The modern day minstrel

The Minstrel Show was one of the largest American theater movements in history that would eventually evolve into Vaudeville. It consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing and music, performed by white people in blackface. Minstrel shows painted black people as dim -witted, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, and musical.

By 1848, blackface minstrel shows were the national art form, overtaking opera in popularity. It infiltrated film, television and radio all the way through silent films and the 21st century. Amateur performances continued until the 1960s in high schools, and local theaters throughout the south.

We focused on telling the story David envisioned to illuminate the disparity of black and minority presence in modern entertainment and media. The series begins stoic using elements of the white subservient gloves, (to indicate the role of the black person in elite white culture) against the nude form of a black man pained in black face to make an oxymoronic image of himself.

The use of the homeless sign will work for equality is a metaphor for the will to lose oneself in order to be treated fairly. As the series evolves the man uses stereotypes to re-enforce his perceived status in society, hence the glorification of the watermelon while sitting in a gold-plated throne.

Eventually his black face is peeled away erotically by the hands of a white to indicate what he thinks will make him more equal. Tragically it ends in the demise of his spirit where he is destroyed by choking on the very stereotypes that he held so high in value.

In the end all he has left is his naked body, a broken spirit, pummeled by watermelon pieces of his past, while wearing the soaked and stained white gloves that has held up the American view of his race since slavery.

It was beyond moving to capture this series. Racism exists globally and people are negligent to the reality. The focus of this series is to shed some light on the situation. Everyone is human and no one is superior to another.

Not only was it fun but educational for me as an artist. I learned a lot from David about what African American's experienced through the 19th century. I knew about Minstrelsy vaguely and this series gave me a big new perspective on the inequality still alive in this generation.