Minstrelsies

King David has been exiled from the Psalter; but no “sweet singers” have yet turned up who could have composed those matchless minstrelsies. ❋ Cuyler, Theodore L (1902)

Charlemagne, in the beginning of the ninth century, greatly encouraged letters, and made a further collection of the poems of his time, among which were several epic poems of great merit; or rather in strictness there was a vast cycle of heroic poems, or minstrelsies, from and out of which separate poems were composed. ❋ Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1803)

Borrow's biographers generally treat these ballads with scarcely veiled contempt, though Lockhart, whose brilliant renderings of Spanish ballads are unsurpassed, wrote of his complete skill in the Scandinavian languages, and his "copious body of translations from their popular minstrelsies, not at all to be confounded with that of certain versifiers .... ❋ James Hooper (N/A)

These [buffoonish] caricatures of African-Americans help support the notion of black inferiority. It’s hard for people who are close minded to reconcile the existence of a Barack Obama. American pop culture has presented us with varying depictions of black figures, families, and lifestyle. Some have been met with harsh criticism while others have been heralded as groundbreaking. In the 1970’s there was “[Sanford & Son],” “Good Times,” “What’s happening?” and “[The Jefferson]’s.” The 1980’s saw “The Cosby Show” [shake up] the way in which blacks were presented on television by giving us a middle class, educated black family. Ultimately several clones diluted the effect “Cosby” had. During the 1990’s, the portrayal of blacks on television entered a dismal wasteland of bad sitcoms (“Homeboys in Outer Space,” “The Secret Diary of Desmond [Pfeiffer]”) where blacks were reduced to goofy sidekicks. This is where revered director Spike Lee, no stranger to race and controversy, takes his aim in Bamboozled. In the movie, Lee satirizes the entertainment industry and their tactics as well as the portrayals and perceptions of blacks in entertainment including Minstrelsy. Lee’s Bamboozled is an attempt at satire that misfires in the eyes of critics and, as a result, is a piece that is viewed as racist. The movie was very [raw and uncut] and Lee took to the extremes to get his point across. ❋ Tishia M (2011)