Dixie is about a man, Dan Emmett, who goes to New Orleans, Louisiana to try and make it big. He goes to New York to try and sell his songs, but refuses to sell one very important one, "Dixie." The movie stars Bing Crosby as Dan Emmett, Dorothy Lamour as Millie Cook, Billy De Wolfe as Mr. Bones, and Marjorie Reynolds, as Jean Manson. There are many other characters in the movie, but these were the key ones. Dixie was directed by A. Edward Sutherland. The movie was released in 1943, by Paramount Pictures.
Dixie has many settings. The movie starts off in Kentucky, where Dan Emmett is telling the love of his life that he is going off to New Orleans to try and become famous so that him and her can finally get married and have a life of their own. On his way to New Orleans, Dan meets a man named Mr. Bones. Mr. Bones is a con man. He conned Dan out of $500. They become partners and come up with an idea of a show. The type of show that they created was called a Minstrel Show. Minstrel Shows were when white men performed in "blackface." Minstrel shows were made to be funny. The men would completely paint their faces except around their eyes and mouth to make them look like clowns. In this time black men were not allowed to perform on stage, especially with white men. Dan meets Millie Cook and falls in love with her, and promises to marry her. He then realizes that he must go back home to Kentucky and tell Jean his already fiancée that they weren't going to get married. When he arrives there he sees that Jean is in a wheelchair and is not able to walk by the paralyzing sickness. He then promises Jean that no matter what they would get married. He writes to Millie telling her this. Jean and Dan go to New York where they try and make a life together. Dan tries and sells his songs, but has a hard time. He ends up selling 10 of his songs for $100. The only one he didn't want to give up was the song that he wrote "Dixie." Mr. Cook, Millie's father, comes to New York and asks Dan to come back to New Orleans with his new bride. This is when Jean finds out that Dan and Millie were engaged. They go back to New Orleans where they start another show of the same genre, minstrelsy. This is when Dan is finally able to use the song that he had been trying to put to the show the whole time, but it just didn't sound right. The movie ends with the audience singing along with the cast and the show was a hit.
Between the years 1840 1920, Minstrel shows were put on all over the United States, but mostly in the South. "The American musical has one shameful chapter in its history minstrel shows. The most popular musical stage shows of the early and mid 19th Century, minstrelsy embodied racial hatred. Both white and black performers donned blackface, and audiences of all colors loved it. Minstrel shows developed in the 1840's, peaked after the Civil War and remained popular into the early 1900s. Minstrelsy was a product of its time, the only entertainment form born out of blind bigotry. In these shows, white men blackened their faces with burnt cork to lampoon Negroes, performing songs and skits that sentimentalized the nightmare of slave life on Southern plantations. Blacks were shown as naive buffoons who sang and danced the days away, gobbling "chitlins," stealing the occasional watermelon, and expressing their inexplicable love for "ol' massuh." In the early 1840s, a group called the Tyrolese Minstrel Family toured the United States with a program of traditional mittel-European folk songs. Four unemployed white actors decided to stage an African-American style spoof of this group's concerts. Calling themselves Dan Emmett's Virginia Minstrels, their blackface revue premiered at New York's Bowery Amphitheatre in February 1843. Emmett, Frank Bower, Frank Pelham and Billy Whitlock became the first troupe to offer a full evening of blackface variety entertainment. With their chairs in a simple semi-circle, the quartet offered a fresh combination of songs, dances and comic banter, creating cartoonish Negro caricatures. Most historians mark this production as the beginning of minstrelsy. Companies continued to perform in both North and South throughout the Civil War, with the minstrel tune "Dixie" becoming an unofficial anthem for the Confederacy. After the war, minstrelsy remained popular, and many skits took a sentimental view of the lost world of plantation slavery. Although African Americans were forbidden by law to perform on stage with whites in many states, some companies secretly included blacks. As laws changed, several all-black minstrel companies toured America and Great Britain. Black performers still had to wear blackface makeup in order to look "dark enough," performing material that demeaned their own race. Despite such drawbacks, minstrelsy provided African American performers with their first professional stage outlet" (Kenrick).
The movie started out a little slow, but as the movie went on I got more and more interested in the story line and the plot. It was interesting to learn about the Minstrel shows and how they were performed, and why they were performed. I think that the movie was a little controversial, because of the fact that it poked fun and put down blacks. I honestly don't understand how people could have hated a group of people. It was degrading to blacks.
Dixie has many settings. The movie starts off in Kentucky, where Dan Emmett is telling the love of his life that he is going off to New Orleans to try and become famous so that him and her can finally get married and have a life of their own. On his way to New Orleans, Dan meets a man named Mr. Bones. Mr. Bones is a con man. He conned Dan out of $500. They become partners and come up with an idea of a show. The type of show that they created was called a Minstrel Show. Minstrel Shows were when white men performed in "blackface." Minstrel shows were made to be funny. The men would completely paint their faces except around their eyes and mouth to make them look like clowns. In this time black men were not allowed to perform on stage, especially with white men. Dan meets Millie Cook and falls in love with her, and promises to marry her. He then realizes that he must go back home to Kentucky and tell Jean his already fiancée that they weren't going to get married. When he arrives there he sees that Jean is in a wheelchair and is not able to walk by the paralyzing sickness. He then promises Jean that no matter what they would get married. He writes to Millie telling her this. Jean and Dan go to New York where they try and make a life together. Dan tries and sells his songs, but has a hard time. He ends up selling 10 of his songs for $100. The only one he didn't want to give up was the song that he wrote "Dixie." Mr. Cook, Millie's father, comes to New York and asks Dan to come back to New Orleans with his new bride. This is when Jean finds out that Dan and Millie were engaged. They go back to New Orleans where they start another show of the same genre, minstrelsy. This is when Dan is finally able to use the song that he had been trying to put to the show the whole time, but it just didn't sound right. The movie ends with the audience singing along with the cast and the show was a hit.
Between the years 1840 1920, Minstrel shows were put on all over the United States, but mostly in the South. "The American musical has one shameful chapter in its history minstrel shows. The most popular musical stage shows of the early and mid 19th Century, minstrelsy embodied racial hatred. Both white and black performers donned blackface, and audiences of all colors loved it. Minstrel shows developed in the 1840's, peaked after the Civil War and remained popular into the early 1900s. Minstrelsy was a product of its time, the only entertainment form born out of blind bigotry. In these shows, white men blackened their faces with burnt cork to lampoon Negroes, performing songs and skits that sentimentalized the nightmare of slave life on Southern plantations. Blacks were shown as naive buffoons who sang and danced the days away, gobbling "chitlins," stealing the occasional watermelon, and expressing their inexplicable love for "ol' massuh." In the early 1840s, a group called the Tyrolese Minstrel Family toured the United States with a program of traditional mittel-European folk songs. Four unemployed white actors decided to stage an African-American style spoof of this group's concerts. Calling themselves Dan Emmett's Virginia Minstrels, their blackface revue premiered at New York's Bowery Amphitheatre in February 1843. Emmett, Frank Bower, Frank Pelham and Billy Whitlock became the first troupe to offer a full evening of blackface variety entertainment. With their chairs in a simple semi-circle, the quartet offered a fresh combination of songs, dances and comic banter, creating cartoonish Negro caricatures. Most historians mark this production as the beginning of minstrelsy. Companies continued to perform in both North and South throughout the Civil War, with the minstrel tune "Dixie" becoming an unofficial anthem for the Confederacy. After the war, minstrelsy remained popular, and many skits took a sentimental view of the lost world of plantation slavery. Although African Americans were forbidden by law to perform on stage with whites in many states, some companies secretly included blacks. As laws changed, several all-black minstrel companies toured America and Great Britain. Black performers still had to wear blackface makeup in order to look "dark enough," performing material that demeaned their own race. Despite such drawbacks, minstrelsy provided African American performers with their first professional stage outlet" (Kenrick).
The movie started out a little slow, but as the movie went on I got more and more interested in the story line and the plot. It was interesting to learn about the Minstrel shows and how they were performed, and why they were performed. I think that the movie was a little controversial, because of the fact that it poked fun and put down blacks. I honestly don't understand how people could have hated a group of people. It was degrading to blacks.