On Mr. Gaines…

In later seasons of A Different World, on the felt board that held the Pit’s menu, there is a small inscription below the menu: ADVICE-FREE. Any one character can bitch about their problems to Mr. Gaines, and he would be sympathetic to their cause (to a certain degree). Usually his lines are ironic or support the main idea in some way—unless he’s cursing out those damn college kids!

Here’s another PowerPoint Slide presentation…

Forgive me if I posted this before, but here are some insights on “Mammy Dearest.”

Excerpt from “Mammy Dearest”
•FREDDIE: Just because they put [Aunt Jemima’s] face on a pancake box, that doesn’t mean that’s who she really was!
–The first “Aunt Jemima” was a former domestic servant for a Chicago judge who fabricated tales of life in the old South (apparently, those that her white superiors wanted her to tell) for spectators at the 1899 Columbia Exposition. The pancake mix received many orders—hell, it’s still a brand name now.
–Consequently, an “aunt jemima” or a “handkerchief head” (derogatory term) is a tom that has discovered religion (usually Christianity) or a mammy in the dominant white culture. Usually aunt jemimas are nicer, happier, politer, and less headstrong than mammy.
–Eventually Aunt Jemima’s look on pancake-related materials was later softened so she looks more like a modern day professional maid than an aunt jemima.

•LENA: Freddie, mammy is a racist stereotype, period. That smile is not laughter, it is fear.
–God knows what that smile exactly means—it could mean fear, but it could mean reassurance, a lack of hostility in mammy (why white audiences loved mammy, why the Daughters of the American Revolution wanted a mammy statue in Washington as opposed to Marion Anderson singing in the same city)…the smile (on commercial products) can mean anything.

•GAINES: Well, if it wasn’t for mammy, you wouldn’t be here.
–Whatever happened to the equal rights movement in America?

•FREDDIE: Thank you, Mr. Gaines.
•LENA: All mammy did was cook up the vittles.
–And dispense advice and tend the white people’s home and sell merchandise and movies…

•GAINES: Well, that’s all I do for you. You know, some Black people forget their folklore. Now that’s what makes us strong.
–Where’s the evidence that we created mammy? Evidence points to minstrel shows dating from before the Civil War creating mammy, and these were primarily all-white minstrel shows. Yes, Paul Lawrence Dunbar did use mammy in some (not all) of his poems and Charles W. Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition (1901) features a character named Mammy Jane, but this does not mean that Blacks created the stereotype.

•In “Mammy Dearest, Gaines’s lines help Kim feel better about the mammy stereotype—but in my opinion, they are questionable. For example, take the line “My great-great-grandmother was a mammy. Strong, full of love, helped keep the family together. Now that’s nothing to be ashamed of! You should be proud!” For one, some black people would say that calling anyone a mammy would be highly offensive, even if that person was overweight or happened to stay with their family as opposed to working in a white household (which is highly unlikely for mammy because light-skinned people tended to be house slaves). The definition of mammy is someone who is asexual, overweight, angry, and usually very loyal to their white masters—they forsake their own families in favor of their masters. Not all mammies did this—Aunt Chloe went back to her cabin to take care of her children, and Aunt Delilah/Annie had a daughter (that she still neglected)—and some mammies did this with their own personal flair—Hattie McDaniel, for example—but most mammies in the media and in the marketplace were all of these things.

The quote also shows Berenbeim’s warped sense of the stereotype. God knows what the hell Berenbeim means by “family.” Black family in the slave quarters? White family in the main house? Black family in the northern United States or Canada, all of them on the Underground Railroad trying to make their way to freedom? Some people might interpret “family” as the second question I posted, helping to fuel hatred about the term “mammy.” Another item to post (other than the fact that Berenbeim has no idea of the history and various items mammy has been on other than dolls and Aunt Jemima pancake mix—he never once mentions a movie mammy in the episode) is that most slave women were not overweight due to food rations, most of them never saw their 50th birthday, and, as mentioned, most light-skinned slave (women included) worked in slave households (darker-skinned slaves worked in the fields). Unless he has a journal written by his great-great-grandmother (which is highly unlikely, since many slaves could not read or write) or her slave owner talking about how overweight she was, how does Gaines know that she was a mammy? Then again, the term could be used as affection towards this woman, but in the context of the word, this seems highly unlikely. Also, his great-great-grandmother may have had a pituitary problem—one of the few ways any slave could be overweight.

•Apparently “Mammy Dearest” might be saying that for one to change a stereotype, one must take it as his own and manipulate it into something positive. However, with Berenbeim’s broad and uneducated perspective on mammy, this moral is unclear. Berenbeim wants to make the audience think as he (and God knows whoever else endorsed this episode) thinks, but as long as there are books and other educational materials, those who know, as I have said, are going to look elsewhere (those aforementioned educational materials) and make their own opinions on mammy. As for my opinion, “Mammy Dearest” would be considered dated even for 1993—there have been several books, including a history in the evolution of the black domestic in fiction, printed prior to 1993. A good library and hours of research would have made this episode better instead of some sort of twisted “epiphany” for Kim and Whitley (at least morally) as well as a mock-minstrel show/African dance sequence complete with poems from Dunbar and Giovanni.

The Dozens—Caps and Snaps

Brought to You By
•“Liza-Who-Little,” screenplay by Dominic Hoffman
•“Mammy Dearest,” screenplay by Glenn Berenbeim

•Your mama is so dumb, she sold a car for gas money. (L-W-L)
•Your mother is so black, when she wears orange lipstick she looks like a cheeseburger. (MD)
•Your mother is so fat, she jumped in the air and got stuck. (MD)
•Your mother is so black, when they poured hot water in her head, coffee comes out her mouth. (MD)
•Your mama’s head so nappy, when they braid it it look like stitches. (MD)

And of course Kim has to ruin it by saying “It’s not funny!”

What is a cap and/or snap?

Basically an insult using a stereotype, i.e. (Subject) is so fat, ugly, black, etc. to compare the subject to something undesirable.

Okay, so I lied.

No #200 post here, since really there is nothing to post about.
I hate the fact that Oxygen is pre-empting ADW for their movies (i.e. Mystic Pizza, The Wedding). This means when I am home and can watch ADW, I can’t.

I’ve also been working on my Harley Quinn outfit, which is taking me a while to complete…but it’s almost done.

Anyway, I’m pulling out a list of snaps I’ve compiled in a Powerpoint presentation I want to get rid of on my computer. Check it out!

Our Nig and Evolution…

(http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/hwilson/wilson.html)
Okay, now, very quickly, two similarities and differences to Our Nig:

Both writers include quotes that link the chapters to the content in them.

Both have children…but Jasmine’s not doing it for the money, like Wilson, she’s telling a story for the people. (Ya’ll know she still gets money for ADW in syndication, right?)

(FYI, Wilson wrote Our Nig to try and reclaim her son, who she left with a white family, but he died before she could reclaim him.)

Anyway, I was just reminded of an interesting fact: A lot of sites do not list Boyz II Men as singing the third version of the theme song.
Even some reference books don’t list this fact, either. I remember when I was picking up some granola bars off-campus before I went to see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and I was looking at some books. I found this television reference book and it didn’t list Boyz II Men as the singers of the theme song for the sixth season.
But as I have said before, I blame the people in charge for not crediting Boyz II Men for the theme song…especially when they blew up with II…

Here’s a pointless little thing ya’ll should know about:
Ron O’Neal is Priest from Superfly.

Okay, ya’ll knew that. But he also played Whitley’s second father.

Of course he died earlier this year before I started my blog.

But it’s easy to forget a thing like that when you watch ADW all the time…

Just a musing.

Just discovered a pun in “War and Peace” (other than the infamous “male bondage” comment from Whitley): Dwayne says that Professor Hoffman is his favorite professor.

Who wrote the episode: Jasmine Guy and Dominic Hoffman. Figure it out.

A sign of boredom and obsession: wondering why ocassionally you can see Jasmine Guy’s mole. From the Harlem Nights trailer, movie-list.com.

Check the post for where the picture was stolen