Core Post 4 Presley

Upon researching Show Boat further, I came across this article entitled, "Show Boat Improved Racial Understanding."

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/14/opinion/l-show-boat-improved-racial-understanding-154593.html

The article, written in 1993, is actually a response to an earlier article accounting the criticism of Show Boat by black leaders. Though I couldn't find this original article, I think I lean more on its side. The movie depends on black stereotypes and overused tropes. The black figures in the movie are depicted as lazy, subservient, and marginal. Queenie is an archetypal mammy and Joe is an archetypal buck.


I understand, however, that the original play was written in 1927, when these archetypes were being formed and were not thought of in the same way. The film was not made too much later, in 1936 (yet perhaps later enough to where, if they wanted to, these archetypes could have been subverted or nuanced). The inherent racism and faulty representation in the movie make sense given when it was made, however, I really don’t see how it improved racial understanding in Gordon’s eyes. He doesn’t provide much evidence to suport his statement, but rather criticizes others arguments without his own backing. For example, he criticizes Angela Lee’s argument on, "the portrayal of blacks as shuffling, mumbling, dancing, singing caricatures . . . happy in their condition." Remarking, “Has she actually listened to the words of ‘Ol' Man River’?”… however, having now looked up the lyrics of the song, I don’t understand his comment. The lyrics preach subservientism and black labour, with no hope of improved circumstances. Robeson sings, 

“Don't look up, 
An' don't look down, 
You don' dast make, 
De white boss frown. 
Bend your knees, 
An'bow your head, 
An' pull date rope, 
Until you' dead.” 

Encouraging fellow black workers to keep on keeping on, because nothing can be done about their condition. His next point is that Queenie tells a white man to mind his own business in one of the opening scenes. As if this was proof that the black characters are somehow equal. However, ‘sass’ was a characteristic of archetypal mammie figures and does not necessarily subvert any stereotypes. How this “improves racial understanding”, as his title states, he does not elaborate. His final point goes on to basically say, black face was worse, even though there is clearly blackface in the movie. Overall, I found it to be a poorly thought out or articulated article, however brings up the prolific topic of the representation of black bodies in the film.