In my article, I deplored the stupidity of our society's bossy cultural censors, who have largely removed the Colored aspect from this song. As a consequence, today's dopey young people might be familiar with the song, but have no idea that it expresses an appreciation of Colored culture. On the contrary, they think the song is about rich Caucasians who dance well.
(In 1927-1930, the polite words were "Colored" and "Caucasian", and so I use those two words in this blog article.)
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A few days ago, a reader of my 2017 blog article wrote the following comment:
.... You don’t get to decide what is offensive for minorities. Also, being happy that racist videos are available on YouTube actually makes you trash.
It sure is true that I do not get to decide "what is offensive for minorities". If I did get to decide, then our society's cultural censors would not be able to prevent people from watching old videos that depict the Colored aspect of the song "Puttin' On the Ritz".
If I did get to decide, then this song still would be perceived to be an appreciation of Colored culture in Harlem in the 1920s. The song would not have been changed into a celebration of rich White people who dance well.
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Those old, culturally correct videos are condemned by our current society's cultural censors because they show Caucasians wearing Black-face make-up. We all are supposed to assume that all such portrayals were racist.
For example, we all are supposed to assume that the artists -- the producers, directors, actors, etc. -- who made the 1930 movie Puttin' On the Ritz were maliciously expressing racist mockery of Colored people in this scene:
On the contrary, those artists -- and the movie audiences -- perceived this scene to be an appreciation of Colored culture -- in particular, of its poetry, music, dancing and fashions.
The movie producers can be criticized for not hiring Colored people to perform that movie scene. However, that decision does not mean that the producers intended the scene to be a mockery of Colored people.
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In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the actors Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland made several movies that featured Black-face scenes. Here are just a couple examples.
In those years, the artists and audiences did not (for the most part) perceive such scenes to be mockery of Colored people.
The common story of such movies was that that Mickey and Judy were organizing their friends to put on a money-making show that would include a variety of song-and-dance performances. One such performance was a performance in which Mickey's and Judy's friends would wear Black-face make-up and then perform like Colored people.
The idea here was that Colored people sang and dance amazingly well. However, Mickey and Judy did not personally have any Colored friends, and so Black-face was the only way to include such a performance in the show.
The movie audience would have been astonished to see that Mickey and Judy actually had a lot of Colored friends whom they could invite to participate in the show. A movie that portrayed a lot of such Colored friends would have been blatantly unrealistic. A movie story in which Mickey and Judy asked their Caucasian friends to wear Black-face make-up and then sing and dance like Colored people was much more realistic.
Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland -- and all the producers, directors and other actors -- did not intend for their movie audiences to perceive such performances as mockery of Colored people. On the contrary, such performances were intended to show the movie audiences how well Colored people sang and danced. At that time, such movie scenes were important cultural progress toward a more racially-integrated society.
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If you approve of cultural censors making such old movies and videos disappear, then you are just making yourselves ignorant.
Yeah, you lost me at "Colored people." Is it 1953 in your neighborhood?
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