AHC: Minstrel Shows with... Dignity?

I was skimming through With Amusement For All the other day, reading the section on the Minstrel Show (during its pre-ACW heyday). What struck me about Ashby's description of the genre and its history is the similarities, both in (what this author considered) its appeal and in its controversies, to what we saw later with Jazz, Hip Hop, and numerous other musical genres:

1) it was rooted in black folk music
2) it was appropriated ("stolen" has been used often here) at a mass level, mainly, if not(?) entirely, for working class white audiences, who derived pleasure from letting loose and, at a subconscious level, "feeling black" (patrons of the genre at the time were called "negro white men") -- I can't help but think of Jazz and Rock and Roll there
3) a generally working class and populist social message (loosely defined) -- Ashby does a great job highlighting the anti-authority (be they bankers, Politicians, managers, or "dandies") that Jim Crow stood up to, much to the amusement of the rowdy audiences
4) it was, and to this day, was criticized for confirming black stereotypes and celebrating sloth and non-sobriety -- similar to how DuBois felt about Jazz, and Hip Hop was long considered to be (some, like Spike Lee in Bamboozled, made the comparison explicit)

Despite these similarities, where Jazz, Rock and Roll, Hip Hop, and just about all her music, went on to become influential and honorable parts of America's heritage and pop culture history, Minstrel Shows... well, in the end, they did not.

So where did the Minstrel Show go wrong, where the more honorable genres of American music went right? Put another way, is there a way without, in any way, curbing African American Civil Rights or general social equality of the present -- in fact, stronger here would be better -- for Minstrel Shows to evolve in such a way that they are (again, with present levels of racial progress) to be held in the same esteem as Jazz and Hip Hop are OTL?
 
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If you get civil rights in the same era as you get minstrel shows, they'll probably be looked as normal black culture.
 
Dropping the blackfaces and staying as a sort of clichés-stereotypes (in the er, 'mellower' sense, like a Your Generic Gangsta Rappers touring show started by Easy-E and NWA) show (of however good musical talents) would keep that alive more.

The key would be to make something corny and groans-inducing, but if at least faithfull in genericity, AND talented. Harlem Globetrotters style.
 
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If you get civil rights in the same era as you get minstrel shows, they'll probably be looked as normal black culture.

How late is "same era"? Would a more successful Reconstruction do the trick?

Dropping the blackfaces and staying as a sort of clichés-stereotypes (in the er, 'mellower' sense, like a Your Generic Gangsta Rappers touring show started by Easy-E and NWA) show (of however good musical talents) would keep that alive more.

The key would be to make something corny and groans-inducing, but if at least faithfull in genericity, AND talented. Harlem Globetrotters style.

Not sure I follow (though a big part is not quite grasping the word "genericity" -- dictionary.com is not much help here).
 
there WERE some Mistril Show composers who were abolotionist in sympathy, and wrote songs which be sympathetic to the plight of African-Americans. They just never became the dominant force in the genre. I just was reading a book which referenced them, actually; but its in my car, and so i can't list names at the moment. Tomorrow, I'll grab it, do a bit more research, and let you know.
 
Despite these similarities, where Jazz, Rock and Roll, Hip Hop, and just about all her music, went on to become influential and honorable parts of America's heritage and pop culture history, Minstrel Shows... well, in the end, they did not.

Well, Broadway and its style of musical show are descended in a pretty easy-to-follow line from minstrel shows, so I'd say they were extremely influential, even if nobody does think about the source material anymore.

The dynamics of power and race will affect these shows in almost any TL you try. Even a "dignified" show could be viewed in the wrong way by a White audience.

You might need to create a region of America where Blacks have a long history of living side by side with Whites on a more-or-less equal basis. Then have some kind of minstrelsy arise there.

I know that that the minstrel shows had some positive aspects and were seen as genuinely quality performances. But you only need to look at some of the promotional materials to see how far they were from "dignity."

c. 1875
640px-Callender%27s_Colored_Minstrels_plantation_scene.jpg


1900:
320px-Minstrel_PosterBillyVanWare_edit.jpg


1906:
320px-ImperialMinstrelsPostcard.jpg


Minstrelsy without ugly stereotypes would have been a very different thing.
 
Thought of this* commentary from years back -- "mocking and dehumanizing black people while appropriating [their] culture" is a very apt description of the minstrel show's problem. And it still makes me think the OP has an answer -- because the latter part (appropriation) is endemic to all American musical genres, and the former (mockery) is something just about all of them went through. Is the issue that minstrel shows alone mocked African Americans to the point of "dehumanization"? Or, perhaps, does the context of slavery ensure that anything but the most serious and uncritical sort of empathy necessarily have this effect?
there WERE some Mistril Show composers who were abolotionist in sympathy...

I'm actually still curious about this. Having trouble finding what it might be referring to, at the moment...

*germane part starts at 2:16
 
Thought of this* commentary from years back -- "mocking and dehumanizing black people while appropriating [their] culture" is a very apt description of the minstrel show's problem. And it still makes me think the OP has an answer -- because the latter part (appropriation) is endemic to all American musical genres, and the former (mockery) is something just about all of them went through. Is the issue that minstrel shows alone mocked African Americans to the point of "dehumanization"? Or, perhaps, does the context of slavery ensure that anything but the most serious and uncritical sort of empathy necessarily have this effect?


I'm actually still curious about this. Having trouble finding what it might be referring to, at the moment...

*germane part starts at 2:16

There were several named in a recently work on folk music in the Upper Midwest, I was reading recently. I need to head to work, but i will try to find the reference today. Mind you; the majority of Minstril Show music was horribly racist. But there does seem to have been some done with actual abolitionist sympathies in the pre-war era, and that were pro-freedmen in the post-war.
 
The only way you might remotely have such a genre with dignity would be if minstrel shows were embedded in the melodrama (such as plays inspired by "Uncle Tom's Cabin") popular at the time.

But, frankly, I see the prejudices of the era as just too deep to make the POD plausible.
 
I present Quint Snow!

What if someone with abolitionist sympathies tries to combat racist minstrel shows by creating a new character to complement/combat the character Jim Crow? The character could have a name like Quint Snow and where as Jim Crow is portrayed by a white man in blackface Quint Snow would be portrayed by a black man in whiteface! :eek: :DThen there could be plays showing Crow & Snow meeting and doing comedy together. If course anyone involved in such a play would come under attack by white supremacists:( but I think it would be an awesome way to combat racism with comedy and entertainment.
 
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