Racial politics in TORCH SONG

I don't know if the film should be given a lot of credit for presenting a black woman as a non-groveling human being who dressed well but yes, I think it was one of the first instances of such. I think that had more to do with Maidie Norman however. She refused to take roles that she considered demeaning and stereotypical. She rewrote her dialogue for Whatever Happened To Baby Jane because she said the original dialogue had the character talking in what she deemed "old slavery time talk". Perhaps she did the same thing with Torch Song.

It is rather unfortunate that the blackface number was included. For one, it was God awful and bizarre. I never understood why it was included because blackface had pretty much fallen out of favor by that time.

While I loved Joan's dress in that number, I too wondered why the brown face?