White characters were an unusual occurrence, and every one of the major regular and recurring characters was played by a black actor. The primary argument in favor of Amos ’N’ Andy is that it depicts a richly textured Harlem community at its center, filled with all manner of black people, filling all manner of occupations and roles. But so long as you aren’t racist yourself, you’d probably never realize there was anything amiss with what you are watching.The question of representation is a difficult one to answer. If they were, it’s a racist work, regardless of how you interpret it. The writers may or may not have been racist, and written their characters according to a belief that they were representing everyone black. If you know better, then the material stops being offensive.Īmos and Andy is probably like that. It would make sense that people would stretch the story of the characters to the entire class of people, since they don’t have any great way to know better.īut since it’s a story about only the characters you actually see – not a monologue, stating that all people are a particular way – there’s nothing forcing you to extend what you see to everyone. By definition, most people aren’t wealthy, and so the only portrayal of the life of the wealthy they ever see is in film, or that they hear via song lyrics. The writers of the films were explicitly classist and, in a way, reprehensible. I didn’t take it as representative of all people, just the specific character, since I had actual life experience to tell me otherwise. When I watched the films, I just saw a wealthy guy who with failed relationships, who was a mean boss. The wealthy can’t have any meaningful relationship with their family or kids, they prey on the poor, etc. By the intention of the people writing these comedies, these were major slams against wealthy people. This means that all of the best comedies I saw, growing up, were The Toy, The Jerk, Brewster’s Millions, and so on. I grew up during the 80s, in a relatively wealthy family. The old series, as noted, was really a serial, and the story line went for months before it was revealed to be a dream.Īlso, I’m not a particularly religious, sentimental, or holidayish person, but the Christmas episode is really nice.
#Amos and andy wiki trial
One of the story lines in the 1930s was about Amos going on trial for murder. The radio program was also one of the first “It was all a dream” set-ups.
Amos was the voice of reason and often just introduced the program.
#Amos and andy wiki series
It’s gonna be worth $20, and Kingfish explains he should get a 10% fee for lining up the job.Īt the end of his calculations, his 10% fee is $12.Īlso worth noting is that the TV series followed the radio series, which had in a large part evolved into “Kingfish and Andy.” Amos had a family, and the writers felt that that limited his comedic involvement, which de facto promoted Kingfish to top banana. The funniest part to me was when Kingfish lines up a job for Amos and Andy’s cab service. Rather, it’s that they’re ASSUMED to be racist, because “everybody says so.”īTW, having seen the series and the 1930 movie, my opinion was the series was funny. It’s not so much that black activists have seen these shows and proclaimed them racist. Everybody has HEARD a million times that they’re racist and offensive, which means almost nobody dares broadcast them any more. Can’t see the racist there.įair enough- but in my view, Kingfish wasn’t much different from, say, Ralph Kramden- he was a guy with a big mouth that got him in trouble, big schemes that always failed, and big dreams that never came true.Ī big part of the problem is that practically nobody has SEEN any of the old “Amos & Andy” shows. I’ve never heard a single black person that found the show offensive, and the show uses pretty much the exact same tropes and techniques all sitcoms use, just with a black-oriented perspective. What matters to me is, is the purpose to make the viewer laugh because he’s a black buffoon and they really are like that, or is the humor that he’s a buffoon on a black show? I know it’s in the eye of the beholder, but especially with the case of Martin 2 of the 3 creators were black, and the executive producer was black. Especially a COMEDY show, in comedy of all genres worldwide, buffoonery is a comedic technique. I don’t think “black people are buffoons on this show” means a show is racist.
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