Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. [Vol. 3.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 23)

STUDIES - Gabriella Varró: The Theme of Comic Love in Blackface Minstrelsy: The Anatomy of the Grotesque

Mustache, and Massa Zip Coon, the comic black lovers in hiding

—as cited in the respective songs —, thus came under attack from two sides simultaneously. In the majority of blackface songs the pseudo-black male was eventually engaged in physical encounter after the unfaithfulness of his mistress had been revealed. The harmless threatening and namecalling between rivals most of the time served merely as a lead-in exercise and open confrontation soon followed. In 'Who's Dat Nigga Dar A Peepin?" (1844) or in "Tell Me Josey Whar You Bin" (1841) there is no doubt left that the revelation of the love triangle would end with physical confrontation between the parties concerned. "Tell Me Josey Whar You Bin,"

2

0 a duet sung by John W. Smith and Thomas E. ("Pickaninny") Coleman (Brown University Notes), pictured the infuriated lover as breaking the back of his rival in anger. He. Lubly Dinah then I'll tell you It happened in an oyster cellar A nigger hit me wid a stick He. I laid him right out on the stone She. Joe

, you did't break his bone He. Yes, I heard something crack She. Oh!Joe, you've broke the nigger's back. /Starr/ „Who's Dat...," on the other hand, quite unusually, showed the black female getting bested in the fight in a rather bizarre, burlesquelike fashion: Oh den us niggers you ort for to see Dar was me hugging him and he was hugging me 2

0 'Tell Me Josey Whar You Bin" Brown University, Harris Collection, no. 29. In StanSheet Music Collection, Lilly Library, Bloomington, Indiana, M1.S8, Afro-Americans before 1863; 109