Zwarte Piet

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Sigbold
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07 Dec 2023, 12:34 am

cyberdad wrote:

It's highly unlikely the Dutch people will give up on this tradition. I am not sure "blackface" in Holland has the same negative cultural connotation as it did in the USA?

Funny thing is that in Suriname and the Dutch Antilles they apply 'whiteface' on the guy playing Sinterklaas. And apparently the people playing Pete still applying the black make-up, even if they are of sub-Saharan decent.

This leaves aside that as can be seen in the documentary trailer I posed earlier, that this 'blackface' is more wide spread in Europe. And probably a lot older then the time it start to absorb elements of Moorish pirates/slavers here in the Netherlands.

Funny enough if there was a better and more widespread understanding of this tradition, we might still see a new change in his appearance. But not to sooty pete's, but to a more non-human/krampus-like figure.

cyberdad
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07 Dec 2023, 4:53 am

naturalplastic wrote:

Or in your country of Australia ...mostly in the Temperate zone...but in the southern hemisphere when Christmas comes in the summer?

Yep, santa needs an air conditioned slay when he comes to Australia

cyberdad
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07 Dec 2023, 5:05 am

Sigbold wrote:

Funny enough if there was a better and more widespread understanding of this tradition, we might still see a new change in his appearance. But not to sooty pete's, but to a more non-human/krampus-like figure.

So is Sooty Pete mean't to be a chimney sweep?

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07 Dec 2023, 8:57 am

The Black and White Minstrel Show used to be very popular in the UK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMoLprj ... orgePollen

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cyberdad
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07 Dec 2023, 7:24 pm

^^ I'm old enough to remember the minstrels on Australian TV back in the 1970s. If I remember my parents might have watched it. But to be fair, they would watch it with a glazed look on their faces like they were watching the paint dry on the wall. Even back then it was extremely lame,

Plus Australian television was largely re-runs from older Hollywood and BBC on like 1 or 2 channels. We had little choice in viewing.

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07 Dec 2023, 11:06 pm

A bit on the great Al Jolson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5Tm7bM ... yIFoundOut

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Misslizard
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08 Dec 2023, 11:50 am

Never heard of him.
Is he suppose to be a chimney sweep?
I sweep my own flue out and it is dirty and sooty.If you did a bunch of them your face and hands would be black.

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Sigbold
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10 Dec 2023, 9:37 am

cyberdad wrote:

Sigbold wrote:

So is Sooty Pete mean't to be a chimney sweep?

I do not really care about the PC-Pete. There seems to be some older forms that had a broom, but also a tail. So it still contained some of the elements of a chained devil-like figure.

Honey69
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10 Dec 2023, 10:08 am

Misslizard wrote:

Never heard of him.
Is he suppose to be a chimney sweep?
I sweep my own flue out and it is dirty and sooty.If you did a bunch of them your face and hands would be black.

You never heard of Al Jolson?

Wikipedia wrote:

Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson; May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-American singer, actor, and vaudevillian.

He was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, and was self-billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer." Jolson was known for his "shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach" towards performing, as well as for popularizing many of the songs he sang. Jolson has been referred to by modern critics as "the king of blackface performers."

Although best remembered today as the star of the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), he starred in a series of successful musical films during the 1930s.

The Jazz Singer was the first full-length movie with audible dialogue.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018037/

Al Jolson played the son of a Jewish Cantor who defied his religious father to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz singer. Quite a good movie. By the end of the movie, his father has died, and his mother catches one of his performances.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIaj7FNHnjQ

Yeah, it is blackface, but blackface seems to have been expected back then. And, unlike other stereotypical blackface performers, he isn't lampooning black people, but performing seriously.

Another movie that I recommend is Wonder Bar https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026007

It came out just before the Hayes Code, which probably would have condemned the movie's softness on homosexuality ("Boys will be boys!"). Modern sensitivities, on the other hand, would certainly condemn the "Going to Heaven on a Mule" bit.

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Misslizard
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10 Dec 2023, 12:34 pm

Honey69 wrote:

Misslizard wrote:

Never heard of him.
Is he suppose to be a chimney sweep?
I sweep my own flue out and it is dirty and sooty.If you did a bunch of them your face and hands would be black.

You never heard of Al Jolson?

Wikipedia wrote:

I was taking about Sooty Pete.
Al I have heard off.

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Honey69
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10 Dec 2023, 1:33 pm

Misslizard wrote:

I was taking about Sooty Pete.
Al I have heard off.

Oh.

Well, I never heard of Sooty Pete either. So, I have no basis of getting supercilious with you on that one.

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Honey69
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20 Dec 2023, 11:03 am

Brazil has a Black Santa

https://apnews.com/video/rio-de-janeiro ... ubscribers

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