Amos 'n' Andy
Based on Thomas Cripps’ article and your viewing of Amos ’n’ Andy this Thursday, how did the television show portray middle class African Americans? Discuss why the sitcom became the center of a hot public debate as well as the arguments offered by each side.
Amos n Andy was a hot public debate topic because it split the opinions of the black middle class. The black middle class, following the war, experience all-time highs of social mobility and influence and networks hoped to air programming to please this new demographic, which had money to spend. The NAACP at the time took a very strong stance against Amos n Andy because of its perceived misrepresentation of the black middle class, embedded in its character's vernacular accents and generally conniving schemes, particularly coming from the Kingfish character. On the other side of the debate NBC and the lower class black population saw value in the increased role of black actors and the representation of a character like Andy, who in stark comparison to the most problematic character (Kingfish), provided a relatively positive image of the black middle class, with or without vernacular speech.
ReplyDeleteWatching the Rare Coin episode, a couple things stood out to me (and are mentioned in the Cripps article). For one, the presence of a nearly all-black cast, even outside of the main Andy and Kingfish characters. As progressive as this seems, while watching the episodeI couldn't help but wonder how accurate this was. Cripps talks about these secondary characters being more pleasing to the black middle class, and more accurate in terms of their general mobility, wealth and Americanized accents. The accents in particular were an issue for the black middle class of the time because unlike the remaining vernaculars in The Goldbergs or I Remember Mama, these accents aren't vestiges of another world, they are instead signs of oversimplification. However, I would argue that while Amos n Andy does a lot of simplification of the black American experience, it does seem to represent at least a somewhat complex relation between class markers of the time. In this way I am distinguishing these secondary characters (the detective, the judge) as the real black middle class in the episode, while Andy and Kingfish are somewhere in between, marked with both nice clothes and relative mobility, while also often acting simply, stupidly in their quest for the rare coin.
However, still the question remains, how accurate is this representation of a nearly all-black world in the 1950s? I think it would be more progressive to show the black middle or lower classes commingling with the predominant white society, as a way of normalizing their place in this society. By presenting a world that seems too "equal" for the time period, it almost defuses some of the shows potential political agenda.
Amos 'n' Andy is an interesting show within its context. The shows depiction of the black middle class was the center of much debate. This debate arose out of the postwar rise of the black bourgeois, mentioned by Cripps, that wielded more power and was not held down by as many social and class restrictions. This black middle class was looked to for leadership from the black community. Amos 'n' Andy seemed to be a step backwards in its depiction of a rising minority according to the view of the black middle class, galvanized by the NAACP. This group saw the show as an oversimplification of black issues and did not approve of its stereotyped racial humor.
ReplyDeleteHowever despite the protests of the black middle class there was support for the show by the black community. Most importantly was the support of blacks in show business that saw it as an opportunity for black actors to have roles in the usually white dominated field of network television. The show was a chance for integration. The other important section was the black lower class that was alienated by some of the rhetoric used by the NAACP and other black middle class groups; in a sense the depiction of the black middle class was inaccurate but was accurate for the lower class.
After seeing the show, the arguments of both sides do hold weight. The shows mostly all black cast is impressive in several regards. Most of the cast speak with "Yankee" or "radio announce American" in the words of Cripp and are shown to be competent individuals (ex. Amos, the judge, the police officer). However the two characters in the forefront of the show Andy and Kingfish are more problematic. They speak with colloquial accents and aren't exactly the most intelligent characters. Kingfish was subject to large amounts of criticism with his scheming and garish dressing, according to Cripps the character seemed to be a mockery of black middle class aspirations. However after seeing the episode these two characters seem to be almost an exception to the environment they inhabit rather the rule. The people around them are the straight man to their comedic antics.
It is understandable to see the idea of Amos 'n' Andy as an oversimplification of black issues though as it depicts blacks almost in a social vacuum away from the white community. But at the same time the show depicts a minority community in a mostly positive light that happens to have two somewhat bumbling characters, not uncommon for a sitcom.
After reading the Cripps article and watching an episode of Amos ‘n’ Andy in class, I saw different views on how African Americans were portrayed. My initial reaction from just viewing one episode in class was that the African American characters were not being represented in a good way. As I watched, I thought that the African American characters were being portrayed as being less educated, therefore not as smart, as the white characters. As I was reading the Cripps article I saw a few parallels between my initial thoughts and the other points made in the article.
ReplyDeleteBecause Amos ‘n’ Andy was on the radio twenty years before it made it to television, the show already had many fans and many critics before the first episode aired. However, as soon as the first episode aired there were already groups supporting the show and found it beneficial to African Americans. On the contrary, there were also groups of people criticizing the show and found it to be negatively portraying African Americans. These two supporting and criticizing groups made the sitcom become a center of pubic debate that both had reasonable arguments. In the Cripps article it is explained that the sitcom, Amos ‘n’ Andy, was intentionally made to make fun of the African American bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie had become one of the biggest critics of the show and retaliated by expressing how disgusted they were for being grouped together with the middle class African Americans. Another critic was the NAACP, who saw themselves as the defenders of the oppressed and took on the networks to try and take Amos ‘n Andy off the air. However, the NAACP failed to cast the sitcom as an enemy to the entire African American community. With total opposite views, some other members in the African American community showed a tremendous amount of support for the show. Since the World War II shook up the social order and enlisted African Americans in a national effort, it enlarged their goals to include the possibility of integration into American life. African American actors wanted to take advantage of the possibility of integration from the war efforts, and at this time were big advocates for supporting Amos ‘n’ Andy. They saw that having African American actors on the screen was better than not having them on there no matter how they were portrayed. Other people, who supported the sitcom, just enjoyed it for the pure source of comedic entertainment.
Although I can see why many African Americans did not want to be portrayed as being less educated and not having common sense, I can also see why others supported it because they were finally getting some freedom to be on television, which they were not able to have before the war.
Initially, based only on my viewing of Amos ‘n’ Andy at our screening, I felt that the main black characters were being presented in an unflattering light. From the ludicrous slapstick situations, to the apparent simple-mindedness of the two leads, it all felt very much like an offensive and played up stereotype. However, I also did note that almost the entire cast was made up of black actors, which I found to be interesting in a world that was still heavily segregated. By presenting African-Americans as judges, lawyers, policemen, business owners, a strange cognitive dissonance occurred while viewing the episode. It seemed as though it was attempting to portray a post-racial America during a time when America was anything but, while simultaneously exploiting harmful stereotypes of African-Americans that could damage any movement of equality they were attempting at the time.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the Cripps’ article, I saw that much of what I felt lined up with how he described Amos ‘n’ Andy’s depiction of the middle class. Although Andy and Kingfish’s broad stereotypical characters were perceived as harmful to the rising black middle class, there was enough ambiguity in their storylines and the depiction of secondary characters on the show that black viewership became divided in its feelings towards the show.
Amos ‘n’ Andy became the center of a debate because post-WWII, the black middle class was growing in size and power, and becoming a hotbed of activism. When Amos ‘n’ Andy began airing, the NAACP began a campaign against it, offended by what they perceived to be a harmful depiction of the black middle class. However, the stance on this issue was actually extremely divided. Many black actors in Hollywood felt grateful for the experiences that a show like Amos ‘n’ Andy provided for black actors, and disliked the NAACP’s attempt to get it off the air. Also, the preoccupation with the harmful depiction of the MIDDLE class made it seem as though the activism cared not about the black lower class. Although, I do believe the NAACP had grounds, because as Cripps mentioned, unlike shows like the Goldbergs or I Remember Mama that used stereotypes to evoke a kind of nostalgia, shows about black families could not have the same effect, as the troubled past of the race included slavery and a culture co-opted and suppressed by Whites in America.
The television portrayal of the African American middle class on the show Amos’n’Andy caused a huge debate within the general public. It was even stated in Cripp’s article that, “for every critic who had complained, another could be found who saw merit in the show” (34). On the television show, middle class African American’s were portrayed as simple minded, uneducated, tricksters who deep down actually mean well. Although the content was racist, it could be seen as a win for the time based on the fact that there were roles for African American’s on television in general.
ReplyDeleteWhen Cripp’s raised the question to why those who were against the show cared so deeply about the Amos’n’Andy debate, he posed the theory that, “the answer is to be found in the rise of the black bourgeoisie to postwar political awareness and its recent success in influencing the racial content of motion pictures” (35). Some black activists felt that the show was taking one step forward just to take three steps back. They had already worked extremely hard to eliminate the harsh stereotypes against African American’s in society and in movies, and that the show was completely eliminated what the community had worked so hard to achieve. On the other side, many argued that it was a success to have any roles for African American’s on television at all. In a time where society was so extremely segregated, integrated opportunities, such as a job in Hollywood, was a large success.
Cripps writes in his article of mid-20th century Black Americans: "On one side was a complex, increasingly political black bourgeoisie; on the other a highly visible weekly comedy that depicted blacks as feckless, verbally crippled, ineptly conniving parvenus with hearts of gold" (34). The television show Amos 'n Andy was the product of a naively racist Columbia Broadcasting Station, and consisted of an all-Black cast while aiming for an equally racist White American audience. As a radio show, Cripps writes, Amos 'n Andy had not received the criticism that it did for its television version, most likely because once the characters were given an appearance and a face, the hurtful stereotypes became much more ridiculous and offensive to Black audiences. With the rise of the civil rights movement and the rise of wealthy, educated Black consumers, the offensive nature of the show was no longer irrelevent; the opinions of the Black viewers had to matter to the networks (and as networks realized the monetary benefit of more Black viewers, they paid more attention). The problem was, two White men were in charge of creating an image and creating a show that was intended to be for a Black American audience.
ReplyDeleteKingfish, the scheming "potentate of a grimcrack lodge," seemed to be a caricature of Black middle-class aspiration and served a foil to the more "saner, wiser ... more humane folk." As a result of the poor depictions of Blacks in the show, the NAACP and CBS went head to head in the media. Cripps writes:
"All of t[ethnic shows] shared a pool of interchangeable parts: an extended family, crotchety but warmly sentimental old folks, happy problems happily resolved in twenty-eight minutes of air time ... Unfortunately, Amos 'n Andy was asked to perform similar service for an ethnic group whose history included slavery, discrimination, and and exclusion from the opportunity for easy assimilation implied in the gently comic plots of the European ethnic shows ...Thus their traits and eccentric manners, dialect, and other cultural baggage were perceived ... as mocking of racial subculture" (43-44).
This point made by Cripps is crucial to the understanding of why Amos 'n Andy was deeply offensive to both Blacks and Whites and to the advancement of equal rights in the US. Television was so influential to the public, and by portraying the characters of the show the way that Amos 'n Andy producers did, they took steps backward in the struggle for civil rights in the mid-20th century. It would not be until the TV market was de-monopolized and more Black producers, writers, and actors entered the scene, that the media was able to progress past the stereotypical, White-centric programs.
The screening of the television show Amos ‘n’ Andy showcases stereotypical middle class black characters who deal in deceit and selfishness. In the episode “The Rare Coin” the Kingfish tricks Andy into giving him a coin worth $250 and also tricks Andy into helping him retrieve the coin after using it to call a rare coin dealer. This comical rendition stereotypes the complex and politically evolved middle class black family in the 1950s as simple, dumb, rowdy, criminal, and shallow. This worried the sophisticated blacks who looked at the middle class (which consisted of activist leaders) for leadership. There is much debate about the racism of the show; adult leaders who were surveyed about their opinion of the show ranged from tastefulness to emphatic disdain. The exaggerated behavior of the middle class blacks in the show prompted Variety to write an article that suggests toning down stereotypes and a “shift in focus from burlesque to sympathy”. Most surprisingly, however, is the fact that this sparked much controversy after CBS has decided to air the show. This show, on the other side of the token, features blacks in all types of roles ranging from lawyers to police officers to judges. It serves as an insight into the middle class black culture aside from just the stereotypical view so predominantly associated with the show.
ReplyDeleteAmos 'n' Andy is a rather controversial while meritorious sitcom that touched the issue of racial integration within American broadcast system in 1940th. The "all black cast", on one hand, accused by the rising Afro-American middle classes that "presented to a national white audience an image of maddening oversimplicity" ; however, on the other hand, it do provide precious opportunity for those African American actors to break the "white monopoly" in earlier television industry.
ReplyDeleteAs the Crippes mentioned in his article, the NAACP spoke against the show perceived themselves as having successfully struggled to overcome the cultural bandage that the character in the show seemed locked into. In the screening clips, for example, Andy and Kingfish spoke in rural dialects whereas other characters were set to speak Yankee accent. At this point, the activists were right since the show indeed used stereotyping portrait of Afro-Americans. Nevertheless, from a foreigner viewer's perspective, the show actually moves beyond a heap of racial cliches, in fact, the results showed its popularity and influence among black and white audience. The producer, Mr.Ely once said that he intended to use Amos 'n' Andy to examine American racial attitude in the first half of the twentieth century. After all, the show was anything but a comedy and an exploitation of black life, its essential appeal to lie somewhere other than in its humor. From the screening, we could also analyze the main actors's characteristics: Andy was unquestionably a lazy, voracious and pretentious fellow, but was also a good-natured man; Amos was naive as well as dense, but he also act honest and hardworking. Moreover, the were both depicted in realistic situations that all the audience no matter black or white could understand. Just as the Mr.Ely comments that the characters walked a tightrope, plying white audience with racial stereotyping cliches while cleverly muting their harsher overtones.
Overall, the show had successfully humanized the caricature of Afro-American and provided a well-established, informative analysis of the history in that depiction and offered Afro-American actors wider space to express themselves in their own style of presenting stereotyping irony on the show,which I think is pretty acceptable for most of the modern viewers.