Customer Reviews

Forgeries of Memory and Meaning: Blacks and the Regimes of Race in American Theater and Film before World War II

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This is one of the best works of African-American film studies to come out in years. Many of us who have found the work of David Bogle (Toms, Mammies, Mulattoes, Bucks & Coons) wanting on several levels will have their prayers answered with Robinson's impeccable scholarship and far-reaching analysis of the changing perceptions and representations of African-Americans after the Civil War, Reconstruction and the release of Griffith's BIRTH OF A NATION (1915). What was important for me in reading this book was Robinson's astute ability to discern the origins of the specific caricatures of African-Americans in the traveling minstral shows that circulated throughout the country before the invention of cinema. He also reveals how early American Cinema was predicated upon these caricatures of African-Americans as a revenue generating source of "entertainment". He then reveals how these caricatures were employed by African-American actors as a means to gain employment within the movie industry. The chapters on early American Theatre, Oscar Micheaux, and The Birth of a Nation are the best written efforts I've read in years: fresh and full of new insights. Robinson discusses the duplicitous nature of minstrelsy for whites and African-Americans. This was a throughly engrossing read and a book that will be referenced by scholars, students and filmmakers for years to come.