This is A.O. Scott.
Maids, butlers,
waiters, porters.
In the 1930s and ‘40s, Hollywood
offered African-American actors
few roles beyond servile ones.
Right away.
Wrap it up.
Was you asking for me,
Miss Allen?
The film historian
Donald Bogle has
called the ‘30s the age
of the Negro servant,
and the careers of
great performers
like Clarence Muse
and Theresa Harris
confirm this marginality.
Too often these actors
were not even credited.
Someone’s going to insult you
today if you get out of bed!
The offscreen reality
was always more complex.
However demeaning
the roles, they also
sustained careers
for performers who
belonged to another
Hollywood, one
that included behind
the scenes activism
and the ongoing struggle
for creative autonomy.
Clarence Muse, often cast
as butler or a porter,
collaborated with the
poet Langston Hughes
on the script and the
songs for “Way Down South,”
released by RKO in 1939.
The same year as
“Gone With the Wind.”
I know you’re trying to do the
best you can for Master Tim.
I’m trying to do the best
I can for him too, sir.
“Gone With the Wind” is a
regressive fantasy, of course.
But as Bogle points
out, its black actors
transformed their slaves
into complex human beings.
Hattie McDaniel,
who plays Mammy,
became the first
African-American actor
to win an Oscar.
But at the time she was
also harshly criticized
for helping to perpetuate
negative representations.
Oh, now, Miss Scarlett.
McDaniel’s complicated
legacy is that she made Mammy
more than just a caricature.
Hattie McDaniel
is the most famous
of three siblings who
appeared frequently
in the old Hollywood.
Her brother, Sam, had
more than 200 roles
to his name, many uncredited.
Their sister Etta can be
seen, however briefly,
in films like “Son of Dracula.”
Working within a white
supremacist system,
the McDaniels and
other black performers
did what they could to
infuse their limited roles
with artistry and dignity.
Even as modern audiences
cringe at these stereotypes,
it is possible to appreciate
the artists who played them.
And sometimes what
we see, in a movie
like the RKO Western
“The Arizonian,”
suggests a whole other
dimension to the story.
[gunshot]
