If there’s a world where Amos ’N’ Andy opened TV up for black actors and creatives, we didn’t get to live in it. I don’t think the TV version of this property is as offensive as its reputation-the NAACP got the program driven from the air based largely on the reputation of the radio show in an era when blackface and minstrel shows were rapidly being seen for the offensiveness they contained (though Correll and Gosden as Amos and Andy continued on radio until 1960)-but it would be hard for a show that disappeared from the airwaves because of that controversy and despite its success to be that offensive. Is representation worth anything if it’s primarily being used to prop up the majority’s belief in its own superiority? Later, Kingfish laments all the money he’s lost when he thinks he has a chance to make a profit on the land, while Andy is fooled into believing there’s an oil well on his property thanks to a hose and some motor oil. It takes Andy and Lightnin’ forever to arrive at this conclusion, making them seem almost too stupid to believe. (I’d summarize the plot more, but it’s literally in the title of the episode.) The house is from a movie set, and it’s just a false front. Take, for instance, the scene where Andy and Lightnin’ first come to the house he believes he’s bought on the lot Kingfish sold to him. And Lightnin’, the kid who helps Andy move into his “house,” is a goofball naïf, whom Wikipedia helpfully describes as “a slow-moving Stepin Fetchit type.” Are there other characters who break free of black stereotypes? Sure, but in this episode, at least, they’re sent to the background in favor of the Andy/Kingfish storyline and Lightnin’s high jinks. The Kingfish is a greedy, two-bit hustler who’ll rig up any scheme to keep his money. Andy is a dumb, shiftless layabout-the first big laugh we get is from him being asleep in bed. After all, on the radio, race can’t be seen, and both men seemed politely embarrassed by the one film they appeared in as Amos and Andy (one of the few times they’d appear in actual blackface).Īll of that may very well be true-I’m not enough of an expert on the original radio show to say-but what’s harder to square as a progressive viewer in the year 2013 is that this story is based around harmful stereotypes. Several scholars have made the argument that the world of the show was so fully realized and filled with such interesting characters that Correll and Gosden were far less to blame for the perpetuating of racial stereotypes than many other popular minstrel show-inspired radio programs of the era. Club contributor Gwen Ihnat, who’s an expert on old-time radio and will be joining us for this discussion). Correll and Gosden were white, and they used their facility with doing voices based on popular types from minstrel shows to fill Amos ’N’ Andy with characters that created a kind of aural blackface (in the words of A.V. Much of the controversy surrounding Amos ’N’ Andy actually stems from the radio show. When Amos ’N’ Andy was airing, it was essentially the only place on American television to see black people at all the next popular sitcom with a majority black cast- Sanford And Son-wouldn’t arrive for nearly two decades after this show’s cancellation. (Though his name is in the title of the show, Amos has essentially become a supporting character in the story by this point, reflecting the way that popular newspaper comic strips would eventually be hijacked by former supporting characters who became more and more popular-see also: Barney Google And Snuffy Smith.) The TV series’ Harlem is a place that comes to vibrant life each week, filled with a panoply of characters from all walks of life. In the central roles of Andy and the Kingfish, Spencer Williams and Tim Moore are fine and funny indeed, finding the humor in some very broad material. White characters were an unusual occurrence, and every one of the major regular and recurring characters was played by a black actor. The primary argument in favor of Amos ’N’ Andy is that it depicts a richly textured Harlem community at its center, filled with all manner of black people, filling all manner of occupations and roles. The question of representation is a difficult one to answer.
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