The film is also known for its use of blackface antics; an aspect carefully dissected in Siobhan Somerville's "Queering the Color Line." Since its inclusion in Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet, the film has increasingly been seen as one of the earliest film representations of homosexuality and cross-dressing in American culture.
On a film set with a plantation background, Jolson in blackface sings three of his hit songs: "April Showers", "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody", and "When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along)".
The Duke boys in the feature-film version of the The Dukes of Hazzard state that "actually, we prefer to be called Appalachian Americans" when a group of urban (Atlantan) African Americans calls them "hillbillies" in response to their Confederate flag and perceived blackface.
On 23 October, he performed at a benefit along with Emmett, Gardner, and other prominent blackface entertainers.
He dedicates the video to Paul Robeson and the “many black actors who endured the humiliating process of blackface in America".
Brooker and Clayton's Georgia Minstrels was the first successful African American blackface minstrel troupe.
John Strausbaugh, author of Blackface, Whiteface, Insult & Imitation in American Popular Culture, explores Liquor's act in his book.
It dates to 1832, when blackface performers such as George Nichols, Thomas D. Rice, and George Washington Dixon began to sing it.
"Come Along, John, an alternative title for the American song "Walk Along John", written for the blackface minstrel show stage in 1843
They found two more blackface performers and formed a new band, playing at the Lyceum Hall in Salem, Massachusetts, on October 23.
Haverly's United Mastodon Minstrels was a blackface minstrel troupe created in 1877, when J. H. Haverly merged four of the companies he owned and managed.
In the number "Bojangles of Harlem" from Swing Time (1936) Astaire dresses in blackface as the Sportin' Life character and dances in the style of Sublett while ostensibly paying tribute to Bill Robinson.
Jordan Is a Hard Road to Travel is a song composed by American songwriter Dan Emmett for an 1853 blackface minstrel show.
At this point Glynn is also pressured to fire Tim McManus but does not do so until McManus commits a series of self-destructive and idiotic acts closed out by the singing of "De Camptown Races", a blackface minstrel song at the funeral of a Black CO.
Acts include the Colorful 3 (a trio of stereotyped Black babies singing "Hi De Ho"), an Asian baby marksman, and a bouncing Russian baby named "Little Miss Trotsky."
George Nichols, a blackface circus clown is one, as is Thomas D. Rice, whose "Corn Meal" skit most likely came from seeing Old Corn Meal's act during one of his visits to New Orleans in 1835, 1836 and 1838.
The new management lowered the price of admission and catered to the popular tastes of New York's "west side": "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (in blackface) and Buffalo Bill were among the first season's attractions; theatrical productions were accompanied by "specialty acts".
Although he did not perform in blackface, Polk sometimes billed himself as "The Old Virginia Plantation Negro" and performed Negro spirituals and pop and folk tunes such as James A. Bland's Carry Me Back to Old Virginny.
Chuck Knipp, a white gay male drag performer who is known for his blackface act "Shirley Q. Liquor", has been accused of racism.
In the period following the Civil War, a wildly successful minstrel performer of the day, named Francis Leon, rose to prominence performing a burlesque act while simultaneously in both blackface and drag.
"Walk Along John", also known as "Oh, Come Along John", is an American song written for the blackface minstrel show stage in 1843.