When the actor Ted Danson appeared in blackface at a 1993 Friars
Club roast, he ignited a firestorm of protest that landed him on
the front pages of the newspapers, rebuked by everyone from talk
show host Montel Williams to New York City's then mayor, David
Dinkins. Danson's use of blackface was shocking, but was the
furious pitch of the response a triumphant indication of how far
society has progressed since the days when blackface performers
were the toast of vaudeville, or was it also an uncomfortable
reminder of how deep the chasm still is separating black and white
America?
In Racechanges: White Skin, Black Face in American Culture, Susan
Gubar, who fundamentally changed the way we think about women's
literature as co-author of the acclaimed The Madwoman in the Attic,
turns her attention to the incendiary issue of race. Through a
far-reaching exploration of the long overlooked legacy of
minstrelsy--cross-racial impersonations or
"racechanges"--throughout modern American film, fiction, poetry,
painting, photography, and journalism, she documents the
indebtedness of "mainstream" artists to African-American culture,
and explores the deeply conflicted psychology of white guilt. The
fascinating "racechanges" Gubar discusses include whites posing as
blacks and blacks "passing" for white; blackface on white actors in
The Jazz Singer, Birth of a Nation, and other movies, as well as on
the faces of black stage entertainers; African-American deployment
of racechange imagery during the Harlem Renaissance, including the
poetry of Anne Spencer, the black-and-white prints of Richard Bruce
Nugent, and the early work of Zora Neale Hurston; white poets and
novelists from Vachel Lindsay and Gertrude Stein to John Berryman
and William Faulkner writing as if they were black; white artists
and writers fascinated by hypersexualized stereotypes of black men;
and nightmares and visions of the racechanged baby. Gubar shows
that unlike African-Americans, who often are forced to adopt white
masks to gain their rights, white people have chosen racial
masquerades, which range from mockery and mimicry to an evolving
emphasis on inter-racial mutuality and mutability.
Drawing on a stunning array of illustrations, including paintings,
film stills, computer graphics, and even magazine morphings,
Racechanges sheds new light on the persistent pervasiveness of
racism and exciting aesthetic possibilities for lessening the
distance between blacks and whites.
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