This is the second in what will be a series of attempts to explain what was right about Minstrel shows. I know, I know, it's an incendiary subject. But difficult issues are part of any genuine examination of virtue.
Here is a verse (there are many variations) from the song most of us know as "Careless Love".
The thing I want to hammer on here is that songs like this—and there were hundreds telling this basic story—were originally always sung by men. Yes, by men!
This is one of those things that needs explaining and, not surprisingly, lots of people have explained it. The most common explanation is a feminist one that the songs worked as a form of social control. Men sang these things to scare women into conforming to expected behaviours. There is probably something to that.
It breaks a little, though, if you listen to the actual songs. In "Careless Love", for example, the sympathy is entirely with the woman. These songs also added a certain glamour to what these women did.
The reason why songs like "Careless Love" were sung by men is that assuming a role, any role, is a dangerous thing because people will take you for the role you are playing. If you play the role of being an easy-going guy at work, for example, it won't make any difference that you actually work hard every day. People will assume you don't.
And thus the reason a woman couldn't sing a song like "Careless Love". (An aside, the problem with a lot of feminist explanations is not that they are "feminist" but that they are simply wrong; there is usually an equally feminist explanation that has the extra virtue of being right.)
Every culture needs a performance genre that allows actors to put on some sort of mask and freely assume roles. "Freely" meaning that role won't stick to them. A man singing "Careless Love" didn't worry that that role would stick to him. The roles in the Minstrel show—which included all sorts of impersonations including female impersonation—offered that freedom. My point here is not that there wasn't lots of racism in Minstrel shows. There was. But that wasn't all there was. In fact, virtually every aspect of modern American culture owes huge debts to the Minstrel show.
And we still need it because, oddly enough, when we separate the role from the performer as happens in the Minstrel show, those roles become public property. It is like putting ways of living beside one another in a store. You can sit in the dark and imagine yourself in these different roles. Like clothing on the rack at a store, the roles don't belong to anyone. They are there for you to take as your own.
That the roles are hollow caricatures is actually a strength in this regard. The more filled out, the less appropriate they are for wide use.
Don Draper—whether his creators realize this or not—does the same thing to a certain idea of male virtue. He didn't create the role. It was hanging around on the rack in the back because no one thought it had any attraction for modern buyers. And it is a bit of a hollow caricature.
It turns also out that it is a lot more appealing than anyone expected.
There is a challenge here, tough. He can't get too real. The role was only possible for an unknown like John Hamm. The guy himself has to remain anonymous because the second he gets too closely associated with the role, it will lose its usefulness. He seems to recognize this. He grows beards off season which has much the same effect as washing the blackface off.
Oh yeah, the role he is playing is derived from Mr, Interlocutor.
If you are joining me here, this series starts here.
The next post in the series is here.
Here is a verse (there are many variations) from the song most of us know as "Careless Love".
Once I wore my apron low,Now some things are obvious. Like the story: he loved her until he got her pregnant and then he disappeared. Not so obvious is that this song is of British origin. It's obviously been tweaked into a blues song along the line but we can see the British origins in the four line with threefold repetition rather than the three line with double repetition typical of the blues. But that's a subject for another day.
Once I wore my apron low,
Oh it's once I wore my apron low,
You'd follow me through rain and snow.
The thing I want to hammer on here is that songs like this—and there were hundreds telling this basic story—were originally always sung by men. Yes, by men!
This is one of those things that needs explaining and, not surprisingly, lots of people have explained it. The most common explanation is a feminist one that the songs worked as a form of social control. Men sang these things to scare women into conforming to expected behaviours. There is probably something to that.
It breaks a little, though, if you listen to the actual songs. In "Careless Love", for example, the sympathy is entirely with the woman. These songs also added a certain glamour to what these women did.
The reason why songs like "Careless Love" were sung by men is that assuming a role, any role, is a dangerous thing because people will take you for the role you are playing. If you play the role of being an easy-going guy at work, for example, it won't make any difference that you actually work hard every day. People will assume you don't.
And thus the reason a woman couldn't sing a song like "Careless Love". (An aside, the problem with a lot of feminist explanations is not that they are "feminist" but that they are simply wrong; there is usually an equally feminist explanation that has the extra virtue of being right.)
Every culture needs a performance genre that allows actors to put on some sort of mask and freely assume roles. "Freely" meaning that role won't stick to them. A man singing "Careless Love" didn't worry that that role would stick to him. The roles in the Minstrel show—which included all sorts of impersonations including female impersonation—offered that freedom. My point here is not that there wasn't lots of racism in Minstrel shows. There was. But that wasn't all there was. In fact, virtually every aspect of modern American culture owes huge debts to the Minstrel show.
And we still need it because, oddly enough, when we separate the role from the performer as happens in the Minstrel show, those roles become public property. It is like putting ways of living beside one another in a store. You can sit in the dark and imagine yourself in these different roles. Like clothing on the rack at a store, the roles don't belong to anyone. They are there for you to take as your own.
That the roles are hollow caricatures is actually a strength in this regard. The more filled out, the less appropriate they are for wide use.
Don Draper—whether his creators realize this or not—does the same thing to a certain idea of male virtue. He didn't create the role. It was hanging around on the rack in the back because no one thought it had any attraction for modern buyers. And it is a bit of a hollow caricature.
It turns also out that it is a lot more appealing than anyone expected.
There is a challenge here, tough. He can't get too real. The role was only possible for an unknown like John Hamm. The guy himself has to remain anonymous because the second he gets too closely associated with the role, it will lose its usefulness. He seems to recognize this. He grows beards off season which has much the same effect as washing the blackface off.
Oh yeah, the role he is playing is derived from Mr, Interlocutor.
If you are joining me here, this series starts here.
The next post in the series is here.
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