Sunday, March 15, 2009
Amos and Andy
This clip is an interesting, yet offensive, exaggeration of African American culture in the 1930's. This video reminded me of the lack of Americanization for the African American in this time period. The depiction of the black man and the lack of attention to the black woman relates to Robin Kelley's article we read this week and the representation of women as objects to the men. The introduction of African Americans in to the media, especially cartoons, was an attempt to alter and define the boundaries between racial barriers and this cartoon begins to do this but is clearly unsuccessful in several ways. First of all, this cartoon is for a white audience and is clearly there for entertainment purposes. It is sad that despite the astounding response of African American participation in WWI, such strong racism still continued. More black men volunteered/enlisted in the war than the segregated units could handle so congress had to suspend black enlistment. It is shocking to me that these men would want to fight a war for the white man who is laughing while watching a cartoon such as Amos and Andy.
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I agree that this film clip is really ironic, especially for the time period when it was released. As black soldiers died in a war for a country which they thought would grant them rights, cartoons such as this, clearly aimed at perpetuating racism, were seen as humorous among casual white citizens. This was undoubtedly a time of extreme unfairness and hypocrisy in American culture.
ReplyDeleteI fully agree that this clip represents the overall struggles the African Americans have gone through in their struggle for equal rights. It undermines the efforts of African Americans as they gave their lives fighting for a country that refused to see them as equal citizens. This is a very racist video that represents just how hard it has been for non-white races of people to gain equalness in our country ruled by white Americans.
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