LAist: Special Event Alert: The Jazz Singer

ill_mami

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 00:06:47 -0800

It's still (not) funny how the metaphor gets lost in all that racism. I guess it's easier for others to overlook this, casually or otherwise.

Josh Tate

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 18:48:05 -0800

It's actually a reference to Jewish performers hiding their heritage. The blackface in The Jazz Singer is a metaphor for that.

ill_mami

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 17:13:28 -0800

Is that kind of like my foot being central to an ass-beating? "blackface imagery...[as] an expressive and artistic exploration of the notion of duplicity and ethnic hybridity within American identity"? Right... That must be like all of those white actresses who played mulattos in movies such as "Imitation of Life" (the 1959 version) not wanting their Black heritage to be discovered since they were so adept at duplicity.

Josh Tate

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:00:04 -0800

Here's something about the use of blackface in The Jazz Singer from Corin Willis... ...in contrast to the racial jokes and innuendo brought out in its subsequent persistence in early sound film, blackface imagery in The Jazz Singer is at the core of the film's central theme, an expressive and artistic exploration of the notion of duplicity and ethnic hybridity within American identity. Of the more than seventy examples of blackface in early sound film 1927–53 that I have viewed (including the nine blackface appearances Jolson subsequently made), The Jazz Singer is unique in that it is the only film where blackface is central to the narrative development and thematic expression.

hellagnarcal

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:53:03 -0800

Of course, I mean the idiot students in blackface. Internet funnies are hard.

guest

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:52:54 -0800

Christ, who would sit through this thing today? Aawwwkward.

hellagnarcal

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:45:40 -0800

starring the Jena 6 players?