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Mind the gap
Shop talk What he learned in the newsroom Mr. Boffo lays an eggcorn Curse of the mummy's tummy More in Word Watch  |
« Biblical literacy | Main | Woe is us, continued » Monday, March 26, 2007Jane vs. JemimaA reader points out that (the real) Jane Austen's makeover, mentioned in an earlier post today, resembles (the fictional) Aunt Jemima's. Removing the hair covering, in particular.  The inspiration for Aunt Jemima-brand pancake mix, syrup, etc., launched in 1889, was a minstrelsy/vaudeville song of the same name, performed by white vaudevillians in blackface, apron, and kerchief. A "mammy" caricature appeared on packages of Aunt Jemima Pancake mix. In 1893, the R.T. Davis Milling Company bought the brand; and in 1917, Aunt Jemima was redrawn as a smiling, heavy-set black housekeeper with a bandanna wrapped around her head. In the mid-1920s, Quaker Oats bought the brand. (Here's a sampling of their ads.) In 1989, Quaker Oats modernized Aunt Jemima, making her thinner, eliminating her bandanna, and giving her a permanent wave and a pair of pearl earrings.  It's this latter makeover to which the reader was referring. But the semiotic significance of the two makeovers, it goes without saying, is quite different. As Big Daddy Kane put it, in Public Enemy's "Burn Hollywood Burn": And Black women in this [acting] profession/As for playin' a lawyer, out of the question./For what they play "Aunt Jemima" is the perfect term/Even if now she got a perm. Posted by Joshua Glenn at 01:58 PM
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