Whiting up : whiteface minstrels and stage Europeans in African American performance / by Marvin McAllister.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McAllister, Marvin Edward, 1969-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Minstrel shows--United States--History.

Minstrel shows.

African Americans in the performing arts--History.

African Americans in the performing arts.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (347 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, c2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In the early 1890's, black performer Bob Cole turned blackface minstrelsy on its head with his nationally recognized whiteface creation, a character he called Willie Wayside. Just over a century later, hiphop star Busta Rhymes performed a whiteface supercop in his hit music video ""Dangerous."" In this sweeping work, Marvin McAllister explores the enduring tradition of ""whiting up,"" in which African American actors, comics, musicians, and even everyday people have studied and assumed white racial identities. Not to be confused with racial ""passing"" or derogatory notions of ""acting...

Contents:

Introduction : whiting up work

Liberatory whiteness : early whiteface minstrels, enslaved and free

Imitation whiteness : James Hewlett's stage Europeans

Low-down whiteness : a trip to coontown

Trespassing on whiteness : Negro actors and the Nordic complex

Estranging whiteness : queens, clowns, and beasts in 1960s Black drama

White people be like

: Black solo and racial difference

Conclusion : problems and possibilities of whiting up.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

979-88-908796-3-9

979-88-9313-200-7

1-4696-0243-1

0-8078-6906-6

OCLC:

768082798