Black Entertainment : "Good Times" as Minstrel Show

[Asomfwaa]

For your information, it's this video of Malcolm which inspires this thread.



It's a good video because it shows the images of African actors ingraining overt self-hatred.

 

[Asomfwaa]

Shows like Good Times, then and now, tell a far deeper story than meets the eye. For people who were simply looking to be entertained when they watched shows like that, they weren't disappointed. But for a lot of Black people back in those days, socially and politically conscious Black people, they witnessed their history and their reality being acted out amidst a bit of laughter. Those shows gave us permission to laugh sometimes in spite of our constant struggle. Which I personally believe is healthy. Shows like that were and still are an accurate depiction of our African American experience.

Tomfoolery? I can see how some Black people might define shows like Good Times that way. But I believe if you look at the program and others like it as a whole, with an understanding our history, you might agree that there are far deeper messages conveyed--subtle and overt--about who we are and what we think. And the laughter--not always over something you thought was dumb or silly. Sometimes the laughter was a way of being in agreement, when you recognized from personal experience, something that just happened.

I think a part of the misunderstanding of this thread is in us not really knowing what Minstrel Shows were like.

Minstrel Shows were remotely relatable too, if only over-the-top and exaggerated. But at the end of the day, it wasn't uplifting.

Sure, it shows you a powerlessness that remains with Black people, but there's a reason that powerlessness remains with Black people: partly we entertain ourselves with our own powerlessness.

The same people talking about Dr. Carter G. Woodson spoke about how the European mis-educated us and we don't need to look for a backdoor 'cause we'll create it, don't realize that "Good Times" is part and parcel to this mis-education and this instilling of this 'backdoor.'

In one "Good Times" episode, Thelma, a beautiful woman who is called ugly by her own Brother, is to wed this football player. He has a big contract, so the whole family trips over themselves to make sure she gets with him. But this beautiful Black woman sees herself as unworthy because the football player should be entitled to any woman. The deeper subtleties should be clear in this re-telling:

A beautiful woman sees herself unworthy because of money.
A Brother calls his own Sister ugly.
A family trips over themselves for money.
A woman sees a man as entitled to any woman because of money.

Here you see the 'normalness' of degrading African beauty and uplifting European money. This is a praise of Mammon at the expense of African women. This is a plain, outright contract with evil, being instilled and normalized for African people.

And you can see--all forty-years after the show, Black people are arguing that it's a 'realistic' representation of Black people. Certainly, some of us are materialists and gold digging, no doubt. But to convince us to defend contracts with evil, when we don't even have to, is to show what poor effects this medium has. More it shows that the same story is replayed, in our faces and we have no defenses.

Sister Cherry who is often on-point, defends a woman's choice for playing a degrading Maid on television for the money! Sister Cherry who is often on-point defends a woman's praise of Mammon! Come on! We must begin to think here!

The actors of "Good Times" reflect an overt choice to embrace Mammonism and they actively instilled in the African Community that embrace. How can we even forty years later defend these same agents of Mammon? How?

It's like--what's all the analysis for if we defend the very brainwashing that Europeans send us every generation? What is it for? How can we not see what's being shown? How can we defend selling out our own community for a buck?

 

[cherryblossom]

...--that's why I wrote 'always angry' because from the little I saw it seemed the Father got angry for the boy appreciating him.)...

...nuff said.

 

[Asomfwaa]

...nuff said.

Yes. It should be considered whether the show would be so acceptable if it were European actors in Black-face. The truth is that the story and the environment are unimportant to most viewers, just the actors. But this is how Europeans get into our minds. It's a trojan horse that's so ingrained, though simple, that all years after the mis-education, even our scholars defend the abuse.

Heck, you called dissing one another a part of African culture in America. But there's a reason why that was a part of African culture in America. "Judge by cause, not by effect." And you defended it as being good to be on TV. How do you call a woman as pretty as Thelma 'ugly?' Is that how literal Brothers should treat their Sisters? You'd readily accept that as yes, but can't you, years after the fact, see that as regressive?

And when the youth on television call one another the n-word, can we critique them when we did the same thing for the same reason?

It's just life on repeat with us. We can't seem to look pass the Black face.

 

[cherryblossom]

... ...

A "cold decorative sense" is to say that their house looked bland, unkempt and abandoned. You can say that it's realistic, but it goes back to the other thread on being 'optimistic' and 'realistic.'

Just as the White woman's show reflected an excellent example of a White woman that wasn't even realistic at the time, "Good Times" could have done the same but didn't..."

Again, obviously, YOU and that so-called "Elder" have NO IDEA what the BLACK EXPERIENCE is for POOR URBAN BLACKS.

If you have never had to put a BRICK under the BROKEN leg of a couch or chair...if you have never had to use a SHEET for a furniture covering because it was torn with the stuffing come out it....and many other "do what you can with what you got" strategies, then you and this "Elder" don't know what a "COLD DECORATIVE SENSE" is.