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Bert Williams—a Black man forced to perform in blackface who challenged the stereotypes of minstrelsy. Eva Tanguay—an entertainer with the signature song “I Don’t Care” who flouted the rules of propriety to redefine womanhood for the modern age. Julian Eltinge—a female impersonator who entranced and unnerved audiences by embodying the feminine ideal Tanguay rejected. At the turn of the twentieth century, they became three of the most provocative and popular performers in vaudeville, the form in which American mass entertainment first took shape.A Revolution in Three Acts explores how these vaudeville stars defied the standards of their time to change how their audiences thought about what it meant to be American, to be Black, to be a woman or a man. The writer David Hajdu and the artist John Carey collaborate in this work of graphic nonfiction, crafting powerful portrayals of Williams, Tanguay, and Eltinge to show how they transformed American culture. Hand-drawn images give vivid visual form to the lives and work of the book’s subjects and their world.This book is at once a deft telling of three intricately entwined stories, a lush evocation of a performance milieu with unabashed entertainment value, and an eye-opening account of a key moment in American cultural history with striking parallels to present-day questions of race, gender, and sexual identity.… (meer)
A brief look at three very fascinating performers from the peak of Vaudeville in the early 1900s.
I was happy to learn a bit about the rise and fall of Vaudeville, a form of entertainment that once dominated and then faded away with the advent of motion pictures. And it is always gratifying to see a history focused on people from marginalized populations, in this case an extremely successful Black American who performed in blackface, a sex-positive woman who defied Victorian decorum and norms to become Vaudeville's queen, and a closeted gay man who was an acclaimed female impersonator.
The presentation is a little dry and flat at times and the book might have been better if it had focused on one person instead of trying to cram in all three, even if their lives had thematic parallels and crossed over at various points. Still, I found myself quickly turning the pages even as their lives begin taking sad turns. ( )
Yes, these performers were critical at a critical time in our nation's history. Unfortunately, this book TELLS us that, but it doesn't manage to SHOW it. ( )
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
For Archie and Harry Abramson and Clark Hadju and in memory of Margaret and Glenn Carey
Eerste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Bert Williams Eltinge Eva Tanguay
What does it mean to be an American? A woman? A Black man? Or someone who doesn't quite fit any category?
Citaten
Laatste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
For 50 cents a seat (25 cents for the balcony), the people who went to see Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, and Julian Eltinge got tickets to another world.
Bert Williams—a Black man forced to perform in blackface who challenged the stereotypes of minstrelsy. Eva Tanguay—an entertainer with the signature song “I Don’t Care” who flouted the rules of propriety to redefine womanhood for the modern age. Julian Eltinge—a female impersonator who entranced and unnerved audiences by embodying the feminine ideal Tanguay rejected. At the turn of the twentieth century, they became three of the most provocative and popular performers in vaudeville, the form in which American mass entertainment first took shape.A Revolution in Three Acts explores how these vaudeville stars defied the standards of their time to change how their audiences thought about what it meant to be American, to be Black, to be a woman or a man. The writer David Hajdu and the artist John Carey collaborate in this work of graphic nonfiction, crafting powerful portrayals of Williams, Tanguay, and Eltinge to show how they transformed American culture. Hand-drawn images give vivid visual form to the lives and work of the book’s subjects and their world.This book is at once a deft telling of three intricately entwined stories, a lush evocation of a performance milieu with unabashed entertainment value, and an eye-opening account of a key moment in American cultural history with striking parallels to present-day questions of race, gender, and sexual identity.
I was happy to learn a bit about the rise and fall of Vaudeville, a form of entertainment that once dominated and then faded away with the advent of motion pictures. And it is always gratifying to see a history focused on people from marginalized populations, in this case an extremely successful Black American who performed in blackface, a sex-positive woman who defied Victorian decorum and norms to become Vaudeville's queen, and a closeted gay man who was an acclaimed female impersonator.
The presentation is a little dry and flat at times and the book might have been better if it had focused on one person instead of trying to cram in all three, even if their lives had thematic parallels and crossed over at various points. Still, I found myself quickly turning the pages even as their lives begin taking sad turns. ( )