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Dudley Dix and the Stooges.. racist?

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Offline Shemoeley Fine

I am an Afro-Cubano who arrived in the US in the mid-50's a an adolescent and was subjected to segragation in the South from my family's initial arrival in Miami. We had to take a bus to New York and we were placed in the "colored" section of Dowtown Miami's Greyhound depot, we were made to sit in the back of the bus, use sepearate restrooms, drinking fountains and dining facilites as we made our way through the South to NYC. When we left Baltimore and crossed the Mason-Dixon line, yes Virginia the capitol of the US was/is a southern city and subject to segregation, things changed as far as "forced seperation"

Coming from Cuba, we had known racism but not forced seperation as here in the land of the free. This experience marked me for life and when the 60's civil rights era began my family, my cousins and myself and siblings all became heavily involved in the movement. I studied racism of the US in college, specializing in the media's portrayal of coloreds. darkies, negroes, blacks, african-americans etc etc I took a course in the history of minstrel shows as well. I was a Black Panther and militant in the early 70's as learning about the racist history of this country made me angry in the Nam era as I avoided service because I was not going to fight commies 5,000 miles away, commies who never called me nigger, while my own country had commies 150 miles south of Miami.

I mention all of this to indicate what I am about to say is not just shoooting off the hip. In the 60's my colleagues despised Louis Armstrong, Rochester, Sammy Davis and many others including Dudley Dickerson for their stereotypes. Now I know better, Louis was quite an outspoken critic of Eisenhower and the Little Rock segregration event, Sammy contribuited mucho $$$ to the cause and many actors had to portray what they did or not work,  not everyone had the courage of Paul Robeson or Ossie Davis, not even the top dog, Sydney Poittier, he came around a bit later.

I wouldn't consider the Stooges prejudiced, they had a choice, they could've NOT used Dudley Dickerson repeatedly. Dudley was kinda of a Black Stooge in his antics anyhow. One 2-reeler, A Gem of a Jam has what I beleive to be IMO, the best role by Dudley, the least of amount of so called sterotyping from that era is seen and the interactions between he and Curley are not that of 'racists", in fact the touching of hands. 1 black and 1 white I guarantee you was banned in the South, and if not was frowned upon bySoutherners going to the movies to see the Stooges. More racists are the satires and portrayals of Japanese and Germans during the war, an understandable situation.. let us not forget that in the South the Stooges were Kikes, northern liberals and although I have no way of checking, I doubt sincerly that the Stooges had no live shows or appearances in the South before their final stage of the 1960's and perhaps not even then.  Moreover the Howard brothers and Larry having been raised in uban areas, Brooklyn and Philly, and as jazz swing lovers would've have plenty of interactions with Blacks.

We have to view the Stooges and judge then in the context of their times, as a person who is knowledgeable of the climate of their times I would not consider them them racists and I now have no problem viewing the Stooges shorts with Dudley and I explain to my daughter and grandkids the actions they see in context. They see much more stereotyping on the UPN shows and movies like Soul Plane because now there is a choice, there wasn't before.

Shemoeley El Fino Fine

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Pilsner Panther

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I wouldn't consider the Stooges prejudiced, they had a choice, they could've NOT used Dudley Dickerson repeatedly.


This is kind of a silly comment, if you ask me. While Dudley didn't appear with the Stooges nearly as often as Vernon Dent, Bud Jamison, and Emil Sitka did, he was still a very funny member of the supporting cast, and the Stooges canon wouldn't have been the same without him.

You do have to keep this issue within the context of the times for it to make any sense. The nearly-forgotten black comedian Stepin Fetchit had a good perspective on it: criticized for his eye-rolling, "yassuh, boss" screen character, he replied, "Maybe you don't like it, but I'm livin' in a nice big house and drivin' a Lincoln." This, you see, was during the Depression.

In the early-to-mid 20th century, the black stereotype was so common that hardly anyone ever raised objections to it, though. Buster Keaton, Tex Avery, and Chuck Jones were not known to be racist, but Keaton wore blackface (briefly) in "College" (1927), and Avery's "Uncle Tom's Cabana" and Jones's "Inky and the Mynah Bird" cartoons both used black "darky" caricatures. As an aside, there are now two Looney Toons DVD collections, and you won't find a single one of those Jones cartoons on either one of them, even though they contain examples of practically all of his other characters... it looks like "Inky" has been dropped down the Orwellian memory hole of political correctness, despite the fact that the cartoons are as funny as practically anything else Jones ever did.

Then you had Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor, who both sang in blackface, "Amos & Andy," Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, and... well, it's a long list. Personally, I think that watching the entertainment of that period provides a "window on the past," and it's valuable for that reason as well as for the laughs. Without those films, we wouldn't have such a clear idea of how different things were culturally in our grandparents' and great-grandparents day.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2005, 03:19:33 AM by Pilsner Panther »


Offline Dunrobin

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Quote
This is kind of a silly comment, if you ask me. While Dudley didn't appear with the Stooges nearly as often as Vernon Dent, Bud Jamison, and Emil Sitka did, he was still a very funny member of the supporting cast, and the Stooges canon wouldn't have been the same without him.

I think you may have misread the post, Pils.  That seems to be precisely the point that Shemoeley was making.


Offline jrvass

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I think you are both describing the same side of the coin.

Political Correctness is a swell way to cover up both the failures AND triumphs of prior generations.

James
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Offline BeAStooge

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... they had a choice, they could've NOT used Dudley Dickerson repeatedly.

All casting was the venue(s) of Executive Producer Jules White, the Producer (White, Chase, McCollum) and/or Director (Lord, Chase, White, Bernds, etc.).  With few exceptions (e.g., Harry Edwards), Moe had no input/influence as to who worked on the Stooge comedies.

Some of the best examples of this can be found from Emil Sitka, whose diary entries have been published by his son Saxon in the Emil Sitka Fan Club's The Fourth Stooge journal.  Emil's references to Jules White and Ed Bernds arranging roles for him are very revealing and realistic descriptions of the life of an average character actor trying to support his family.


Pilsner Panther

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Political Correctness is a swell way to cover up both the failures AND triumphs of prior generations.


Well said, James. I can't add anything to that!

 ;D


Offline Dunrobin

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 :sign5:  I agree with Pils - that was a very astute observation, James.

"Political correctness" is the behavior of an ostrich; burying your head in the sand lest you hear anything "disagreeable."  Those who embrace it want to hide from reality, and to force the rest of us to indulge their cowardice.  I will never be "PC" and will always speak my mind, whether others like it or not.

Frankly, I get offended by people who are easily offended.   ::)

 [focus] 
That said, I also agree with the gist of what Shemoeley and Pilsner were saying.  Performers like Dudley Dickerson and Sam McDaniel - not to mention Manton Moreland, Willie Best, Butterfly McQueen, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Stephen Fetchit, and countless others - should not be shunned just because their roles where usually stereotypical caricatures.  They gave their best with what they could get, and their performances almost always shine through.  (I'm reminded of a quote from Hattie McDaniel: "It's better to play a maid than be a maid.")

And, as Butterfly McQueen said about working on Gone With The Wind,  "It paid well... I went through a full semester at UCLA on one day's pay."


Offline Shemoeley Fine

I posted <<<<<<<<<<  they had a choice, they could've NOT used Dudley Dickerson repeatedly.  >>>>>>>>>>>>

Be A Stooge replied <<<<<<<<< All casting was the venue(s) of Executive Producer Jules White, the Producer (White, Chase, McCollum) and/or Director (Lord, Chase, White, Bernds, etc.).  With few exceptions (e.g., Harry Edwards), Moe had no input/influence as to who worked on the Stooge comedies. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Okay, however if the Stooges had a problem working with a cast member due to racism or another reason, I'm sure they would've expressed their feelings to the "bosses".

S F
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Ma'. Lorenzito y Rizzado


Online falsealarms

You know, I was watching Phony Express the other night and Curly was mixing drinks. He said white was his "favorite color," and that evoked feelings of racism for me. I wasn't offended or anything (I'm white myself) but I just sensed some racial undertones.

And who better to ask about Dudley Dickerson and the racism angle than Moe himself? I refer to a radio interview he did with Ed Busch in Dallas, back in 1974 -

EB: Are you at all embarrassed by some of the things you did in the pictures all these years later?

Moe: I never gave it a thought that way.

EB: One thing I’m thinking about is whenever you did a spook movie, you usually had a 1930’s or 1940 stereotyped black with the rolling eyes and so forth.

Moe: Yeah, but there was never anybody to take exception to it. Dudley, Dudley, his name was, I think. Dudley something.

EB: He was terrific.

Moe: A very fine colored actor. We never…there was nothing…nobody made fun of him. He did his own funny stuff.

EB: Yeah.

Moe: We together. We never made fun of him…as though like Step ‘N Fetchit. The yows and yas…none of that stuff.

EB: Yeah.

Moe: No, we never…nobody ever called us on anything. Only once – called on me when I introduced Curly one time in a vaudeville act we did. I introduced him as a Bulgarian refugee.

EB: Yeah.

Moe: And the Bulgarian consul took exception to it.

EB: (laughs)

Moe: In the vaudeville act.

EB: Yeah. So, they were sensitive even back then?

Moe: Oh, yes.


Offline shemps#1

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Shemoeley,

I suggest you acquaint yourself with the quoting system, it will make your posts easier to read when you are quoting someone.
"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish." - Unknown


rvoyttbots

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There is a scene in one short that makes me cringe. OK, I can`t remember the title. Moe & Larry are in the hallway of a hotel. Somehow, Moe gets a facefull of soot. Moe bumps into Larry and Larry says something like, "Hey, watch it, boy!" Then he realizes it is Moe, gets down on one knee and says, "Mammy!" OK, the first part makes me cringe but I find the Mammy bit funny. There may be two shorts with a similar scene. I seem to remember a bad retort by Moe. Something along the lines of: "Who you calling boy?"


Pilsner Panther

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There is a scene in one short that makes me cringe. OK, I can`t remember the title. Moe & Larry are in the hallway of a hotel. Somehow, Moe gets a facefull of soot. Moe bumps into Larry and Larry says something like, "Hey, watch it, boy!" Then he realizes it is Moe, gets down on one knee and says, "Mammy!" OK, the first part makes me cringe but I find the Mammy bit funny. There may be two shorts with a similar scene. I seem to remember a bad retort by Moe. Something along the lines of: "Who you calling boy?"

That's from "Three Pests In A Mess." Moe gets a face full of ink (not soot) when Christine McIntyre throws an inkwell at Curly, but he ducks and it hits Moe instead. Then, Larry sees Moe and does the "Mammy" bit. This is really a take-off on Al Jolson, who was famous for getting down on one knee and singing the song "My Mammy" in blackface. Larry says "Mammy!" and then Moe says "Pappy!," and slaps him. Not a racist gag, really, but rather a dig at Jolson's blackface shtick.

For those of you who've never heard it, here's the song.

[attachment deleted by admin]


Offline Shemoeley Fine

Just to make sure there's no confusion, Pilsener  Panther posted an MP3 of Asa Yoelson aka Al Jolson's "My Mammy" from a Decca recording of 1946, yet the reference to Jolson took place in a Stooge 2-reeler from 1945.  Well, the version Pilsener supplied was a re-recording of the song Jolson originally made in 1926 before he made the movie "the Jazz Singer" which was neither the first talkie as usually billed nor was Jolson even close to being a jazz singer.

The USa has a racist habit of bleaching everything, Paul Whiteman (no kidding that was his real name) was hailed "the King of Jazz", Jolson was called "the Jazz Singer", Benny Goodman, the "king of Swing", Elvis Presely, "the King of RocknRoll", none of these crownings are legit as they are all imitators and the true kings and queens of those fields are Black. 

I remember arriving to the US as a 5 yr old in the mid-50's, fresh from Cuba and asking my mom why are eggs, flour, rice, sugar  white in the US when they were brown in Cuba?  She told me that because the US is not a tropical country, they didn't get tanned from the sun, I believed her. As a teenager in the early 60's I learned that white sttod for purity, vanilla cake is Angel's Food, while chocolate was the Devil's Cake, which is why we had to sit in the back of the bus and why everything was "whitified".

Al Jolson would hang out in Harlem nightclubs then run downtown to record and copy all he had witnessed in the Black clubs uptown. Presly grew PWT in Tupelo MI one of few white families in the area, he simply copied the bluesmen he had seen as a kid in Tupelo when the family moved to Memphis.

Today the mass media is jam packed with hip hop-isms used by folks who want nothing to do with the originators of hip-hop, just another case of "who stole the soul?"

Shemoeley
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Ma'. Lorenzito y Rizzado


Pilsner Panther

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Just to make sure there's no confusion, Pilsener  Panther posted an MP3 of Asa Yoelson aka Al Jolson's "My Mammy" from a Decca recording of 1946, yet the reference to Jolson took place in a Stooge 2-reeler from 1945.  Well, the version Pilsener supplied was a re-recording of the song Jolson originally made in 1926 before he made the movie "the Jazz Singer" which was neither the first talkie as usually billed nor was Jolson even close to being a jazz singer.

I have the earlier Brunswick recording of "My Mammy," but I posted the 1946 version just because the sound quality is better. As to Paul Whiteman, it was really presumptuous of him to bill himself as "King of Jazz" in the 1920's, when Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, and Duke Ellington were all on the scene! However, I'll say in Whiteman's defense that he did promote the careers of George Gershwin, Bing Crosby, Bix Beiderbecke, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, and the Dorsey brothers, among others... as a talent scout, he had quite a good ear. It's true, though, that very few of his records can be considered real jazz— mainly only the ones that have Bix, Venuti, and Lang on them, and that only covers the period between 1927 and 1930. Before and after that period, Whiteman's sound could best be described not as jazz, but as jazz flavored dance music.


Jimmie Adams

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Sorry to drift, but I have a recording somewhere that has Bix Biederbeck and Joe Venutti doing "BARNACLE BILL THE SAILOR and 1:47 (or is it :47)into the song you can hear Venutti sing "Barnacle Bill the Sh*thead"    Hilarious!


Offline Dr. Belch

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There's nothing that enrages me more than some liberal feeblewit who starts puffing and blowing and gets all self-righteous when he sees a blackface gag in a 50-year-old cartoon, yet looks the other way at real and substantive racism, violence and genocide in the world. I am a witer and artist; I deal daily with ignorant people who don't even know the meanings of "racism", "propoganda", of half the words they slobber witlessly at anyone who doesn't "think" like they do. When some leftist fartknocker buttonholes me with his tired tripe about we conservatives all being racist bigot sexist homophobe Nazis, I want to say to him, Oh, shut up. Your pseudomoralistic sniffing bores me. You're bawling over an ink-and-paint depiction of racial violence. Hey, fartknocker, y'ever hear of Darfur? Rwanda? Hezbollah? Do us all a favor: do some research, educate your stupid self, then come talk to me about racism, and I'll listen. Producing an ethnic cartoon or movie isn't racist. By that logic, Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbera were rabid cat haters. That argument doesn't wash; it's as phony as global warming, methol cigarettes, and the TV ratings system...and the world would be better off if these self-appointed protectors of decency would realize that.