Ethnic Notions film

During the time of slavery, the idea of slavery was not seen as wrong or immoral. The Ethnic Notions film discussed slavery and how it was perceived at the time it was occurring. The film showed comics from the time period, most of which were of blacks. These images appealed especially to whites. Many of the caricatures shown in the film portrayed blacks as happy. The images shown did not portray what blacks actually looked like.
The character Mame was the standard female black slave of the time period. She was presented as docile, loyal, protective, happy and fat. She definitely was not seen as a sexual character. This was mainly because that would then attract the master of the household and would therefore create competition for the wife of the household. Mame was also portrayed differently with her families than how she is with her master’s household. With her families, she is the dominant figure or the controller over the man.
Was slavery ever seen as bad to those who are not black? Why were slaves portrayed as happy if slavery was not the least bit pleasant? To me, it seems that since slavery was portrayed as pleasant (as shown in the film), non-black people may never have realized what was actually occurring and the true effects of it. Perhaps non-blacks had dug themselves into too deep of a hole to get out of slavery so they changed the whole idea around to ignore what was really happening.
This film introduced me to an entirely new idea. I was not aware that blacks were perceived as “happy” during the time of slavery. One thing that stuck out to me while watching the film was the phrase, “No disgrace in being a black man, but it’s terribly inconvenient.” This phrase shows that blacks were never ashamed to be black but those around them (non-blacks) made their lives inconvenient in comparison to everyone else.