Anti-Racism Reflection of February 13, 2022

 It’s 1936 and Show Boat is a smash hit on the big screen. The director is openly-gay hit-maker James Whale.  The cast includes the famous vocalist Paul Robeson.

Whale was born into the poor working class of the 19th-century-English-industrial-midlands, and quietly worked to escape that rigid caste system.

World War One gave Whale his way out. Fighting through the trench carnage in France, Whale was taken prisoner of war. In prison camp, Whale learned how to stage entertainment for the enlisted men.  Returned to England, Whale began to succeed in theater.

Hollywood beckoned, and Whale directed a string of successful horror films, starting with Frankenstein in 1931.  Critics have recognized how the Great War influenced Whale’s sets and filming, and how Whale subtly incorporated gay sensibilities in his horror films.

Whale’s pre-eminence as a director was short lived.  Show Boat, a genre detour, was his last critical film success.  Some claim he was black-balled by homophobic Hollywood.

While Whale was building his reputation, Paul Robeson was already famous, touring Europe, and wowing audiences with his voice.  Born to an ex-slave, Robeson was the embodiment of WEB Du Bois’ Talented Tenth, and entertaining gave him his platform.

As Robeson’s international concert career flourished, theater and film beckoned. At the same time, Robeson was becoming more vocal on segregation and fascism.

Disappointed with the stereotypical roles offered him, after Show Boat, Robeson dropped out of films and plays, but continued his concerts and public speaking.  He became involved in the Spanish Civil war.  When America entered World War Two, Robeson was intensely patriotic.  As the war wound down, Robeson became more involved in championing Black lives.

As you may imagine, Robeson’s public truth-telling on racism was an embarrassment to white-supremacy-America.  It was even the cause of a bloody riot in 1949.

The US government tried to silence and ruin Robeson, going so far as to revoke Robeson’s passport, cutting off his ability to work in Europe.  Branded a Communist, in 1956 Robeson found himself in front of an Un-American Activities hearing.  Some of his testimony that day is worth repeating:

“I am being tried for fighting for the rights of my people, who are still second-class citizens in the US of America . . . You want to shut up every Negro who has the courage to stand up and fight for the rights of his people.”

More than a decade of wrestling with the government, over his beliefs and passport, took its toll on Robeson’s health and voice, but not his continued outspokenness.

From the standpoint of racism, the musical Show Boat was groundbreaking, and even more so in the 1936 film. There are the relationships between the Black and white characters, as well as the issues of Passing and Miscegenation.  In the film, there is a poignant moment of black-face, viewed through the segregated black audience, and images of the brutal labor standards faced by Blacks in the South, as Robeson sings Ole Man River. But there are also degrading stereotypes.

Was Show Boat racist?  Or was it a 1920s commentary on racism? The novel’s author, Edna Ferber, was known for pointing out racism, but not answering it, making it incidental to her white characters. I’d like to think Whale made a subtle point on racism in the movie.  Watch it and you be the judge.