Oriental, Black, and White the formation of racial habits in american theater Lee, Josephine. creator JSTOR (Organization) text Electronic books. History. ncu Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press 2022 monographic eng remote 1 online resource (xii, 331 pages) In this book, Josephine Lee looks at the intertwined racial representations of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American theater. In minstrelsy, melodrama, vaudeville, and musicals, both white and African American performers enacted blackface characterizations alongside oriental stereotypes of opulence and deception, comic servitude, and exotic sexuality. Lee shows how blackface types were often associated with working-class masculinity and the development of a nativist white racial identity for European immigrants, while the oriental marked what was culturally coded as foreign, feminized, and ornamental. These conflicting racial connotations were often intermingled in actual stage performance, as stage productions contrasted nostalgic characterizations of plantation slavery with the figures of the despotic sultan, the seductive dancing girl, and the comic Chinese laundryman. African American performers also performed common oriental themes and characterizations, repurposing them for their own commentary on Black racial progress and aspiration. The juxtaposition of orientalism and black figuration became standard fare for American theatergoers at a historical moment in which the color line was rigidly policed. These interlocking cross-racial impersonations offer fascinating insights into habits of racial representation both inside and outside the theater. Josephine Lee Race in the theater United States History 19th century Race in the theater United States History 20th century Orientalism United States History 19th century Orientalism United States History 20th century African Americans in the performing arts History 19th century African Americans in the performing arts History 20th century Blackface United States Yellowface United States United States Race relations African Americans in the performing arts Blackface Orientalism Race in the theater Race relations Yellowface United States 1800-1999 fast PN2260.R33 792.089/00973 (OCoLC)1312713636 9781469669632 1469669633 1469669617 9781469669618 22573/ctv2ww048m JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9781469669632_lee YDX 220923 20230103223616.0 in00004636079 eng