A comment on race

[womzilla]

kip_w is working his way through a bargain-bin collection of motion picture musicals from the 30s and 40s, and recently reached an Amos and Andy film, Check and Double Check. ("Years later Gosden was quoted as calling Check and Double Check 'just about the worst movie ever.'", says the Wikipedia.) Kip's key sentence is "It would have been interesting to know what the black extras in the Mystic Knights of the Sea Lodge felt about standing behind poorly made-up Anglos saying stupid things in ridiculous accents."

One of the things which continues to amaze me about the world is that the radio show of Amos & Andy was quite popular among American blacks, to the point that Gosden and Correll, the white actors who played the eponymous characters on the radio, were honored by black organizations like the Chicago Urban League and the DuSable Club, and praised by black leaders like Roy Wilkins (later head of the NAACP).

My first roommate in college was black--a fellow named Maurice Parks, who attended Duke on a scholarship, and, unrelatedly, died a few years later from a chronic autoimmune disease. Mo would invariably watch the few black-populated sitcoms which were available, which at that time basically meant Good Times and What's Happenin'?. I hadn't realized before then that there were American blacks who were so starved for representations of people who looked like them that they'd actually watch What's Happenin'?, but it was so. In the years since, I've learned that, without fail, the top-rated TV shows among blacks are shows that have black main characters, while the top-rated TV shows among whites have primarily white main characters.

So, on some level, it's clearer in hindsight; blacks liked Amos & Andy because, stereotyped and ridiculous as it was, it was about people like them, acting, often, like people like them.

(By the way, sarah_ovenall, I think you and kip_w would enjoy reading each other's movie reviews.)

Comments

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Amos and Andy probably didn't give a much worse view of blacks than shows like My Little Margie did of whites.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I never heard the radio show, but your comment is certainly true of the TV show. I see white characters on sitcoms even today who remind me of various characters on the Amos and Andy show. Yes, Kingfish was a wheeler-dealer, Andy was a buffoon, Sapphire was sometimes a shrew, and Mama was a meddling MIL. And this was different from white sitcoms--how? Amos was a hard-working family man who kept his head in all situations and was often bemused by his friends Kingfish and Andy. These were middle-class black people living and working in a close-knit black community full of black businesses and black social groups, in an era when many white people didn't know that existed.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Despite the clamor that pretty much drove the Amos & Andy TV show off the air and into the video racks, from what I've heard, it was more sympathetic and less ludicrous than the radio show. They were small folks trying to make their way, probably not too different from Ralph Kramden et al (et Alice?).

I can remember when they used to show it, but I never watched it. I just have a vague impression of the end titles -- I wonder if it was on just before one of "my" shows? I mostly watched TV over at my friend Scott's house anyway, as we didn't have a working set through most of the 60s.

Thought You Might Like to Know

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

"Fans of the "Amos 'n' Andy" TV show might like to know about an early-60s ANIMATED tv show called "Calvin and the Colonel", which was the same show (by the same creators) in cartoon form, without the unfortunate racial baggage."

More here:


http://www.jumptheshark.com/a/amosnandy.htm

Re: Thought You Might Like to Know

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I've never seen Calvin & the Colonel. I have seen pictures of it and knew that it was an animated Amos & Andy. Sid Sackson's first published board game was High Spirits with Calvin and the Colonel, which was republished a number of times later with different themes.

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, most of the TV shows featuring black casts are pretty bad shows. An exception to this is the new sitcom, "Everybody Hates Chris." (Oops! I just typoed that as "everybody hates Christ.") I watch this sometimes. You probably know that it's based on Chris Rock's junior high days. It's pretty funny; it's got a good cast. But when you watch this, you get all the promos for the other shows on UPN. Most of the other sitcoms seem to have black casts as well, to the point where calimac", who is not much of a TV watcher, asked if UPN was a black network. The teasers they show for these other sitcoms are dreadful. They rely heavily on sexual innuendo and very heavy-handed cliches.

I suppose that, like the really bad white sitcoms, they have to fill the air time with something and they rely heavily on the better shows to lead into these lesser shows. You just wish that there were more better ones or, if they are there are you're not aware of them, that they get promoted better by the networks and the TV critics so that we viewers can watch them. If I hadn't read good things about "Everybody Hates Chris," I wouldn't have watched it. Several TV critics said it was very good so I turned it on.