My project can be read as an intervention that aims to disrupt the "innocence" of burlesque's dominant historical narratives, where burlesque is fashioned as related to minstrelsy but not as minstrelsy. A discussion of the White women as minstrel performers is lacking in the available burlesque histories because they have not addressed the meanings of musical sounds and movements, elements that constitute the core of burlesque. Using music as a lens to re-evaluate the meanings of burlesque performance, I show how burlesque, like minstrelsy, has functioned on the historical erasure of Black and Brown bodies. In burlesque, White women performers have predicated their departures from norms of White femininity on racist performances of "black"-ness. These minstrel performances were enabled by a White fetishization of musical sounds and movements coded Black or "Other." Building on the work of Jayna Brown and Sherrie Tucker, and responding to Susanne Cusick's call to address how musical performances might be read productively through Judith Butler's theory of performativity, I foreground music and embodiment to ask: How do burlesque artists perform and (re)perform gender, sexuality, and race? To unpack this question, I first look at historical (re)presentations of burlesque performance and music. After this historical section, I read key scenes from classic era films featuring burlesque music and performance, using semiotics to argue that these performances can be read as an extension of blackface minstrelsy. I discuss how certain jazz-influenced musical devices - horn smears, belting or "loud" singing, angular or jerky dancing - primarily functioned to signal "black"-ness, sex, and modernity to the intended White audience/spectator. In the next chapter, I examine the extent to which neo-burlesque could be considered a queering of burlesque by doing close readings of contemporary burlesque performances. From here, I look more critically at how racial and genre boundaries are created and maintained within contemporary burlesque, resulting in a new burlesque normativity. Finally, I highlight the work being done by burlesque performers of color who work within and against burlesque's dominant ideologies, subverting racist representations of people of color through mimetic resistance. / text

Controlling images and negative stereotypes have had damaging effects on black men and women. The entertainment industry continues to play a vital role in perpetuating these historically damaging images to people all over the world. Early representations of black men and women within entertainment were performed by white men under the guise of blackface. These representations were offensive and inaccurate portrayals of black life. Early blackface minstrel performances of black women were performed by white men in blackface who were also cross-dressing. Their performances presented black women in stereotypical roles which have become a norm. Recently, there has been a phenomenon of black men cross-dressing as black women portraying negative stereotypes. These depictions done under the guise of comedy further perpetuate controlling images of black women to the world. This research examines how current and former displays of gender minstrelsy manipulate the image of Black womanhood.

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Abstract:Social Media has become a powerful tool in several aspects. It can mobilize movements, rallying for social or political causes, and it can bring people together to share experiences or interest on a global platform. Social media platforms have facilitated more dynamic ways of presenting and performing identity positions such as race, gender, class and sexuality. Though many scholars have agreed that the internet and social media offer interesting new aspects in relation to identity exploration and self-expression, the performance of identity online can also contribute to problematic discourses that reinforce old social stereotypes online affecting what happens offline.This thesis explores racial performance on social media by examining the phenomenon of ‘Digital Blackface’, which is a virtual continuation of a historical phenomenon that operates, in particular, through Internet memes. The thesis studies different versions of an American meme, which represent an altered representation of a real person, known as Sweet Brown. Sweet Brown is an African American woman who after she was interviewed on television became a viral celebrity. Due to her expressive personality, her image has been remixed into several popular Internet memes.The theoretical framework consists of a theorization of racial performance and media representation theory. This theoretical lens is used in the analysis that sets out to answer the questions, how is the Sweet Brown meme used as a form of racial performance online? What is Digital Blackface and how does it operate online? And In what way can racial performance reinforce stereotypic representations? The methodological approach the thesis employs to conduct the analysis and exemplify the problematics are visual analysis, critical discourse analysis, and critical theory. Further, the implication of racial performances in Internet memes is linked to other recent cases or incidents that relate to issues of racial performance in the media. Keywords: Racial Performance, Internet memes, Minstrelsy, Digital Blackface, Internet Culture, Representation, Race, Racism.

Stephen Foster is acknowledged as America’s first composer of popular music. His legacy can be seen in the number of songs that are embedded in our cultural heritage – “Oh! Susanna,” “Beautiful Dreamer,” and “My Old Kentucky Home,” are but a very few of his most popular works. Stephen Foster’s songs have been incorporated into every facet of American culture including both popular and classical musical culture, television, and film. However, his legacy is complicated as it is tainted by connections to blackface minstrelsy in some works. This document seeks to trace the threads of racial sensitivity and cultural appropriation in works arranged for choral ensembles based on Foster’s songs. The arrangements chosen for this document provide a glimpse into three distinct periods of American history – pre-Civil Rights, the Civil Rights Era, and post-Civil Rights. Using a process of comparative analysis of the music and text of the originals to that of the arrangements, this document traces expected and unexpected changes in music and text associated with each period. Perhaps through the continued study of one of America’s first purveyors of popular culture, we can begin to understand our national legacy of racism more clearly and find a path towards reconciliation.

The purpose of this study is to outline the origins of African-American men in musical theatre, uncover their contributions to the art form, and explore how their legacy is continued today. I was inspired to do this research because through my undergraduate curriculum I have only narrowly studied African-American men in musical theatre and opera history. Upon realizing the lack of attention to this subject matter, not only in my curriculum but in historical resources, I was inspired to address the need for this research. The courses I have taken included Theatre History 1 and 2 and Musical Theatre History 1 and 2; recognition of African-Americans in the theatrical arts has been discussed at a minimal level. The majority of African-American studies in these classes focus on minstrelsy and its contribution to American musical theatre. Minstrelsy was an American form of entertainment consisting of variety acts, dancing, and music during the early 1900s. The shows were a mockery of African-Americans with white (Sometimes Black) men dressing themselves in clown-like costumes and black face paint to depict a caricature of blacks. Throughout my coursework I have found there is still a presence of Minstrelsy in the framework of American musical theatre today. Understanding how minstrelsy influenced musical theatre led me to research Bert Williams, a pioneer African-American performer both in minstrelsy and American theatre. Bert Williams broke racial barriers, allowing African-Americans to perform alongside whites and gain proper show billing. This not only influenced theatre, but the social temperature of the time as well, as the stereotype of African-Americans in society slowly began to be broken down, and whites having the opportunity to see African-Americans as normal people aided in the seeding and progression of the civil rights movement. To further study the works and life of Bert Williams, I learned and performed his iconic song, "Nobody." The song is a commentary of how Williams is overlooked because he is an African-American man. It talks about how he is expected to be funny and make a mockery of himself at the expense of himself. In researching the historical context and gaining an understanding of the content within the song, I was able to better understand other roles I have played in various musicals. This gave me a different perspective to the subject matter of racism within a show. Furthermore, it allowed me to view the evolution of African-American roles in musical theatre, and how they originated in vaudevillian shows. A subject of which I had never explored within my classes. Williams had a very successful and influential career and became the basis for my research. However, as I began my exploration, I realized there were a vast variety of men of color who either contributed as much, if not more, to the progression of African-American men in musical theatre and opera. Bert Williams, Todd Duncan, and Paul Robeson all forged careers in musical theatre and/or opera. These men aided in presenting African-American men in realistic settings and not as stereotyped caricatures. African-American men in musical theatre and opera are typically overlooked for their contribution to the art forms. However, Bert Williams, Todd Duncan, and Paul Robeson were trailblazers for African-American men in musical theatre and opera; utilizing their status and fame to make political change and fight for equal rights, both on and off stage. Their legacy is seen in the art form through the structure of musical theatre, the content of the musical comedy that led to the musical drama, and through the integration of the African-American performer in both musical theatre and opera. In continuation of their legacy, we see more roles in shows for African-American men and a growing interest in shows with African-Americans. The recent opening and revivals of shows like Porgy and Bess, Motown: The Musical, and Kinky Boots all feature leading African-American men on stage. My duty as a young African-American practitioner of both musical theatre and opera is to continue their legacy through both my studies and performance. I am honored to be a part of their legacy, furthering their contributions, and bringing light to their stories through my research and analysis.

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Troupers: Essays in Three Rings is a collection of fourteen essays focused mainly on variety entertainers (including the author). It leads the reader through a menagerie of the author's own enthusiasms--from clowning and circus elephants, to hot jazz and the ukulele. While the primary occupation of the "troupers"spotlighted here has always been to delight audiences, many of them--both human and animal--could not escape the hardscrabble, the sundered relations, the violence of everyday life. The author tells the stories of these "troupers" here, stories that reveal both their suffering and their refusal to suffer.

“The Transgressive Stage: The Culture of Public Entertainment in Late Victorian Toronto,” argues that public entertainment was one of the most important sites for the negotiation of identities in late Victorian Toronto. From the vantage point of the twenty-first century, where theatre is strictly highbrow, it is difficult to appreciate the centrality of public entertainment to everyday life in the nineteenth century. Simply put, the Victorian imagination was populated by melodrama and minstrelsy, Shakespeare and circuses. Studying the responses to these entertainments, greatly expands our understanding of Victorian culture. The central argument of this dissertation is that public entertainment spilled over the threshold of the playhouse and circus tent to influence the wider world. In so doing, it radically altered the urban streetscape, interacted with political ideology, promoted trends in consumption, as well as exposed audiences to new intellectual currents about art and beauty. Specifically, this study examines the moral panic surrounding indecent theatrical advertisements; the use by political playwrights of tropes from public entertainment as a vehicle for political satire; the role of the stage in providing an outlet for Toronto’s racial curiosity; the centrality of commercial amusements in defining the boundaries of gender; and, finally, the importance of the theatre—particularly through the Aesthetic Movement—in attempts to control the city’s working class. When Torontonians took in a play, they were also exposing themselves to one of the most significant transnational forces of the nineteenth century. British and American shows, which made up the bulk of what was on offer in the city, brought with them British and American perspectives. The latest plays from London and New York made their way to the city within months, and sometimes weeks, of their first production. These entertainments introduced audiences to the latest thoughts, fashion, slang and trends. They also confronted playgoers with issues that might, on the surface seem foreign and irrelevant. Nevertheless, they quickly adapted to the environment north of the border. Public entertainment in Toronto came to embody a hybridized culture with a promiscuous co-mingling of high and low and of British and American influences.

“The Transgressive Stage: The Culture of Public Entertainment in Late Victorian Toronto,” argues that public entertainment was one of the most important sites for the negotiation of identities in late Victorian Toronto. From the vantage point of the twenty-first century, where theatre is strictly highbrow, it is difficult to appreciate the centrality of public entertainment to everyday life in the nineteenth century. Simply put, the Victorian imagination was populated by melodrama and minstrelsy, Shakespeare and circuses. Studying the responses to these entertainments, greatly expands our understanding of Victorian culture. The central argument of this dissertation is that public entertainment spilled over the threshold of the playhouse and circus tent to influence the wider world. In so doing, it radically altered the urban streetscape, interacted with political ideology, promoted trends in consumption, as well as exposed audiences to new intellectual currents about art and beauty. Specifically, this study examines the moral panic surrounding indecent theatrical advertisements; the use by political playwrights of tropes from public entertainment as a vehicle for political satire; the role of the stage in providing an outlet for Toronto’s racial curiosity; the centrality of commercial amusements in defining the boundaries of gender; and, finally, the importance of the theatre—particularly through the Aesthetic Movement—in attempts to control the city’s working class. When Torontonians took in a play, they were also exposing themselves to one of the most significant transnational forces of the nineteenth century. British and American shows, which made up the bulk of what was on offer in the city, brought with them British and American perspectives. The latest plays from London and New York made their way to the city within months, and sometimes weeks, of their first production. These entertainments introduced audiences to the latest thoughts, fashion, slang and trends. They also confronted playgoers with issues that might, on the surface seem foreign and irrelevant. Nevertheless, they quickly adapted to the environment north of the border. Public entertainment in Toronto came to embody a hybridized culture with a promiscuous co-mingling of high and low and of British and American influences.