Masking “My Face,” Unmasking “My Soul”: Bert Williams’s Double Consciousness, Carnivalesque Inversion, and Nobodiness

Jia Zhang
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Abstract

Known as the representative figure of black minstrelsy, Bert Williams’s revolutionary success on Broadway and in the Ziegfeld Follies created a landmark opportunity for black voices to be heard in high-profile setting in a white world. The performance most notably preferred by his white audiences was Williams’s minstrel song “Nobody,” which from Williams’s perspective was also an irreplaceable piece. Visually echoing his minstrel song, Williams’s cakewalk performance success in the 1890s laid the basis for the song’s popularity. Both the song and Williams’s carnivalesque performance blurred the color line and transcended black minstrel stereotypes by taking African Americans’ voices in the Jim Crow and lynching eras into serious consideration. However, though black minstrelsy has been largely misunderstood as exclusively racial stereotypes, what Bakhtin describes as the permeating carnivalesque inversion in black minstrel performance helps sharpen and clarify the double consciousness ideology between the burnt cork blackened face mask and the soul of black minstrel performers.
掩盖“我的脸”,揭开“我的灵魂”:伯特·威廉姆斯的双重意识,狂欢式的反转,和无名
作为黑人吟诗人的代表人物,伯特·威廉姆斯在百老汇和齐格菲尔德剧团的革命性成功为黑人的声音在白人世界的高调环境中被听到创造了一个里程碑式的机会。白人观众最喜欢的表演是威廉姆斯的吟游诗人歌曲《Nobody》,从威廉姆斯的角度来看,这也是一首不可替代的作品。在视觉上与他的吟游诗人歌曲相呼应,威廉姆斯在19世纪90年代的成功表演为这首歌的流行奠定了基础。这首歌和威廉姆斯狂欢式的表演模糊了肤色界限,超越了黑人吟游诗人的刻板印象,认真考虑了黑人在吉姆·克劳和私刑时代的声音。然而,尽管黑人吟游诗人在很大程度上被误解为完全的种族刻板印象,巴赫金所描述的黑人吟游诗人表演中弥漫的狂欢节式反转有助于磨尖和澄清黑人吟游诗人表演者灵魂与烧焦的软木面具之间的双重意识形态。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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