Jack's Identity In The Jazz Singer

Given the historic nature of the film, The Jazz Singer has been analyzed on many levels and in many ways, but it is most importantly noted for its conception of blackface. Many critics point to Al Jolson’s performance as an exploration of his identity. In a comparison to gender, some critics point to the blackface as a racial “cross-dressing” that allow Jack to experience the envied qualities of the other race. In this movie, Jack envies the ability of black expression on stage and also uses his blackface in the romancing of his girlfriend. More critical analysis called Jack’s use of blackface, “exclusionary emulation:” the idea that an ethnic group appropriates the image of different group to show the freedom that they have to “cross the social boundaries of

Matthew Jacobson posited the idea of an “E Pluribus Duo” system where immigrant Jews had to choose between the two “races” in America and that Jack “appropriates blackness to constitute Jews' whiteness” and that “in playing black, the Jew becomes white.” The combination of exclusionary emulation and Jacobson’s system creates the conditions for Jewish blackface as a deliberate choice to pick a side in America. Yet, while the performers like Jolson were transcending this barrier, other Jewish people were active in supporting civil rights for African-Americans. Rogin writes during this time, “Jewish activists were distinctively allied with African Americans in the struggle for racial equality” and wanted to create an “imagined community” of solidarity.” The fascinating aspect of the release of this movie was the reception that it had in the African-American community. Charles Musser writes that “in the late 1920s African American newspapers and moviegoers warmly embraced Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer” and that the first film shown in black theaters that were upgraded for sound was The Jazz