"Amos 'n' Andy" Response

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Amos 'n' Andy was a radio comedy in the 1920's to 1950's in America. It exploited the racial stereotypes of African Americas in America in a disgusting manner. The main characters were purposely drawn as stereotypically to African Americans as possible. They had overly full lips and were made to seem extremely lazy. These are two things that are huge stereotypes of Blacks in America today and seemingly have been very big racial stereotypes of that race for sometime.



The creators Gosden and Correll were two people who were very familiar with the minstral traditions of early times. I found this very interesting that they were familiar with minstral traditions and chose to make their show using the stereotypes of African Americans. The minstral shows were also based in theory on the "happy go lucky darky on the plantation"- a seeming stereotype of the timeperiod of the minstral shows.

Amos 'n' Andy had some absolutely ridiculous aspects however there were some interesting things. The things I found most interesting were the creators prior knowledge of the minstral traditions as well as the fact that they blatantly displayed African Americans in a racist manner even in a time where African American civil rights were starting to gain steam in an American culture.