Blackface in Burlesque: Roots, Repeats and Resolutions
With blackface in burlesque under discussion again this week, Bebe Bardeaux has agreed to a rerun of an article she penned back in 2019 and refreshed today; two articles in fact, which I’ve updated and stitched together with her sign-off. You may recall the new piece Bebe wrote for 21st Century Burlesque to mark Black History Month back in February. Bebe is one of our most thoughtful, accessible and essential burlesque historians, and it’s a pleasure and honour to amplify her work at any opportunity. HM
Please note: This post contains graphic and unsettling language regarding race, racism, slurs, and socioeconomic class.
One night in 2019 I came across some old images from a burlesque gala in another state. The photos seemed harmless enough at first. I saw a Black woman onstage, beautiful and glowing. Nothing wrong with that at all.
I clicked the name tagged in the image, expecting to see more images of this fellow Black burlesque performer. I was shocked and a bit confused when I could find no other photos of a Black woman. I clicked back multiple times, thinking the tag had been wrong. And then it hit me: this woman was in blackface for her performance! The blackface was applied thoroughly and in moderation, and was almost unnoticeable until I viewed normal photos of the woman’s very non-Black skin. I was excited because I thought this performer looked like an early Janelle Monae, but she had suddenly morphed into someone completely different and definitely not Black. It seemed that, once again, my skin (that I cannot wash away after a gig) was a temporary fun costume for a burlesque performer.
I was offended. I immediately wondered how this photo had slipped under the radar for so long. Usually when something like this happens, social media retribution is swift and merciless. There are people who don’t hesitate to publicly warn the community about problematic performers, producers, and shows, and I’m not all the way mad at it - with such transparency, it’s hard to sweep bad behavior under the rug. But for some reason, this particular performer’s misstep evaded public scorn - at least to my knowledge.
Above: Bebe Bardeaux by David Lawrence Byrd
I don’t like to engage in call-outs. Not saying that I judge those who do, but I just don’t have the spoons for online wars anymore. Activism and social justice make up a huge part of my everyday life - at the risk of outing my true identity a bit, I will share that I have founded a legal aid non-profit, spent many a sleepless night working on indigent defense and death penalty cases, run annual legal clinics to help sex workers, immigrants, recently released prisoners, etc., and the list goes on.
Fighting real fights in real life for real people who are demanding help (and sometimes not nicely because they are stressed the fuck out) has given me serious battle fatigue, and I use burlesque as my escape. I know people are fucked up, because I’ve looked at medical examiner photos of murder victims and I spend many days calming down crying domestic violence survivors or helping wrongfully convicted ex-prisoners try to rebuild their lives. That’s my everyday, y’all - burlesque is my escape.
With that being said, it’s inevitable that real life will make its way into my ‘escape’. Since I started kittening in 2012, I have heard so many horrible stories about racism, sexism, sexual assault, bullying, harassment, theft, gaslighting, and the list goes on and on. These are huge issues, and it would be silly and dangerous of me to bury my head in the sand and pretend they don’t exist.
So what could I do? At that point, I had a few options:
Talk with my community first. That way I could work out any anger and frustration I was feeling about this issue without outside judgment or tone policing, but also without immediately launching into a personal attack on the offending performer. A couple of my House of Knyle sisters had already seen this photo and had been wtf-ing with me in private, and I planned on showing my burlesque mother.
Talk with the offending performer. I could go ahead and Facebook her if she seemed approachable, and let her know how hurtful the act and photo was to me, with no expectations of an apology or even understanding because, let’s be real: people can be obtuse.
Call her ass out. I could post the photo and tag her, and let the world know how hurt I am. This might feel good (really good), but my reservations about doing this were: 1) what if she has already addressed this, being that this picture is years old? This is why talking with more established community members is important - this could already be old news, and just new to burlesque newbies; 2) what if she tried her hardest to remove all the photos of this blackface act (I doubt no one has confronted her yet), and my stalking ass just has a knack for unearthing EVERYTHING (seriously, it’s a librarian superpower)?
Ugh. So many thoughts going through my head. All these options actually made me feel even more crappy because somehow the onus is on US as Black people to figure out how to respond, rather than on the performer to apologize and just, I don’t know, not do this horrible thing that offends us so greatly?!
After speaking with members of my burlesque family, I decided to not call the performer out and just work through my own feelings about why the photo bothered me so much. Another performer did, in fact, open up discourse on Facebook about this incident, and I was relieved - I just didn’t have the spoons for a big fight or dialogue. This type of stuff can be infuriating for people of color, and we often feel like a broken record trying to explain to others that their actions are dehumanizing. There are many reasons I made the decision to stay somewhat mum on the specifics - including what I’ve already shared, but right now I want to mention a couple of discussion points I think could be helpful to hash out within our burlesque community:
Subtle differences between blackface and blackfishing. Many know that changing one’s skin to be several shades darker or even pitch-black is extremely distasteful and racist. However, we saw a new phenomenon occurring where social media influencers blur the lines between ‘bronzer and a tan’ and ‘blackface’. They use make-up to change their appearance to look as if they are from somewhere within the African Diaspora - for instance, some Instagram models long to look Afro-Latina or mixed, much like the performer in question on this blog post. Their skin is not as dark as it could be, but they have definitely darkened it to look different. I personally call this ‘the Kardashian effect’, where very pale people turn into racially ambiguous people, all for profit and social media followers, with the help of wigs and make-up.
POC Self-Care. I felt pretty deflated when I originally wrote about this, mostly out of fear that I would be ostracized or punished for talking about this openly. I had been re-evaluating why I perform, and whether or not it is possible to be a successful performer without buy-in and validation from people and organizations who may not value me or my experiences as a Black woman, and therefore, do not value me fully as even human. I made a conscious decision not to participate in certain fields of the legal profession for the very reason that doing so would openly and actively diminish my humanity, and this incident has made me fearful that burlesque will only do the same. I asked myself, ‘Where do I go from here? How do I keep my head down and power through, knowing that there may be no upward mobility and I may never achieve the kind of success I dream of, all because I am physically fucking unable to stomach watching people trample on the humanity of myself and others?’
Since this incident, I’ve taken part in many conversations (both public and private) on the subject. Thankfully, all have been friendly and understanding. While most share my disdain, others are much more light-hearted about it and don’t understand why darkening skin and using kinky afro wigs for performances is so offensive.
This is obviously still a controversial subject, and we’re still encountering problematic acts and attitudes in burlesque. Please don’t misunderstand: this subject is very painful for me as a Black woman, and I do not enjoy discussing blackface and I hardly enjoyed researching its origins. But I made a promise to dig deeper into the themes of race and class within burlesque, and I will not shy away from it because that’s how things end up buried under the rug. (Also, scholarly pursuit actually does wonders to calm my inner rage at societal wrongs.)
I dove into research on the use of blackface throughout burlesque history and this may provide a helpful and historical context to frame discussions about blackface in burlesque for those that are interested in constructive dialogue and truly learning its ugly history. It may also shed some light on why we know with historical accuracy that blackface is inherently a form of oppression against Black people.
The Beginnings: Blackface Minstrel Shows
There is evidence that slave captains forced cargos of Black laborers to dance and sing on their way to America from Africa. Historian Newman White also discovered substantial evidence that Black plantation overseers received special favors from white owners when they encouraged slaves to sing as they work. The best singers and dancers were invited to perform in plantation mansions, and these entertainer-slaves were models for the first blackface performances in America. (Davidson, 1952)
Blackface can be traced definitively back to Pittsburgh at Griffith’s Hotel on Wood Street in 1830, and it started off with white working-class commodification of Black bodies. Although there were more than likely people performing in blackface much sooner to less fanfare, a white man named T.D. Rice, also known as ‘Jim Crow Rice’ or ‘Daddy Rice’, made it famous by emulating an elderly Black man he knew named Cuff. Rice brought Cuff to the venue and stole the Black man’s clothing before his first performance, leaving Cuff naked in the wings (much to the audience’s delight).
Check out this rowdy snippet of a re-telling from an 1867 edition of Atlantic Monthly:
After a minute or two of fidgety waiting for [Rice’s] song to end, Cuff’s patience could endure no longer, and, cautiously hazarding a glimpse of his profile beyond the edge of the flat, he called in a hurried whisper: “Massa Rice, Massa Rice, must have my clo’se! Massa Griffif wants me,-steamboat’s comin’!” The appeal was fruitless. Massa Rice did not hear it, for a happy hit at an unpopular city functionary had set the audience in a roar in which all other sounds were lost.... [Another appeal went unheeded, when,] driven to desperation, and forgetful in the emergency of every sense of propriety, Cuff, in ludicrous undress as he was, started from his place, rushed upon the stage, and, laying his hand upon the performer’s shoulder, called out excitedly: “Massa Rice, Massa Rice, gi’ me n*’s hat,-n*’s coat,-n*’s shoes,- gi’ me n*’s t’ings! Massa Griffif wants ‘im,-STEAMBOAT’S COMIN’!!” The incident was the touch, in the mirthful experience of that night, that passed endurance. (609-10)
As told in the slightly questionable snippet above, the roots of popular blackface are deeply embedded in the direct humiliation of Black people. In fact, blackface without the subsequent humiliation of Black people, may not have even become famous (hence the author’s final note that that blackface itself “was the touch[...] that passed endurance.”). Our humiliation was quite integral to the humor of it all. Historian Eric Lott actually refers to this scene as the first use of ‘racial burlesque’ as a minstrel device (25).
Legal scholar Kelly Kleiman also noted that, at the time, “analyses of blackface minstrelsy - even those that conceded its racism - concentrated on the meaning of the performance to the performers and the audience, ignoring or discounting its meaning to, and impact on, the people being portrayed.”
If this line of thinking sounds familiar, it’s because many burlesque audiences still view blackface in this sanitized manner. When speaking with someone about the blackface I saw online occurring at a major festival, a fellow performer remarked, “She obviously didn’t mean any harm! She looks great - maybe she meant it as a compliment.”
This is a great example of ‘ignoring or discounting’ the true meaning of blackface, and focusing instead on the overall ‘effect’ as an audience member of seeing a ‘Black’ woman perform onstage. For some, it wasn’t offensive because the performer in question technically wasn’t doing anything offensive - her skin was ‘simply’ much darker, and her hair was ‘simply’ just kinkier. To some who don’t understand the offense, blackface is as ‘simple’ as costume design. As a Black person, it’s not simple to view such performances through this lens.
Black Folks in Blackface
It’s no secret that many Black performers in those days also performed in blackface. This is often brought up as an argument in favor of the virtue of blackface. However, note this tidbit from historian Sterling A. Brown in Contributions of the American Negro:
It should always be remembered that black-face minstrelsy was composed by white men, performed by white men, for the approval of white audiences. More than burnt cork and grease and huge red lips were necessary to make it Negro. Indeed, Negro performers were not acceptable in minstrelsy until after the Civil War. Even then, strangely enough, Negroes had to make use of the exaggerated make-up. They were not entertaining, otherwise.
When audiences are confronted with a white performer donning notably darker skin and afro hair, it’s a signal that we cannot be in on the joke, because we are the joke.
When Black performers wore blackface, this was more than likely mandated by producers or done in order to break into venues that otherwise may not have booked them. It was done out of necessity. Black minstrel companies copied successful white companies in order to carve out a living, but blackface was never favored by Black audiences (Brown, 1945).
Many Black entertainers also found a home in the circus, but many were only allowed to perform in blackface. (Davidson, 1952, 54)
Modern Blackface
It’s actually not surprising that blackface is still prevalent today in burlesque. It is known, after all, as “America’s only form of indigenous drama,” after all (Davidson, 1952, 1).
Ironically enough, blackface in minstrel and vaudeville shows actually helped white people at the time break down their own prejudices, and without the influence of Black people in blackface, American folk music may have never developed (Davidson, 1952, 211). With this in mind, I’m guessing many producers decided to keep blackface in action.
In his article, Davidson noted that many minstrel show producers in the early 1950s still practiced blackface because the audience didn’t seem to mind that Black people were being presented in a negative light. The producers surveyed also shied away from the concept of ‘whiteface’.
Davidson proffers this as an explanation for the decline of the minstrel show:
Critics have argued that the decline was due to the failure to represent the Negro accurately on the stage; but it seems more plausible that part of the minstrels popularity was due to the insistence of the public on the exaggeration and distortion. By the time the untrue nature of the caricature was understood, the minstrel show had already declined.
Also, the rise of burlesque itself - specifically ‘dancing girls’ - took over the minstrel and vaudeville shows.
If anything, the use of blackface in modern entertainment is confusing at least, and incredibly troubling at worst. The New York Times article ‘Why Won’t Blackface Go Away?’, released in February 2019, may provide some modern context as to the psychological and societal implications of performing in blackface for modern audiences. There’s also this 21st Century Burlesque article written in 2016 that may offer some guidance. [See 21st Century Burlesque ‘Blackface in Burlesque’ archive here].
Unfortunately, I’ll probably have to keep writing about this. I’ll keep y’all posted.
Visit www.bebebardeaux.com and follow Bebe Bardeaux on Instagram.
References
Sterling A. Brown, “Contributions of the American Negro, Chapter XXXIII,” One America: The History, Contributions, and Present Problems of Our Racial and National Minorities (1945): 606.
Frank Costello Davidson, “The Rise, Development, Decline, and Influence of the American Minstrel Show (1952).
Kelly Kleiman, “Drag=Blackface,” Chicago-Kent Law Review 669 (2000): 669-70.
Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
Robert P. Nevin, “Stephen C. Foster and Negro Minstrelsy,” Atlantic Monthly 20, no. 121 (1867): 608-16.
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