Love and Theft
In the nineteenth century, the black and white American cultures were separated according to the properties that they own. The whites made the blacks slaves because they did not have the power to overcome the whites. The whites own everything, and they dominate blacks due to their rate of poverty. They knew that blacks have nothing to say; they will dominate them and forced to do some things. Blacks started to adapt to the culture of whites and start introducing them to their lifestyle. Due to the racism of whites, it resulted in the adoption of the culture of whites. White Americans associate blacks with criminal cases, and they never wanted to work together.
After a long time of slavery that the Blacks passes in the hands of white Americans, some of them decided to share thoughts, hopes, and work together to achieve what they are targeting in life. They share the cultures, and they engage in the business competition, believing that they were adding and improving the economy of the county (Lott, 2013). The blacks start adopting the culture of not allowing women to undergo female genital mutilation and respected the women the way the whites does.
For over two centuries, America has celebrated the African-American culture after they tried to repress it, but they now practice the strange practice of blackface performance. They encounter racial, and class conflict, the blackface minstrel show appropriate black dialect, music and dance, and black culture was the practice among the whites. According to the research done by Eric Lott in examining the role of blackface minstrel in the political struggle of years leading up to the civil war, he found that the blackface minstrelsy disrupted the racial tendencies of its mostly white, male and working-class audiences.
The love and theft show the continual transgression of color line even as it enables the formation of the self-consciously white working class. Lott exposes the significance of existing multiple breaches between the high and the low culture. The attraction was mixed with the guilt of whites caught pin the act of cultural thievery (Lott, 2013). Love is built when the whites start celebrating and enjoying the black culture through music and dance.
Historian Frederick Jackson Turner believed that the strength and the confidence of the American identity lay its land in the vast frontier. Fredrick said that in 1880 America had a frontier settlement. Still, now the unsettle areas have been broken into an isolated settlement that there hardly be said to be a frontier line. From the condition of frontier life, they came to intellectual traits of profound importance because of the travelers from the colonial period onwards, it describes specific common characteristics, and the characters still survive in the place of origin (Ridge, 2016). People of different traits, both good and evil, came to America, and this led to the expansion of the United States of America. Each frontier indeed furnishes a new field of opportunities and escape the life of the past; they got freedom and were able to come up with ideas of building the America nation.
According to Fredrick Jackson Turner Urbanization shows, the popular culture in the importance of the frontier in American history noted that references to the city and the Americas. Manufacturing civilization is spread throughout his trial to prove that original and ongoing experience with the wilderness was the shaping force in American national development (Ridge, 2016). Turner’s announcement brought anxious attention to an avoidable urban-industrial future in the twentieth century. The cities arise and grow because of many reasons, for instance, businesses and migration from rural to urban areas. The towns proliferate during the nineteenth century. Urbanization produces a popular culture in America because many people who settle in urban regions adopt the American culture, and this leads to popularity in the American culture.
Industrialization promoted a popular culture in America when the introduction of factories started in the United States of America. The factory creates job opportunities for many people in America, and this led to the interaction of many people leading to a vast spread of American culture. Historically, industrialization plays a crucial role in promoting the culture of Americans (Szeman & O’Brien, 2017). The population in the industries grows day by day, and this opens a way for American people to sell their culture to foreigners.
The commodification conspires to produce popular culture in America by welcoming the entire tourist and accommodate them according to their own culture. They change culture products by providing to them what they like. It promotes a popular culture in America because they entertain the visitors in their own culture and sell their popular music and their way of life to them, and this how the American culture spread in the nineteenth century.
The immigration of people from various places to America led to an expansion in popular culture. For more than a century, the immigrants have been in the heart of the production and consumption of popular culture in the United States of America. The immigrants promote the popular music, literature, movies, and culture of the Americans (Szeman & O’Brien, 2017). The new settlers, when they migrate, they want to look for the culture of the Americans to adapt their way of life. The acculturation and assimilation of immigrants and their children into American society bring a significant advantage to the Americans. Though they faced many challenges when learning the American culture, most of the immigrants wanted to feel they are part of the Americans, so they take time to learn and accept the new country culture.
Minstrelsy was a form of entertainment in American life, which was developed and introduced in the nineteenth century. The show consists of comic skits, dancing, and a variety of acts and music performances. The white people were performing by making their faces to be black to play the role of the black people. There was also the black Americans who could perform this role. The purpose given to black people is mostly to show the characteristics of a lazy and superstitious person. In the early 1830s, the minstrel show started in the Northeastern states by the year 1848, blackface minstrel show where the best national art form, it was often translated from the formal art into popular terms of the general audience (Lott, 2013). The transformation of the minstrelsy continues, by the turn of the 20th century, the majority of the people in America enjoyed the show. The performance was done in both schools and the local theaters, and this lead to its expansion.
The Wizard of OZ is an American musical fantasy film that was viral in the year 1939, and Metro Goldwyn Mayer produced it. The film is regarded as one of the greatest films of the all-time. Because of the characterization of the fantasy of storytelling, the music scores, and the memorable character, the film has become American popular culture. In 1956, the film was broadcast to the public on television. The film was selected by the United States of America library of congress as one of the first 25 films to be preserved in the National Film Registry for being culturally historical and has an excellent sign in American life (Rush, 2016). The film undergoes many transformations, and in the year 2005, it was released in a DVD form. The film enables the United States of America to make more sales of it as it was released in the year 2009 at the theater. In 2013, in the preparation of the 3D release, the film was submitted again for reclassification.
The urbanization has a more significant impact on society. The urbanization consists of many people who originate from various parts of the country and outside the country. They learn about different cultures from different people, and they will get to accept and know each other. It creates employment for many people, and through this, the community is in a position to sell their famous culture to the people who are coming to the place to look for jobs. With urbanization, people advanced in their technology and infrastructure. There will also be an improvement in the mode of transportation and communication among people, and this will assist in the spread of the popular culture of a particular society. The other impact of urbanization is the improvement of education and medical facilities. People of various cultures move to urban areas, and they share them with other people, and they end up exchanging the cultures.
The black icon images were used in the 19th century and early 20th century to sell the product to improve the economy of the country. They use black icon images for advertising their products. Before the new invention of advertisements through the radio and television, people used black icon images to make the sale of their products. In London, the soap company used created an effective advertising campaign for the company products that used the targeted slogans and images. One of its slogans was ‘have you used pears soap?’ it was famous from the nineteenth century to the 20th century. They brand the image in a way that attracts so many customers to buy the product, and this enables them to improve the economy of the country. The iconic images capture the eye of the people, and they will be attracted to the product. Through this, the economy of the country improves because many sales will be made, and the revenue will be collected.
The economy of mass consumption in the nineteenth century increases because of the sale made through icon images. People see the image and the slogans, they admire the product, and they end up looking for the product. The business expands because of the images that attract people’s attention, and they forced to buy the product. Most of the business people used images that they were sure that it has a significant impact on people, and they can buy the product. With the image icon, people in the past used to compete to make sales of their product, and it was the best moments of them.
Some of the black icon images that people of the 19th century and 20th century used to sell their products are:
Wizard of OZ provides Americans with the text that helps them to transition from the country to the city and sets the stage for the commodified American popular culture of the 20th century (Rush, 2016). With the fantasy in the film, it was preserved at the national film registry because it contains a lot of cultural and historical to the American, it had a great significance to all the people of America. Wizard of Oz is the source of many quotes, which is the source of contemporary to the popular culture. The production of the film adapted the popular children’s stories and fairytales that made the film to be successful.
The story chronicles the adventure of a girl named Dorothy, who lives with her uncle Henry and her Aunt Em together with dog Toto. At midnight Dorothy felt that the house lifts to the middle of the cyclone, and she fall asleep with the swaying of the house. The house land at the wicked of the witch of the east and Dorothy ask the witch to help her back to Kansas. The good witch of the north told her to go to the Emerald City to talk to the Wizard of OZ, who can help her to get to Kansas. Dorothy heads to the land of OZ with her blue and checkered dress and silver shoes from the wicked witch. After she stays in a rich munchkins house for a celebration, she continues with her journey, and she meets a scarecrow who saves from hanging on a pole. He then wants to join her to go to the Land of Oz so that he can ask OZ for a brain (Rush, 2016). On their way, Dorothy and the scarecrow discuss while they are walking about the home of Kansas and the scarecrow came to be and why they want scarecrow wants a brain. After a long journey of meeting with different friends along the way, including lion, wolves, monkey, and others. Dorothy and her friends come upon a tiny town made in china. They meet a small china princess and her help. In the end, Dorothy said goodbye to her friends, went back to her home in Kansas, and see her Aunt, and she realizes how glad she is to be home.
The rise and fall of the Harlem renaissance were the latest because it attracted an audience beyond the black population, which was the more significant part of the political motivation. The African American culture, more particularly in the creative arts and the most influential movement in African American history (Hughes & Bontemps, 2013). They embrace literary, theatrical, visual arts, and musical activities. Harlem Renaissance was a more significant phase of the new Negro movement that had emerged in the early 20th century and ushered in the same way it as the civil rights movement of the late 1940s and early 1950s. The tremendous and social foundation of this movement was the more significant number of migration of African Americans from rural areas to urban spaces, from southern parts to the Northern
regions.
The campaign aimed at creating an uplifting the national organizations dedicating to pressing African American civil rights, developing a good race pride, and opening an excellent socioeconomic opportunity for them and including pan- African sensibilities and programs. The Harlem Renaissance is unusual among the literacy artistic movements for its close relationship to civil rights and reform organizations (Hughes & Bontemps, 2013). Harlem was a formally white residential district until 1920 is when it started becoming a black city in the United States of America. While the renaissance built the earlier traditions of African American culture, it was also affected by the white culture from America and European countries.
Harlem Renaissance touched all of the African American creative arts, and it enables them to maintain their culture and learn their way of life. Their creative art culture of blacks allows them to experience racial pride and equality. Earlier they share no common political philosophy, social belief, and artistically style, but with their creativeness in their culture, it acts as a political instrument. The Harlem Renaissance was the first African American artistic work to be published in the magazine and brought significant attention from the nation at large.
The cultural authenticity in the renaissance was substantial because the creative art of African American culture attracted many people in the United States of America beyond the black population. Their publications show clearly the image of their culture in the past and the present (Hughes & Bontemps, 2013). The renaissance was lauded as one rich song and dance where mixed couples were free to interact and where the black entertainment was always a feature. The Harlem Renaissance cultural production demand creates a high impact on the market because everyone wanted to listen to African American culture. The African Americans left the cultural map, and they were able to expand in their creativity because of high demand.
Reference
Hughes, L., Bontemps, A., Du Bois, W. E. B., & Johnson, J. W. (2019). Harlem Renaissance. LGBTQ Americans in the US Political System: An Encyclopedia of Activists, Voters, Candidates, and Officeholders [2 volumes], 184.
Lott, E. (2013). Love & theft: Blackface minstrelsy and the American working class. Oxford University Press.
Ridge, M. (2016). Frederick Jackson Turner: Wisconsin’s Historian of the Frontier. Wisconsin Historical Society.
Rush, A. (2016). No place like home: intertextual thresholds and the national mythmaking qualities of The Wizard of Oz.
Szeman, I., & O’Brien, S. (2017). Popular culture: a user’s guide. John Wiley & Sons.