MovieChat Forums > Uncle Tom's Cabin (1928) Discussion > ?????this movie was strange

?????this movie was strange

posted 16 years ago by petelato
12 replies | jump to latest

The 2 main characters did not even look black!! Hard for me to buy into them as slaves when the were as white as the slave owners, that was silly.
Then I noticed that some goofy character called topsy was dressed in blackface I believe.
Anyways, after years of hearing the expression of calling someone an Uncle Tom, I don't understand why. I thought it meant a sellout to ones race, this was not the case according to this whacky movie.
I love the movie "Glory" and think it does a much better job of recreating what life as an african american must have been like during that time period.

[–] jtrichey13 16 years ago

In the novel, uncle Tom is a very religious man, and always tries to be a good servant. He knows that slavery is wrong, but he is not one to react to violence with violence. The only time he refuses his master's bidding was when his master wanted him to whip another slave. I have no idea how calling a black man an Uncle Tom became a put down, but somehow it did.

[–] petelato 16 years ago

Thank you for that explanation, makes more sense the way you explained it.

[–] Kelea7 15 years ago

Just to add a little bit more information, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the woman who wrote the novel wrote the characters they way she did so she could get people to sympathize with the characters. As far as them looking white. And you know back then they weren't going to use many black people in their films, especially the lead female unless she was playing the role of "mammy" of course, and usually she was dark skinned. As time progressed, any kind of "romantic" role (and I use this term loosely) would go to very light skinned black females. Prime example, Imitation of Life (1939). Of course for that film it was necessary. But this shows you the kinds of films they liked to make. I've sidetracked but anyway...

You have to take into account the times, this is how films were made then. But I agree that I'd rather watch Glory, these types make me mad oftentimes. Glory mostly makes me sad.

Also Uncle Tom is usually something one black man would call another. Some people still had the mentality that Uncle Tom had, to do whatever his "master" asked of him, even when they had no master per se.

I didn't know if I was explaining it well enough so I found this tidbit from Wikipedia:

Uncle Tom is a pejorative for a black person who is perceived by others as behaving in a subservient manner to White American authority figures, or as seeking ingratiation with them by way of unnecessary accommodation. The term Uncle Tom comes from the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, although there is debate over whether the character himself is deserving of the pejorative attributed to him. Stowe never meant Uncle Tom to be a derided character, but the term as a pejorative has developed based on how later versions of the character, stripped of his strength, were depicted on stage.

Another thing, Stowe witnessed slavery but only for a short period of time, I believe. She wasn't from the South but her family had always been involved in acheiving rights for blacks.

P.S. I haven't actually watched this movie but I'm now reading the book and had to learn about Stowe in school.

I am the prototype

[–] lavenderspirit2005 15 years ago

The characters DID look like White people, but it's certainly not silly. I've read about Black history and about the history of slavery and there were hundreds of thousands of slaves that looked like George, Eliza, and little Harry. I could show you pictures of slaves that looked exactly like the film's characters:
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/87.1/images/johnson_f3. jpg

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/cp/vol-02/no-02/fried/image s/white&blackslaves.jpg

There were many that were "whiter" in appearance as well. The system of slavery in my opinion became a game of greed and avarice to the point where slave catchers in many cases, even captured white people from two white parents, lied by saying they were "colored" and sold them into slavery. Mixed-race slaves, many the offspring of their own White masters were kept in bondage along with everyone else.

There is a whole history of the light-skinned, mixedblooded slave. Google Mark Twain's work "Puddin'head Wilson", Amanda America Dickson, and check out the http://www.aaregistry.com

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[–] petelato 15 years ago

Thanks for trying to clarify that for me, and I didn't realize how "white" slaves could be.
Still, I wonder if the moviemakers were going for authenticity in casting lighter skinned people as slaves since that happened, or if they were just giving roles to white people because there was still racism in movie making in the day?
Thanks for the response

[–] fitchrulz 15 years ago

back then if your great-grandma was black, you were still considered black. the plessy vs ferguson case was about that. plessy was only 1/8 black and mostly white but still wasn't supposed to sit in the whites' car of a train. the "one drop" rule applied as well (one drop of black blood means you're all black). and the "good hair vs bad hair" crap started during slavery, too. lighter slaves with looser curls were usually treated better than the field slaves who were darker with kinkier hair.

people were "passing" back then (1920's). so there were actors that were mixed race but didn't let on probably so they could get work. that's pretty much all i can go into details about because i have to brush up on my history again.

i have an aunt who has very light skin and a great-grandmother who was very light. my infant daughter is biracial with mixed ethnicities on both sides and looks straight up white.

[–] petelato 15 years ago

Interesting stuff! Thanks for sharing "Fitchrulz"
Sad that even in the black community there is prejudice to the degree of darkness of skin and hair types.

[–] lavenderspirit2005 15 years ago

lighter slaves with looser curls were usually treated better than the field slaves who were darker with kinkier hair.

Much of the reality of American slavery has throughout the generations been lost.

The stereotype of the well-dressed, well-fed, well treated light skinned house servant was far from true in a lot of cases. I remember reading in one article that in many areas, darker skinned slaves were better trusted to be house servants than the lighter ones. The lighter slaves who did work in the house were frequently sexually abused, physically abused, and verbally abused. See: Harriet Jacobs' memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. She was a light skinned former slave who described the reality of the situation for people like herself. One of her family members, an aunt, was also quite fair and worked in the house but was constantly forced to sleep on the cold wooden floor, even while pregnant. Harriet Jacobs' believed that it was the cause of her aunt's many miscarriages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Ann_Jacobs

Jacobs herself was forced to escape and go into hiding in order to escape a vicious, sexually abusive master called Dr. James Norcom. Norcom would threaten her that if she refused to submit to his...well, I'll be blunt, "rapes", he would take her children away and sell them.

In another narrative authored by another lightskinned slavewoman, she describes having urine flung into her face by an angry mistress.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAslavery.htm

The point being was that slaves of all colors and heritages suffered (very frequently) equally under the insufferable yoke of bondage. The "lightskinned house slave" and the "darkskinned field slave" story has been greatly exaggerated throughout history.

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"What were you hoping to prove? That, deep down, everyone's as ugly as you?"

--Batman to Joker in "The Dark Knight"

[–] andrewwjohnson 15 years ago

.................According to the Jim Crow Museum website http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/ Tragic Mulatto Stereotype section while all slaves were subject to assault and degrading treatment often light skinned black women had it rougher. Simply put slave owner could do to black slave women who appeared white with impunity what they could never do with a white women. Apparently Simon Legree was anything, but fictional. Also many slave owners having the results of their digressions around and often treated them badly or sold them off...............Still the fiction that light skinned blacks had it easier during slavery and ever since has remained ingrained in the black community. Lonette McKee improvised a scene with Wesley Snipes in "Jungle Fever" where she talks about all of the things she was called growing up in the inner city. It is under acting on her website. http://www.lonettemckee.com
True genius is a beautiful thing, but ignorance is ugly to the bone.

[–] lavenderspirit2005 15 years ago

Hi petelato, if you read Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the characters of George, Eliza, and Harry were written as slaves able to pass for White. Forgive the old terminology but George was written as a "mulatto", Eliza as a "quadroon".

It would have been VERY authentic if the filmmakers of the '27 version cast actual light-skinned African-Americans but if they didn't do it with Lena Horne as the 'mulatto' "Julie" character in Showboat over 20 years later or with 'Sarah Jane' in 1959's "Imitation of Life" they sure weren't going to do it in the 1920's. It's such a shame too that people of color's characterizations weren't even being played by people who could understand it.

A good book on the subject of Hollywood practices regarding Black actors and the careers of Black film actors/actresses is Donald Bogle's "Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks". He is an expert on the history of Black Hollywood and knows everything there is to know.

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http://www.myspace.com/sepiaroses

"What were you hoping to prove? That, deep down, everyone's as ugly as you?"

--Batman to Joker in "The Dark Knight"

[–] andrewwjohnson 15 years ago

...............Actually any African American actor, during twenties threw sixties, who was light skinned enough to convincingly play a passing character might have refused to take the role, because he or she may have been passing in real life. Fredi Washington could have passed, but refused to do so. She played Peola in the first film version of "Imitation of Life" and because of the very idea that a light skinned black character, played by an actual African American, was possibly dating white men was so provocative that the Hays office threatened to block the release of the film. Almost any hint that Peola had a social life was removed and the ending of the Fannie Hurst was changed from the character leaving for South America with her white husband, never to return, was changed to the now familiar ending where she returns for her mothers funeral. Given the controversy it would be decades before a light skinned black actor would play a passing character...................Lena Horne was blocked from playing Julia in Show Boat, but it has been suggested that Ava Gardener, who got the role, was herself racially mixed. It does seem strange she turned down the title role in Pinky and the role of Amantha Star in "Band of Angles". of course it is speculation and we'll never know...................In any case it wasn't until 1984 that an acknowledged black actress, Lonette McKee, would play a passing role in a major motion picture, "The Cotton Club". According to a New York Times interview after she appeared in "Sparkle", "Which Way is Up" and "Cuba" she thought she could be cast in any role black or white. When offers dried up she made a short film< "Illusions", about a lady film directo during the fourties who had to keep her background secret. After that she got the role of "Julia" the the Houston Opera production of "Show Boat" and latter the Part Rose Oliver in the "Cotton Club". She would play a number of other "tragic mullato" and troubled characters including Julia in the Broadway production of Showboat. http://www.lonettemckee.com.......................Lonette McKee never really thought of passing although in an iterview about her role in "Show Boat" she concided it might have been the on option for someone like herself. Her older sister Kathrine actually did have to pass for white in order to get a job with a Los Vagus stage production. Later, after getting a job as mmistress of Ceramonies with the Sammy Davis Jr. club show she apeared in several TV shows and a staring role in the ironicly named movie "Quadroon". Still later she worked as cohoust on a reginal talk show in L.A. She now does major movie casting teaches acting work shops in Michigan. http://kathymckeecasting.com more...biography.......................Today there are racial actor like Vin Deisel, Winfered Miller and Jeniffer Beal who seem to be able to play characters on either side of the racial divide without a hint of controversy. Maybe its because from school to the work place to the White House race isn't importent any more. Also the fear that has hounted may whites that the person they live nextdoor to, may be in love with, might be part black and they don't know it doesn't seem to be importent anymore. There are somethings that no longer matter and never should have.
True genius is a beautiful thing, but ignorance is ugly to the bone.

[–] pete2141 14 years ago

Petelato,

I'm reading the book now. Eliza and her son were refered to as being quadroon, which according to the book means 3/4 white 1/4 black. Her husband George is mulatto (50/50 black/white) but can pass as white and does in the book. Eliza and son Harry can also pass as whites. A movie of this book,to my knowledge, has never been made that adheres to the book. Hopefully someday someone will.

You should read the book. Abe Lincoln said to the author when they met "So this is the little lady who made this big war." It was published 9 years prior to the Civil War. Check it out.