Compare And Contrast Porgy And Bess And Showboat

Both Broadway shows Porgy and Bess and Showboat show that the portrayal of stereotypes was necessary to blacks’ involvement in entertainment. Porgy and Bess is a three act play first performed in 1935 that takes place in the fictitious Catfish Harbor, Charleston, South Carolina. George Gershwin, the composer, when preparing to write the music travelled to Folly Island, South Carolina in order to learn about the African-American culture in the state from a group of Geechees whose ancestors had been slaves. Gershwin’s good experience with the Geechees caused to him to express a need for change in the social system within the music for the show. However, not many people understood Gershwin’s approach at the time, and were very offended by the

stereotypes that were portrayed.

Celebrities such as Duke Ellington, Hall Johnson, and Ralph Matthews spoke out about the show. Ellington stated that “the times [were] here to debunk Gershwin's lampblack Negroisms." Other people were pleased that African-Americans were at least being portrayed in theatre. Porgy and Bess depicted that the black lifestyle was centered around drinking, gambling, violence, and drugs. Because the show had an all black cast, it opened up role opportunities for the African-American opera and jazz singers of the time. To his credit, Gershwin faced many producers who suggested that his entire play be white people in blackface. The show was not largely successful, with only 124 shows in it’s original run on Broadway.

Showboat, which first premiered in 1927, follows the story of Magnolia, the daughter of the owners of the showboat “The Cotton Blossom.” She falls in love with a

gambler named Gaylord, but the subplot heavily focuses on race. For example, one of the performers, Julie, is exposed as mixed race, which would have been illegal at the time, and she and her husband are forced to leave the boat. Credit to must be given where it is due, and Showboat was the first play that allowed whites and blacks to share a stage. However, the black characters in the play besides Julie are one-dimensional servants whose role is to play into stereotypes. For example, an old, black dockworker named Joe portrays the “Uncle Tom” stereotype, which as explained earlier, was old, passive and weak. The actor who originated the role, Paul Robeson, said this, “...the content and form of a play or film was of little or no importance to [them.] What mattered was the opportunity, which came so seldom…” Robeson shows that although these roles created stereotyped images of black people, they provided opportunities for their participation in theatre, and therefore could be looked at positively from an actor’s perspective. So, although the role of Joe depicts caricatured black stereotypes, actors were willing to take the role because it allowed them to participate in theatre. Another character in Showboat, Queenie, is included in the play to present the “Mammy” or “Aunt Jemima” stereotype. She is loyal to her white masters, and speaks in very thick black dialect. The role, although stereotypical, was accepted because it allowed for blacks to be involved in theatre, and transition.
As radio became a popular medium of entertainment, black stereotypes were also portrayed with the emerging format. Producers took advantage of the fact that there weren’t visuals when casting. For example, both The Amos ‘n’ Andy Show and Beulah featured white actors playing African-American characters. The Amos ‘n’ Andy Show was a radio show that began broadcasting in 1928 on WMAQ, a small Chicago radio station. Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll originally wrote their scripts and played Amos and Andy. Amos was a hardworking young black many played by Gosden, and Correll played Andy who was a lazy, yet street-smart friend. The show was based around Minstrel tradition, which means that the characters spoke with stereotypical dialect and had stereotypical traits. In one of the episodes, the two are having a conversation about the Presidential Election, between Herbert Hoover and Al Smith. Amos seems very stupid because of the dialect that Gosden uses, along with the fact that he asks Andy why a Democrat and Republican can’t be President at the same time. The humor in the show wass making fun of African-Americans and portraying a stereotype that they are all stupid. When Andy said vice-versa, Amos said “He ain’t runnin’, is’e?” Subliminally, listeners believed that many African-Americans didn’t understand the phrase vice-versa or other seemingly simple phrases. By 1929, the show was extremely famous, being broadcasted daily across the country on NBC. In 1951, CBS launched a television show Amos ‘n’ Andy. Because of visuals, the show hired Alvin Childress and Spencer Williams, Jr., two African Americans, to play Amos and Andy. The Amos ‘n’ Andy television series went on for two years until the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or the NAACP, launched a protest due to the negative stereotypes that were portrayed. So, Childress and William, although they knew about the stereotypes from the radio show that had been running for 23 years at that time, accepted the roles because they thought that the show would be successful. Black actors at the time were willing to play stereotyped roles because it allowed them to put information on their résumés and play more roles in the future.
The 1945-54 radio show Beulah also took advantage of listeners not being able to see the actors.

Beulah was a classic example of the mammy stereotype. She was a giggly, independent woman who spoke in thick dialect and also happened to be “plus sized.” However, the first person to play her was an average sized white male named Marlin Hunt on the NBC radio show Homeward Unincorporated in 1939. When Hunt died the next year, Bob Corley took over as Beulah on the early 1940’s radio shows That’s Life and Fibber McGee and Molly. Two years after Beulah started broadcasting as it’s own radio show, Hattie McDaniel, and African-American woman, was cast in the role as Beulah. In 1939, McDaniels had become the first black woman to win an Academy Award, which she won for Best Supporting Actress as Mammy in Gone With the Wind. After creating Beulah, it took them eight years to cast accurately. She played into a stereotype that dated back to original minstrelsy, and McDaniels was a high achieving actress. The liberal black community criticized McDaniel for taking stereotyped roles. McDaniel responded that she would rather play a maid than be one in actuality (“Hattie”). At the time, roles that involved African-American stereotypes were could be looked at in a positive light because they provided black actors and actresses, such as McDaniel, to have a role in radio and other emerging forms of

entertainment.