Are minstrel shows really dead?

[MattBaggins]

Cops
Bait Car
LockUp

Are these type of shows not just the modern day evolution of the minstrel show?

[Aristus]

1. Evidently.

In the mockumentary "CSA - The Confederate States of America" the film-makers posits a world in which the South won the Civil War. In modern CSA America, our show 'Cops' has become 'Runaways', in which the CBI, Confederate Bureau of Investigation, chases down and captures runaway slaves.

The faux 'promotion' of the show used footage very similar to those clips on 'Cops', showing bare-chested men being dragged out of houses, the trunks of cars, and other hiding places.

[arcane1]

3. That is truly a mind-blowing movie, too. I've seen it three times already.

It makes one feel uneasy, but it's supposed to. And yet manages to have plenty of humor too

[MattBaggins]

5. I must confess I have not seen it yet

Need to put that on my to see list.

[arcane1]

6. Yes, yes you do :)

It really is mind-blowing. And be sure to watch through the end credits, too!

[MattBaggins]

7. I remember a faux commercial from it for a fake insurance company

Saw it on you tube. My jaw was hitting the floor from all the morons who were defending it as a real commercial and saw nothing wrong with it.

[arcane1]

9. The commercials are amazing, as well as how it incorporates actual history and historical figures

I should just shut up about it now, so as not to spoil anything

[Aristus]

8. The film-maker also cleverly changes anything in our real world that has its origins in African-

American culture to reflect the world of the film, in which black culture is suppressed instead of celebrated.

As a result, the reggae song "Bad Boys" used for 'Cops', is transformed into a hillbilly song "Run, Boy", played on banjo, mouth harp, and fiddle, accompanied by mountain harmonies. It even includes the lyric "Whatcha gonna do?"

[Bucky]

2. Entirely different intent. Those shows are more like the Roman circuses

ymmv, but the purpose of minstrel shows was never to reinforce social fears and build cultural wall. I mean, they weren't building bridges either, but it was the callous output of a far more self-secure society rather than the profit-by-fear sociopathy of today's television. Like all pop cultural artifacts, they're there to reinforce a societal myth, but the roots & motives just seem so far off.

[MattBaggins]

4. I considered the emotional aspect behind the show

and was why I considered it an evolution from the one to the other.

I do wish to point out that most of the people I know that actually like those crappy shows, find them a source of amusement and laugh at the people involved. For them it reinforces a concept of dehumanizing poor less educated people rather than a fear of them.

They redirect fear into something to be mocked. Is that not the gist of the early minstrel shows or am I wrong on that?

[Bucky]

11. Well, it's all pretty complex.

I've taught history for 11 years and thus studied a good bit of it along the way. I'm not familiar with any theories of minstrel shows evolving out of a need to neuter a fear of slave uprisings, althought I'd reckon somebody somewhere has tried to make that argument. I've seen arguments for the Scary Movie series, the comedy of Chris Rock, and even the NBA put forward as evolutions of the minstrel show, black entertainers entertaining white audiences, but none of those cases struck me as compelling parallels either. There's that same refrain among Wayne Brady's critics--but he's more the opposite, I think. He gets attacked for not conforming to a preset menu of "angry black man" tropes.

I was thinking of the core take-away from COPS as being "Criminals are fucking everywhere! Always side with the police!" while the mistrels served two very different purposes: 1) White audiences could, through the performers. vicariously experience and embrace qualifiedly positive aspects of black culture--sarcasm, joking, singing--in ways that reassured the dominant class of its place at the top of the heap. 2) However demeaning, it was still a kind of embracing blackness into the concept of Americanness, a de-otherizing of the Negro, just as increasing numbers worked or ran their ways out of slavery and into free society. It was a schizophrenic art form reflecting a schizophrenic social order.

You ask an interesting question.

[MattBaggins]

12. It's the dehumanizing bit that I was after

I never considered minstrel shows as allowing people to see a positive aspect of black culture. As they no longer exist I must admit I only know of them from the lens of modern history.

I dislike shows like Cops for me at least they seem to demean and dehumanize the people on the receiving end. People laugh at the crazy things the people will say and the crazy antics they engage in. Wow is it really a surprise that people faced by cops will display irrational behavior consistent with fear and anxiety? I don't understand how this funny.

[MiddleFingerMom]

10. "Cops" and (the VERY little I've seen of) "Bait Car" are like that...

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... but I happen to like "LockUp". It's very informative and, though it does focus on some of the worst aspects
of human nature and behavior, it also shows some very humanizing profiles of some pretty impressive
inmates.
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I think anyone watching it would come away with a better understanding of the fact that there's all sorts of
folks in prison.
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