Replies

I think I saw a scene of modern (and not ironic) blackface in a British movie with a scene SET in a British television studio from 1961.

So to all FReepers, are any familiar with NON-American presentation of blackface, and if so, when did it die out elsewhere?

In a sort of related topic, Disney had no problems with releasing Song of the South in Japan, China, and Europe throughout the 1980s and 1990s. It is only in America that the film disappear from release to theaters or video (there are a number of now out of print foreign video releases that were all legit).

The New Kristy Minstrels ( who were most probably who were being portrayed in that movie you saw, as they were VERY big in T.V. and theatre, back then ) were still doing huge box-office business, in 1967, when my husband and I saw them in London. And though not all of the show was done in blackface, there was a number or two that was.

Blacks have done "whiteface", in movies, in America, since at least the '60s, with WATERMELLON MAN" being the one from the '60s.

Blacks "blacked up" in their minstrel shows and one of the most famous and beloved vaudevillians, Bert Williams, who popularized such songs as "I ANI'T GOT NOBODY" and "ME AND MY SHADOW", blacked up, though he was a Negro.