Word: fetchit
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...that is the whole point of the play. Race relations in this country have still not advanced past the point where most whites can conceive of blacks as anything other than types, whether they be "good types" or "bad" ones. Blacks are placed in a "Stepin Fetchit" box or a "Stokely Carmichael" box or a "white" box or a "Sidney Poitier" box. The thing is that no black- or no human being, for that matter- ever fits into any box. As Morning's family changes its voice from an Amos'n' Andy inflection to a John Lindsay or Wilson Pickett...
What makes animals cute is their confused subhumanity. I enjoy my cats most when they seem stupid and ridiculous. When one of them crawls into a bag and can't get out, I use the same laugh that white people probably had when they watched Stepin Fetchit being "spooked" in the old movies. The point is that people have preconceived ideas of what's nice about animals and other people, and are happy when they can find images that conform...
Obviously, the networks are still caught somewhat nervously between the stereotypes of Supernegro and a campy version of old Stepin Fetchit. Digby Wolfe, a former writer on the Laugh-In and Soul shows, warns that the "here-come-de-judge syndrome can be very dangerous, because it is apt to convince white audiences that Negroes are, after all, just kidding." He misses the point. No matter what the show or how limp the humor, the "Yassuh, boss" jokes are still, basically, satire...
...patronized as they provided employment. "It's been a long journey to this moment," said Sidney Poitier when he received his Oscar for Lilies of the Field in 1963. But his was only the last lap. The first million miles were traveled by Eddie Anderson, Stepin' Fetchit, Willie Best, Butterfly McQueen and other gifted actors whose long ride in the back of the bus can be seen again every week on television...
...solvable in the second reel by any post-Bond youngster of eight. They also rely heavily on antique comic relief as subtle as a pig bladder. Charlie's No. 1 and No. 2 sons incessantly glue up the clues, and a procession of Negro buffoons (Mantan Moreland, Stepin Fetchit, Willie Best) pop their eyes at every corpse. But bad as the films were, they were also an undergraduate school through which passed some able and attractive players, among them Rita Hayworth, Ray Milland and William Holden. For Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936), Oscar Levant actually composed an original...