Regarding the representation of race in classical performance literature for children; or, the case of 'Little Black Sambo'

摘要

In this dissertation I investigate the representation of race in "classical" performance literature for young people and discuss how negative iconographic depictions of race have been and continue to be overlooked as powerful and indoctrinating ideologies. Structures of power in the form of canonized and protected literature are ideological foundations where traditionally drawn lines of control have become, and continue to be, institutionalized through our reproduction of them. I maintain that when we as artists, educators, and parents reproduce racist images without critical analysis or thought, we give racially oppressive texts new life, breath, and power.;I ground my critical/historical study in multiple theoretical locations which support the stripping away of cultural ideologies to lay bare the structures that support and continue the oppression of historically and traditionally marginalized people. The oppositional consciousness of U.S. third world feminism, along with Frantz Fanon's concept of a postcolonialist identity, make up the basis of my theoretical foundation through which I view Little Black Sambo and, in the Epilogue, Peter Pan.;In the closing stages of the dissertation, I briefly look at Peter Pan's stereotypical images of Native American Indians, and reflect on the play as another perennially cherished, much-performed children's story. I confront the images at work, and ask how we do (or do not) consider them as affecting our responsibility when representing race in performance literature. I hope to suggest the parameters for a wider dialogue on the subject by challenging Peter Pan's construction of race as similarly problematic to Little Black Sambo.;My assertion of the need for a more critical approach to viewing classical literature for young people is grounded in an investigation of the production of Little Black Sambo (LBS) at the Chicago Negro Unit (CNU) of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP). I spotlight the production, directed by Shirley Graham (Du Bois), as promoting political and social subversion based on Graham's African nationalist aesthetic. Although Graham and the production remain controversial to this day, my study contends that Graham's production reappropriated the representation of "blackness" from racially oppressive literature, and redefined it according to her individual sense of identification.