Week 2: Race (African-Americans)

The Tom

• produced from “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”

• Older, desexualized man who is harassed, enslaved, keeps faith

The C__n

larger category, subjects or ridicules/black buffoons

The Pickaninny

• played by black children

• harmless indicators of screwball comedy

The pure c__n

• unreliable, lazy, subhuman, literally every stereotype inflated to the max

The Uncle Remus

• Older

• Harmless

• comic philosophic ramblings

The tragic Muletto

• young woman made likable via sympathy

  • tragic “racial inheritance” (mixed and didn’t know it)

The Mammy

• large, fiercely independent black woman

• “Gone with the wind”

The Aunt Jemima

• Sweet

• Good tempered

• never as outspoken as mammy

The Brutal Black Buck

• barbaric

• made to wreck havok

• acts in rampages

The Black Buck

• large

• violent

• oversexualized

• lust for white woman

  • white womanhood=ultimate desirability (southern pride)