#minstrel man

[mournfulroses]

Langston Hughes, from a poem titled "Minstrel Man," featured in The Selected Poems of Langston Hughes

[hiyutekivigil]

minstrel man, langston hughes

[waste-it-on-something-useful]

Because my mouth Is wide with laughter And my throat Is deep with song, You do not think I suffer after I have held my pain So long? Because my mouth Is wide with laughter You do not hear My inner cry? Because my feet Are gay with dancing You do not know I die?

Harry Belafonte, in voice-over, reads out Langston Hughes’ poem ‘Minstrel Man’ in Nationtime (William Greaves, 1972)

[cinefiled]

Minstrel Man (1944)

While Dixie Boy Johnson (Benny Fields) is headlining opening night of his new Broadway minstrel show his wife dies in childbirth. Devastated, Johnson flees and is presumed lost at sea.

A decade and a half later, Johnson resurfaces on the opening night of his daughter, Dixie Girl Johnson's, revival of Dixie Boy Johnson's Broadway minstrel show.

I noticed that while Dixie Boy Johnson's production is populated with a huge chorus of men in blackface there doesn't seem to be any other racial iconography in the production, nor even any attempt to perform "black" by Fields. Blackface seems almost divorced from race in his show. In the revival, however, Dixie Girl Johnson in blackface is backed by a chorus of African American performers but the staging includes racial iconography in the watermelon-based set design and a large face with moving eyes. It's just interesting to ponder the intentions and decisions that might have gone into this.

Anyway, the father who abandoned his infant daughter and hid away performing on cruise ships while she grew up is welcomed back and they perform a happy daddy-daughter duet.

Minstrel Man was nominated for two Academy awards; for the score and for the song "Remember Me to Carolina." Neither won.

I don't find Benny Fields engaging as a performer but the movie is interesting as a look back in bewilderment at minstrelsy still hanging on into the mid-Twentieth century.

Minstrel Man (1944) Director: Joseph H. Lewis

[solitary-witch-murmurings]

Minstrel man - Langston Hughes

Because my mouth Is wide with laughter And my throat Is deep with song, You did not think I suffer after I've held my pain So long. Because my mouth Is wide with laughter You do not hear My inner cry: Because my feet Are gay with dancing, You do not know I die.

[electronicsquid]

On the way to the marching band convention

(Allan Grant. 1953)

[amurosaurus]

Minstrel Man

Because my mouth Is wide with laughter And my throat Is deep with song,  You do not think  I suffer after I have held my pain So long? Because my mouth  Is wide with laughter,  You do not hear My inner cry?  Because my feet Are gay with dancing,  You do not know  I die?

   -Langston Hughes

[iaaoinoconsonantsguesswho]

Because my mouth Is wide with laughter And my throat Is deep with song, You do not think I suffer after I have held my pain So long? Because my mouth Is wide with laughter, You do not hear My inner cry? Because my feet Are gay with dancing, You do not know I die?

Langston Hughes