GRGR(30) 'Alarming'et alia

[Paul Mackin]

On Thu, 29 Jun 2000, Mark Wright AIA wrote:

> Howdy
> --- Paul Mackin <pmackin at clark.net> wrote:
> 
> > The dialect on the previous page such as "Gwine jump on dis
> > drum
> > hyah" is supposed to be Black.
> > 
> 
> I think it's supposed to be a more-or-less offensive and extreme
> rendition of what *passed* for a Black dialect in the early "Talkies"
> from the 30's -- a dialect which it seems that white americans of the
> 30's and 40's accepted as plausible.  Examples abound -- check out the
> old Shirley Temple movie "The Little Colonel" which deals,
> sentimentally, with slavery and the Civil War in a way that looks
> risible today but which may actually have seemed liberal and expansive
> in its day... Bojangles and Shirley dances the famous staircase
> routine.

This is more or less what I had in mind. Bojangles got off easy compared
to "Step and Fetch It" Talk-wise I mean. Neither probably needed a voice
coach to know how they were supposed to talk. 

			P.