Analysing genre
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Minstrel show notes
key ideas- minstrel shows was most popular musical stage shows of the early and mid 19th century founded on the comic enactment of racial stereotypes featured to exaggerate portrayal of african american music, culture, vernacular english for entertainment performers both white and black donned blackface in these shows, white men blackened their face with burnt cork to lampoon blacks, they performed songs and skits that sentimentalised life on southern plantations in these shows, blacks were shown as naive buffoons who sang and danced the days away minstrelsy was the first example of the way american popular culture would exploit and manipulate afro-americans and their culture to please and benefit white americans despite such drawbacks, minstrelsy provided african american performers with their first professional stage outlet characters- the coon- violent, uneducated adult male mammie- overweight older black maid- mother type character pickaninny- unkept and unlooked
