performers used were their hands and feet, clapping and slapping their bodies and shuffling and stomping their feet, black troupes particularly excelled. One of the most successful black minstrel companies was [[Sam Hague]]'s Slave Troupe of Georgia Minstrels, managed by [[Charles Hicks]]. This company eventually was taken over by [[Charles Callender|Charles Callendar]]. The Georgia Minstrels toured the United States and abroad and later became [[J. H. Haverly|Haverly's Colored Minstrels]].
From the mid-1870s, as white blackface minstrelsy became increasingly lavish and moved away from "Negro subjects", black troupes took the opposite tack. The popularity of the [[Fisk Jubilee Singers]] and other "jubilee singers" had demonstrated northern white interest in white religious music as sung by black people, especially [[spirituals]]. Some jubilee troupes pitched themselves as quasi-minstrels and even incorporated minstrel songs; meanwhile, blackface troupes began to adopt first jubilee material and then a broader range of southern black religious material. Within a few years, the word "jubilee", originally used by the Fisk Jubilee Singers to set themselves apart from blackface minstrels and to emphasize the religious character of their music, became little more than a synonym for "plantation" material. Where the jubilee singers tried to "clean up" Southern black religion for white consumption, blackface performers exaggerated its more exotic aspects.
African-American blackface productions also contained buffoonery and comedy, by way of self-parody. In the early days of African-American involvement in theatrical performance, black people could not perform without blackface makeup, regardless of how dark-skinned they were. The 1860s "colored" troupes violated this convention for a time: the comedy-oriented endmen "corked up", but the other performers "astonished" commentators by the diversity of their hues. Still, their performances were largely in accord with established blackface stereotypes.
These black performers became stars within the broad African-American community, but were largely ignored or condemned by the [[African-American upper class|black bourgeoisie]]. [[James Monroe Trotter]]  – a middle-class African American who had contempt for their "disgusting caricaturing" but admired their "highly musical culture" – wrote in 1882 that "few ... who condemned black minstrels for giving 'aid and comfort to the enemy'" had ever seen them perform. Unlike white audiences, black audiences presumably always recognized blackface performance as caricature, but took pleasure in seeing their own culture observed and reflected, much as they would half a century later in the performances of [[Moms Mabley]].
Despite reinforcing racist stereotypes, blackface minstrelsy was a practical and often relatively lucrative livelihood when compared to the menial labor to which most black people were relegated. Owing to the discrimination of the day, "corking (or blacking) up" provided an often singular opportunity for African-American musicians, actors, and dancers to practice their crafts. Some minstrel shows, particularly when performing outside the South, also managed subtly to poke fun at the racist attitudes and double standards of white society or champion the [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] cause. It was through blackface performers, white and black, that the richness and exuberance of [[African-American music]], humor, and dance first reached mainstream, white audiences in the U.S. and abroad. It was through blackface minstrelsy that African American performers first entered the mainstream of American show business. Black performers used blackface performance to satirize white behavior. It was also a forum for the sexual [[double entendre]] gags that were frowned upon by white moralists. There was often a subtle message behind the outrageous vaudeville routines:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />The laughter that cascaded out of the seats was directed parenthetically toward those in America who allowed themselves to imagine that such 'nigger' showtime was in any way respective of the way we live or thought about ourselves in the real world.
[[File:Bert Williams blackface 2.jpg|thumb|right|[[Bert Williams]] was the only black member of the [[Ziegfeld Follies]] when he joined them in 1910. Shown here in blackface, he was the highest-paid African American entertainer of his day.]]
20th century.
With the rise of vaudeville, [[The Bahamas|Bahamian]]-born actor and comedian [[Bert Williams]] became [[Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.|Florenz Ziegfeld]]'s highest-paid star and only African American star.
In the [[Theatre Owners Booking Association|Theater Owners Booking Association]] (TOBA), an all-black vaudeville circuit organized in 1909, blackface acts were a popular staple. Called "Toby" for short, performers also nicknamed it "Tough on Black Actors" (or, variously, "Artists" or "Asses"), because earnings were so meager. Still, TOBA headliners like [[Tim Moore (comedian)|Tim Moore]] and Johnny Hudgins could make a very good living, and even for lesser players, TOBA provided fairly steady, more desirable work than generally was available elsewhere. Blackface served as a springboard for hundreds of artists and entertainers – black and white – many of whom later would go on to find work in other performance traditions. For example, one of the most famous stars of Haverly's European Minstrels was Sam Lucas, who became known as the "Grand Old Man of the [[Negro]] Stage". Lucas later played the title role in the 1914 cinematic production of [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]]'s "Uncle Tom's Cabin".
From the early 1930s to the late 1940s, New York City's famous [[Apollo Theater]] in [[Harlem]] featured skits in which almost all black male performers wore the blackface makeup and huge white painted lips, despite protests that it was degrading from the NAACP. The comics said they felt "naked" without it.
The minstrel show was appropriated by the black performer from the original white shows, but only in its general form. Black people took over the form and made it their own. The professionalism of performance came from black theater. Some argue that the black minstrels gave the shows vitality and humor that the white shows never had. As the black social critic [[Amiri Baraka|LeRoi Jones]] has written:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />It is essential to realize that ... the idea of white men imitating, or caricaturing, what they consider certain generic characteristics of the black man's life in America is important if only because of the Negro's reaction to it. (And it is the Negro's "reaction" to America, first white and then black and white America, that I consider to have made him such a unique member of this society.)
The black minstrel performer was not only poking fun at himself but in a more profound way, he was poking fun at the white man. The [[cakewalk]] is caricaturing white customs, while white theater companies attempted to satirize the cakewalk as a black dance. Again, as LeRoi Jones notes:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />
Puerto Rico.
During the 20th century, blackface was not an uncommon sight at parades in Puerto Rico. In 2019, when blackface was prominently featured at a carnival in [[San Sebastián, Puerto Rico]], the town immediately faced backlash and criticism.
Authenticity.
The degree to which blackface performance drew on authentic black culture and traditions is controversial. Black people, including slaves, were influenced by white culture, including white musical culture. Certainly this was the case with church music from very early times. Complicating matters further, once the blackface era began, some blackface minstrel songs unquestionably written by New York-based professionals (Stephen Foster, for example) made their way to the plantations in the South and merged into the body of black folk music.
It seems clear, however, that American music by the early 19th century was an interwoven mixture of many influences, and that blacks were quite aware of white musical traditions and incorporated these into their music.
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />
Early blackface minstrels often said that their material was largely or entirely authentic black culture; John Strausbaugh, author of "Black Like You", said that such claims were likely to be untrue. Well into the 20th century, scholars took the stories at face value. [[Constance Rourke]], one of the founders of what is now known as [[cultural studies]], largely assumed this as late as 1931. In the Civil Rights era there was a strong reaction against this view, to the point of denying that blackface was anything other than a white racist counterfeit. Starting no later than Robert Toll's "Blacking Up" (1974), a "third wave" has systematically studied the origins of blackface, and has put forward a nuanced picture: that blackface did, indeed, draw on black culture, but that it transformed, stereotyped, and caricatured that culture, resulting in often racist representations of black characters.
As discussed above, this picture becomes even more complicated after the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], when many blacks became blackface performers. They drew on much material of undoubted slave origins, but they also drew on a professional performer's instincts, while working within an established genre, and with the same motivation as white performers to make exaggerated claims of the authenticity of their own material.
Author Strausbaugh summed up as follows: "Some minstrel songs started as Negro folk songs, were adapted by White minstrels, became widely popular, and were readopted by Blacks." "The question of whether minstrelsy was white or black music was moot. It was a mix, a mutt – that is, it was American music."
[[File:Golliwogg1.jpg|right|thumb|[[Florence Kate Upton]]'s "[[Golliwog]]" in 1895, described as "a horrid sight, the blackest gnome". Note the formal minstrel attire.]]
"Darky" iconography.
[[File:Ronson figural lighter.jpg|thumb|right|This elaborate [[Art Deco]] [[Ronson (company)|Ronson]] tabletop cigarette lighter, made in 1936, is an example of an everyday consumer item rendered in classic darky iconographical style.]]
The darky icon itself – [[Googly eyes|googly-eyed]], with inky skin, exaggerated white, pink or red lips, and bright, white teeth – became a common motif in entertainment, children's literature, mechanical banks, and other toys and games of all sorts, [[cartoon]]s and [[comic strip]]s, advertisements, jewelry, textiles, postcards, sheet music, food branding and packaging, and other consumer goods.
In 1895, the [[Golliwog]] surfaced in Great Britain, the product of children's book illustrator [[Florence Kate Upton]], who modeled her rag doll character after a minstrel doll from her American childhood. "Golly", as he later affectionately came to be called, had a jet-black face, wild, woolly hair, bright, red lips, and sported formal minstrel attire. The generic British golliwog later made its way back across the Atlantic as dolls, toy tea sets, ladies' perfume, and in a myriad of other forms. The word "golliwog" may have given rise to the [[List of ethnic slurs|ethnic slur]] "[[wog]]".
[[File:1900s SM Coon Coon Coon.jpg|thumb|left|"Darky" iconography frequently adorned the covers of sheet music from the 1870s through the 1940s, but virtually disappeared by the 1950s.]]
[[File:Blackface todo list.jpg|thumb|Grocery list pegboard with a blackface graphic]]
U.S. cartoons from the 1930s and 1940s often featured characters in blackface gags as well as other racial and [[ethnic group|ethnic]] caricatures. The [[United Artists]] 1933 release "[[Mickey's Mellerdrammer]]" – the name a corruption of "[[melodrama]]" thought to harken back to the earliest minstrel shows – was a film short based on a production of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by the Disney characters. The advertising poster for the film shows Mickey with exaggerated, orange lips; bushy, white sidewhiskers.
[[File:Picaninny Freeze.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Cartoon of a small, naked, jet-black grinning child silhouetted against a full moon with exaggerated eyes and lips, holding a large frosty watermelon slice; text reads, "Eat Seeds '