The Movie;Vernon and Ryan 1950 blackface sketch.

by | Sep 26, 2020 | Movie

  1. Watch the Vernon and Ryan 1950 blackface sketch. Describe the elements of blackface makeup that are present there. What features are highlighted and/or exaggerated? What do the costume pieces add to it? How about gesture?
  2. Watch the clip from A Plantation Act. What minstrel character does this seem to align with? Why so? How does a piece like this function as a racial project? What kind of structures does it create or support? How so?
  3. Look at the advertisement featuring Billy Van in and out of blackface (this in in the lecture slides). In a couple of sentences each, discuss how whiteness and blackness are depicted in the ad. How do these representations relate to one another?
  4. Do you agree with Garofalo’s claim that “Old Folks at Home” tempers the exaggerated dialect found in other minstrel songs and paints a more humane portrait of the singer (Garofalo 20)?
  5. Given the history of “Old Folks at Home” and “Dixie,” should songs such as these continue to circulate? If so, what might be done to address their problematic history? How would you feel performing one?
  6. Listen to “After the Ball” paying attention to how the story unfolds and the way the verses and chorus work together. Describe the central image–”after the ball”–and its meaning as it evolves over the course of the song. How does the chorus take on new meaning or relationship to the verses as the song progresses?
  7. Given what you’ve learned about the evolution of the popular song, what might you propose as reasons for the consolidation of the Tin Pan Alley Golden Era (AABA chorus) form? What might have been the appeal of this form? What did it capitalize on or support? As in past assignments, make educated guesses here and see what you can offer in terms of the song examples or your own experience of the form as evidence.
  8. Listen to “Maple Leaf Rag” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” What do you hear as similar or different? If you were making a case for how ragtime was appropriated by Berlin in “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” what evidence would you turn to? Do Smith’s lyrical changes (as Garofalo points to) alter this dynamic or not?
  9. What continuities and ruptures do you see between minstrelsy and incorporation of black music into Tin Pan Alley songs? Give two examples.
  10. What might be new forms of minstrelsy or cultural appropriation in popular music today?

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Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell. 

In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.


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God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.

Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.

To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.

 

References

Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.

Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies, 4(8), 487.

Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.

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