Out of Context Theater – IOTW Report

Out of Context Theater

Friday, 27 April 2018, 19:30 Dr. Tar Uncategorized 21

I occasionally come across these historic pieces that leave me in slack jawed realization that I’m looking at a performance that will never be repeated. Here’s Judy Garland in a movie that came out the same year as the Wizard of Oz.  Watch

21 Comments on Out of Context Theater

  1. You don’t even have to go back that far.
    The show “Rules Of Engagement” is not that old and in nearly every episode you have David Spade inferring that someone else is gay, and that it’s a shameful bad thing…back then.

    Nowadays being gay should be shouted from the rooftops and shoved down everyone’s throats!

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  3. How quickly people forget that it’s HISTORY. What was acceptable THEN, may not be acceptable NOW, but that doesn’t make what they did back then BAD, just different. So quit with the Virtue Signaling, and breast beating, and SJWing, about what was THEN.
    People back in 1939 thought that was great entertainment.

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  6. I’m not familiar with the movie (why they were all blackface) but I do know that “Wild about harry” was written into a broadway musical written and performed by black folks. It was called ‘Shuffle’ something. Can’t remember.

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  9. That performance was part of a minstrel show, which a lot of people today don’t know much about. When I was in grade school my class actually put on a minstrel show, and that was a lot later than 1939, but nobody thought anything about it back then. Since schools were segregated at the time, nobody there was likely to be offended anyway,
    I suppose. I remember that I didn’t want to put on blackface, so they made me play
    Mr. Interlocutor, who acts as the emcee for the event. Did you notice the guy sitting
    in the chair in the background during the video clip? That’s him – the only Honky
    in the show.

    😉

    P.S. – Here’s more historical information on the subject, if anyone’s interested:

    http://black-face.com/minstrel-shows.htm

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  10. Thanks for the information MJA. It seemed like a show tune, but I didn’t know from what production.

    That would explain why performing in black face shouldn’t be taken wrongly. It’s sort of a salute to the success and pioneering effort of the original production.

    I wonder who’s Judy dance partner in this number?

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  20. I think it was just Mickey Rooney’s lot in life to be sucked into a role where he did racist portrayals of minorities.

    Like Breakfast at Tiffanys for another instance. And yes, I do in fact cringe at his part whenever I watch it but I still love that movie to bits. It was just how it was back then. Not saying it was all good and right, but to censor the films now would be just as bad. We need these kind of films to stick around to remind us of the differences now and such.

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  21. Just a comment: We live in the times into which we were born. It is not for us to look back and condemn people in the past for accepting the norms of their society. That was their reality at the time.

    An example: Suppose that in the future our culture decides that animals should have
    been placed on an equal status with humans, and that making them sleep outside and
    eat table scraps from bowls on the floor was an insult to their dignity? Who (other than maybe some cat ladies) would want our descendants to judge us by those standards?

    Not me (although I may go out tomorrow and buy my yard cougars some Fancy Feast,
    so maybe they won’t badmouth me as much to future historians).

    🙂

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