Readings:
Charles Musser’s Why Did Negroes Love Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer?: Melodrama, Blackface and Cosmopolitan Theatrical Culture https://www.jstor.org.library.wlac.edu/stable/pdf/10.2979/filmhistory.23.2.196.pdf
Conrad Taeuber’s Some Population Trends of the 1960’s https://www.jstor.org.library.wlac.edu/stable/pdf/41959565.pdf
Peter N. Chumo II’s Dance, Flexibility, and the Renewal of Genre in “Singin’ in the Rain”https://www.jstor.org.library.wlac.edu/stable/pdf/1225594.pdf
Homework: Response should be between 2-3 paragraphs. Make sure you are proving you have engaged with the resource content and understand it to the best of your abilities. What did you learn from the content and or reading?
Analyze how characters in musicals are actively speaking on the inequality within a given society. Begin with the use of blackface within the early years of the genre. Explain how this weeks screenings reflected on the hardships and disadvantages of being a minority and/or lower class person.
Pick one song from the musical you screened. Classify it as: an “I am,” “I want” or “new” song. Also Classify as “action song” or “character song.” Support your answer with lyrics from the song. What other song genres does this song fit? How does this song break boundaries of defined genres?
