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dc.contributor.authorLee, Josephine
dc.date.accessioned2023-10-04T14:18:17Z
dc.date.available2023-10-04T14:18:17Z
dc.date.issued2022
dc.identifierONIX_20231004_9798890862211_5
dc.identifier.urihttps://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/76553
dc.description.abstractIn this book, Josephine Lee looks at the intertwined racial representations of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American theater. In minstrelsy, melodrama, vaudeville, and musicals, both white and African American performers enacted blackface characterizations alongside oriental stereotypes of opulence and deception, comic servitude, and exotic sexuality. Lee shows how blackface types were often associated with working-class masculinity and the development of a nativist white racial identity for European immigrants, while the oriental marked what was culturally coded as foreign, feminized, and ornamental. These conflicting racial connotations were often intermingled in actual stage performance, as stage productions contrasted nostalgic characterizations of plantation slavery with the figures of the despotic sultan, the seductive dancing girl, and the comic Chinese laundryman. African American performers also performed common oriental themes and characterizations, repurposing them for their own commentary on Black racial progress and aspiration. The juxtaposition of orientalism and black figuration became standard fare for American theatergoers at a historical moment in which the color line was rigidly policed. These interlocking cross-racial impersonations offer fascinating insights into habits of racial representation both inside and outside the theater.
dc.languageEnglish
dc.subject.otherCross-racial performance
dc.subject.otherblackface minstrelsy
dc.subject.otheryellowface
dc.subject.otherAmerican orientalism
dc.subject.otherracial stereotypes
dc.subject.otherall-Black musical
dc.subject.othernineteenth-century American theater
dc.subject.otherracial habit
dc.subject.otherAladdin
dc.subject.otherShuffle Along
dc.subject.otherIra Aldridge
dc.subject.otherJapanese Tommy
dc.subject.otherBert Williams
dc.subject.otherGeorge Walker
dc.subject.otherIn Dahomey
dc.subject.otherAbyssinia
dc.subject.otherAida Overton Walker
dc.subject.otherSalome
dc.subject.otherChinese laundry
dc.subject.otherrepresentations of the Philippine-American War
dc.subject.otherFlower Drum Song
dc.subject.otherJuanita Long Hall
dc.subject.otherPrincess Sotanki
dc.subject.otherSissieretta Jones
dc.subject.otherAfro-Asian
dc.subject.otherchop suey
dc.titleOriental, Black, and White
dc.title.alternativeThe Formation of Racial Habits in American Theater
dc.typebook
oapen.identifier.doi10.5149/9781469669632_Lee
oapen.relation.isPublishedBy29b4cf74-8c0a-422f-9d27-e862ca722861
oapen.relation.isFundedBydd4740d0-d770-4a4c-b4e8-54e513782c6e
oapen.relation.isFundedBy0cdc3d7c-5c59-49ed-9dba-ad641acd8fd1
oapen.relation.isbn9798890862211
oapen.relation.isbn9781469669618
oapen.relation.isbn9781469669625
oapen.relation.isbn9781469669632
oapen.collectionToward an Open Monograph Ecosystem (TOME)
oapen.imprintThe University of North Carolina Press
oapen.pages344
oapen.place.publicationChapel Hill
oapen.grant.number[...]
oapen.grant.number[...]


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