Question Description

I’m trying to learn for my Film class and I’m stuck. Can you help?

How did Beulah, The Goldbergs/Molly, Amos 'n' Andy and The Honeymooners each teach about the acquisition of the American Dream? How does that relate to the Three C's?

Lecture 2A: What is an Ethnicom? The Beulah Show (CBS, 1950-53) The Goldbergs (CBS 1949-56) Amos ‘n” Andy (CBS, 1951-53 ) 1 Form • An Ethnicom* is a situation comedy that: – Provides specific performances of class, race and ethnicity – Based on radio programs that were proven successes (or spin-offs from them). Similar to Kitchen Sink Comedies like The Honeymooners (which foregrounds class rather than ethnicity or race), these urban domestic comedies are usually based in the home (minimal number of setups). 2 Function • An Ethnicom provides: – Varying directives on striving for a piece of the American Dream for different populations rooted in specifically coded performances of class, race and ethnicity coming. – In other words, these programs supplied social instruction for those outside of the desirable “norm”: “how-to-guide” for middleclassness. 3 Adjacent Experiences Sanitized “Kitchen Sink Comedy” • 3 C influenced version of “Kitchen Sink” comedy/drama* • Working-class married couples in a gritty, non-idyllic manner • Set mostly in the Kramdens' kitchen in their Brooklyn apartment building 4 THEORETICAL TERM ALERT • Culture: a whole social process, in which men and women define and shape their lives. • Ideology: is a set of aims and ideas that directs one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be a comprehensive vision, a way of looking at things (as in common sense, philosophical, political and/or social terms), a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society (a 'received consciousness' or product of socialization). 5 THEORETICAL TERM ALERT • Cultural Hegemony: Antonio Gramsci’s concept which contends that a culturally-diverse society can be ruled or dominated, by one of its social classes. • A key element in this dominance of one social group (i.e. the ruling class) over all others is the notion that the ideologies of the ruling class come to be seen as the norm and perceived to serve—and include—everyone when only those in the dominant group actually benefit. 6 THEORETICAL TERM ALERT • Since these norms are seen as common sense, and natural and, even those who are considered Other and are excluded from the ideological and economic comforts by dominant ideology to the dominant group still buy into the beliefs systems—sometimes with more vigor than those for whom inclusion is a given. 7 The Meaning of Memory (and How To Change It) 8 Why Reset US Cultural Mindset? • “Meaning of Memory”--George Lipsitz* – Employs German sociologist and philosopher, Jürgen Habermas’ concept of legitimation crisis. – Historically, without the internalized values (read: work ethic/fiscal prudence), which could restrain consumer demands while reinforcing the ethic of work, capitalism could not flourish. – However, the crisis occurs when the legitimacy of those values come into conflict with the growth of the capitalist economy and consumer culture. 9 Responding to the Crisis Learning to Consume: When you have only been taught to conserve, ration and save, how do you learn to CONSUME? 10 How Did TV Help Out? Television always has the ability to help rewrite how we think of the past and the present—and the past in the present. The medium remains an ideal tool for tweaking the national collective social memory. 11 Towards Consumer Culture • What to Do? – Erase the impulses of rationing, saving, making due inscribed during the Great Depression & WWII – Replace them with the desire and “duty” to consume in the fifties (and beyond). 12 We Can Buy It! “For Americans to accept the new world of the fifties consumerism, they had to break with the past.” --George Lipsitz 13 Let’s Watch Some TV! Shooting Amos ‘n’ Andy (1951) 14 For Your Viewing Pleasure: The Beulah Show • From The Background (Fibber McGee & Molly) to the “Big House” (her own show as the happy mammy) • The 3 Beulahs (Two Bills & Two Orioles) • The Lack of Controversy over Beulah Pause Lecture & Watch Beulah 2 (Hattie McDaniel) and Oriole (Ruby Dandridge) (1952) Ethel Waters as Beulah #1 (ABC, 1950-52) Oriole (Ruby Dandridge) and Beulah #3 (Louise Beavers) (1952-53) 15 In The Episode • Post-War Mammy – Everybody Wants A “Beulah” – Questions of Verisimilitude: “She loves her white chilluns” – Recognizing “Your Place” on the food chain • Cultural [Mis]Appropriation – Bill, Beulah & Donnie’s Hipster Cred • No Big for NAACP – She’s Not Doing Day Work in Harlem – Class, Class, Crass (Let’s talk of Oriole) 16 The Goldbergs • Getrude Berg: Star & Showrunner • In The Bronx:The Goldbergs Gertrude Berg and all of scripts that she penned for The Goldbergs. • Tale of Two “Jakes” Pause Lecture & Watch Molly and Uncle David (Menasha Skulnik) in The Goldbergs. The Goldbergs with Philip Loeb as Jake (left) Molly with Robert H. Harris as Jake (right) 17 In The Episode • Teaching About Danger – Generational Wisdom – (Uncle David, Molly &Rosalie) – Leather Jackets & Dungarees=J.D. • Consumerism – My Life, My Broadloom – Education: the way to “Good Life” • Containment – Gaps & Fissures in the Suburban Shell – Happy Endings…Sort of 18 The Real Punch of the 3 C’s • The Three C’s – Consumerism – Conformity – Containment QUESTION: How do the 3 C’s relate To Cultural Hegemony? 19 Emergences, Volume 11, Number 2, 2001 Why `Beulah’ and `Andy’ Still Play Today: Minstrelsy in the New Millennium BAMBI L. HAGGINS University of Michigan Introduction This essay was inspired by the reaction of many of my students to seeing episodes of Beulah and Amos `n’ Andy in a course on the history of American television. While they clearly understood why Amos `n’ Andy had been deemed offensive, they couldn’t understand why Beulah, which most found cringingly unwatchable, had not been questioned. Given that I basically shared their views, I began to consider how this sort of hierarchy of objectionability played out in attitudes towards representations of Blackness in the contemporary Black sitcom and the way we, as scholars and spectators, analyze them. Although some might be tempted to argue that clearly times have changed since Beulah hi-de-ho’d around the kitchen for the pleasure and edi® cation of her young White charge Ð that `cooning’ 1 for the camera is a thing of days gone by Ð events of the past few years underscore how far we haven’t come. In July of 1999, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)2 made its ® rst formal assault on network programming since the campaign that resulted in Amos `n’ Andy being pulled from network play. When NAACP president Kweisi Mfume blasted the networks for offering a fall lineup that was `a virtual whitewash of programming’ in the organization’s memo on diversity, it began the process of putting televisual representations of race on the agenda for networks execs, political pundits and the viewing audience at large.3 Threatened blackouts (and brownouts) Ð boycotts of network programming by people of color coalitions Ð National Council for La Raza, National Asian American Telecommunications Association and the NAACP Ð as well as public forums on issues of diversity within the institutions of the industry (like the National Association of Broadcasters) have yielded pledges to increase diversity from the Big Four (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC). However, the actual results have been mixed. As a result of new network `consciousness,’ Black television dramas have come Ð and gone Ð from network primetime.4 The situation comedy remains the staple of Black representation in television ® ction. According to the `African American Television Report,’ over half of the African-American characters seen on network television as series regulars are in sitcoms with a majority on upstart netlets, UPN and the WB (`Screen Actor Guild ¼ ’, 2000, par. 6). Upon examining representations of Blacks in the earliest examples of ISSN 1045-7224 print/ISSN 1469-5855 online/01/020249-19 Ó DOI: 10.1080/1045722012009898 2 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd 250 Bambi L. Haggins African-American centered comedies, Beulah and Amos `n’ Andy, those found in post-Cosby Show sitcoms that premiered before the threatened `blackout’ Ð The PJ’s on Fox (later on the WB), UPN’s The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, and The Hughleys on ABC (transplanted to UPN) Ð as well as two series born in the age of `new consciousness,’ UPN’s The Parkers and Girlfriends, a disconcerting tendency becomes clear: `Beulah’ and `Andy’ still play today. In other words, over 40 years after television’s happy darky domestic served `her’ family for the last time, the character constructions and stock comic `bits’ of minstrelsy5 continue to in¯ ect the narratives of Black sitcoms. However, before venturing into the analysis of the contemporary televisual texts, it is vital to understand the context in which Beulah and Andy originally played as well as the climate for and content of the con¯ icted and con¯ ictual discourses currently circulating around comedic constructions of Blackness. Back in the Day: Unquestioned (?) Minstrelsy And Beyond Arguably, the situation comedy can be viewed as an over-determined cultural artifact Ð each series simultaneously producing and re¯ ecting trends in American society. The televisual iterations of suburban bliss, the 1950’ s domestic comedies, had only one acceptable place for Black Americans Ð in the kitchen. As Gray asserts: `In the televisual world of the early ® fties, the social and cultural rules of race relations were explicit; black otherness was required for white subjectivity; blacks and whites occupied separate and unequal worlds; black labor was always in the service of white domesticity ¼ black humor was necessary for the amusement of whites’ (Gray, 1995, p. 75). Beulah supplied all the ingredients for a good old-fashioned minstrel show. Beulah served as the personi® cation of the happy darky domestic, her childlike idiot friend, Oriole, as a queen-sized pickaninny and her beau, Bill, as a con¯ ation of the Coon and the Tom, the Black working man who avoided work and responsibility but did a good Uncle Remus when the White folks were around. It seems mind-boggling that this series did not inspire the same ire in the Black middle class (in the form of the NAACP) that was directed at Amos `n’ Andy. Three actors played Beulah, each of whom had to varying degrees been relegated to `mammy’ roles: veteran performer Ethel Waters, who originated the role (1950± 52); and was brie¯ y replaced by Scarlet O’Hara’s mammy, Hattie MacDaniel (six episodes), and ® nally by Louise Beavers, a classically trained actor, who left the show in 1953, while it was still highly rated. The image of the `mammy’ seems crafted to both undermine and underscore the role played by African-American women. The fact that Black women, either by default (as single parents) or by design (as a familial tradition), have been the very foundation of reassurance and stability in Black lives and struggles has been co-opted. In Beulah, the needs and desires of Black women are erased (as is the existence of their homes and families). But, for the most part, the same folks in the Black bourgeoisie who bitterly condemned Amos `n’ Andy just didn’t have as much of a problem with Beulah. The problem with Amos `n’ Andy was, in reality, King® sh and Andy. The Why `Beulah’ and `Andy’ Still Play 251 conniving and ridiculous King® sh with his butchering of the English language (misspeaking) and his constant embellishing (whether for pro® t or self-aggrandizement) and the good-hearted but essentially shiftless Andy (whose shortcuts to the good life are always unsuccessful) dominated the series’ episodes. The shrewish behavior of the most central female character, Sapphire, King® sh’s wife, acted as narrative garnish. Middle-class values are embodied in level-headed Amos, who, along with his rarely seen wife, Ruby, get little airtime Ð and are no closer to getting their piece of the American Dream than are King® sh or Andy. The NAACP campaign to remove the show was eventually successful in 1953, when longtime sponsors Blatz Beer pulled out. Despite the racist and stereotypical representations of African-Americans that appeared in Amos `n’ Andy, `many poor, working class and even middle-class blacks still managed to read against the dominant discourse of whiteness and ® nd humor in the show ¼ [but] ¼ tastes pleasures and voices in support of the show were drowned out by the moral outrage of middle-class blacks’ (Gray, 1995, p. 75). In addition, Amos `n’ Andy played into the `separate but equal’ discourse that showed a hermetically sealed community of color where Blacks were sampling the `good life’ Ð even if they were not the central characters. Alvin Childress who played `Amos’ defended the series, `I didn’t feel it harmed Negroes at all ¼ Actually the series had many episodes that showed the Negro with many professions and businesses like attorneys, store owners and so on, which they had never had in TV or movies before’ (`Alvin Childress ¼ ’, 1986). The utilization of the minstrel archetypes in the early years of the electronic hearth is not surprising. Both Amos `n’ Andy and Beulah were carryovers from radio Ð the former being the colorized version of the radio show that had been performed by Charles Correll and Freeman Gosden, the White creators of the series, and the latter as a spin-off of Fibber McGee and Molly. Neither of these series were going after a Black audience share Ð the minstrel archetypes were deliberate and designed to amuse and comfort the new medium’s predominantly White audience. One might contend that Amos `n’ Andy upset the sensibilities of the Black middle class not only because it put Black faces in narrative blackface but also because this televisual minstrel show was set in Harlem Ð which, even in the early 1950s, retained the veneer of a golden age of the Black intelligentsia. The same Black middle-class voices that railed against Amos `n’ Andy were relatively silent on the Beulah front6: the White middle class gained comfort from the happy darky, and the Black middle class ignored her Ð after all, none of them did day work. In the intervening decades between Beulah and The Parkers, representations of Blackness evolved to include: the Super Negroes of the 1960s showing the Great Society dream of integration with good Blacks like the young war widow of Julia or I Spy’s international man of mystery and former Rhodes scholar, Alexander Scott; the ghetto comedies of the 1970s that made poverty look oddly pastoral with Good Times’ incredibly shrinking Evans family of the South side of Chicago projects, which started out as close-knit and nuclear and ended with J.J. (the Sambo, as the head of the household); and the Super AfricanAmericans with Phylicia Rashad and Bill Cosby as the JD/MD parental 252 Bambi L. Haggins embodiment of the colorized American Dream. If one assumes that The Cosby Show, the 1980s domestic sitcom par excellance, marks the most complete assimilation of an African-American series into the network mainstream, then it would follow that, in the 1990s, an era of niche programming and the proliferation of cable, the legacy of minstrelsy would have faded from the electronic hearth. But, of course, you would be wrong Ð a point con® rmed by the Fox sitcom developed for the former host of HBO’s Def Comedy Jam, Martin Lawrence. The progeny of `Andy’ and `Beulah’ still play on network television Ð whether on Fox, the newest member of the Network big boys, or on UPN. The motivations behind these programming choices are both suspect and many. Televisual (Dis)Comfort: Race and the Situation Comedy One takes a certain risk when tackling contemporary televisual constructions of Blackness. The easy part is calling attention to the reincarnation of Sapphire in Martin’s Sheneneh or the Stepin’ Fetchit buffoonery of Marlon on The Wayans Brothers; the hard part is to avoid forcing characters into historical de® ned racist archetypes Ð like the `pure’ mammy, sambo and, of course, the coon Ð while still acknowledging the minstrel lineage of these characters. The lack of awareness on the part of the critic can lead to the simple binaryism of positive and negative representations. As Robert Stam and Ella Shohat aptly note in Unthinking Eurocentrism, a scholar can fall into an analytical trap: `Behind every Black child performer the critic discerns a ª pickaninnyº ¼ behind every corpulent or nurturing Black female a ª mammyº ¼ [thereby running] the risk of reproducing the very racial essentialism they were designed to combat’ (Shohat and Stam, 1995, p. 199). On the other hand, when one looks at televisual representations of Blackness as cultural products, which as Herman Gray notes, are `part of an ongoing dialogue within and across social locations and positions within and outside black communities,’ there is the urge to ® nd empowerment in the surge of images of African-Americans. In Gray’s seminal text, Watching Race, he pointed to the proliferation of images of Blackness in the early 1990s Ð exempli® ed by shows like Frank’s Place, A Different World and In Living Color Ð as `television representations [that] explode and reveal the deeply rooted terms of [racial] hierarchy’ (1995, p. 10). While there is a clear case for the liberatory potential of these series (none of which made it through the 1990s) Ð as social spaces of contestation Ð I am not certain the same can be said for most Black sitcom texts today. In addition, I ® nd it disconcerting that, as a result of many postmodern, poststructuralist readings of programs (and the representations within them), which maintain that progressive and regressive forces can be discerned in the performances of identity within televisual texts, we seem to have lost the facility for outrage. All texts can be redeemed in the re-reading. It seems somehow appropriate that two of the most provocative interventions on the newest iterations of minstrelsy were provided in the form of cinematic texts for the big and small screens, respectively: Spike Lee’s feature, Bamboozled (2000), and Reggie Rock Bythewood’s HBO drama, Dancing in Why `Beulah’ and `Andy’ Still Play 253 September (2000). Although it is not my intention to debate the merits of either ® lm (a detailed discussion of these very different texts goes beyond the boundaries of this essay), the speci® c questions that these cinematic works raise are in® nitely pertinent to this study: What is the insidious nature of minstrelsy in televisual representations of Blackness? And, just as signi® cantly, how do these texts spread the blame for keeping `cooning’ on television alive? One might argue that Lee’s satire, which traces the rise and fall of both Pierre Delacroix, the hip, Harvard-educated and sole person of color working for an upstart netlet (played in high theatricality by Damon Wayans) and his black-faced Frankenstein of programming, Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show, strains the bounds of credulity. After all, literal blackface couldn’t play with today’s `racially enlightened’ audiences, right? Nonetheless, particular sequences in the ® lms directly relate to commentaries made by those in the business of putting Black shows on the air. In the sequence in which Delacroix’s boss, Dunwitty (Michael Rappaport), the poster boy for misappropriation of Black culture, gives him an ultimatum about the kind of programming the network needs, a clear message is given about what Black shows will not work ...
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