Can blackface be used to effectively critique bad things? I suppose I can envision that. But still, it’s inherently pretty dicey in my eyes.
Interestingly, there were actually a number of minstrel show writers who fancied themselves “progressives” and tried (and usually failed) to use the genre to humanize black people.
There’s a famous minstrel song called “Nellie was a Lady” about a black steamboat captain who returns from a long voyage to find his wife as died. It was controversial in the South because it referred to a black woman as a “lady”. Thing is it was still sung by a white dude with burnt cork on his face. Most of these writers ended up realizing you can’t really use blackface progressively and abandoned the genre.
Interestingly, there were actually a number of minstrel show writers who fancied themselves “progressives” and tried (and usually failed) to use the genre to humanize black people.
There’s a famous minstrel song called “Nellie was a Lady” about a black steamboat captain who returns from a long voyage to find his wife as died. It was controversial in the South because it referred to a black woman as a “lady”. Thing is it was still sung by a white dude with burnt cork on his face. Most of these writers ended up realizing you can’t really use blackface progressively and abandoned the genre.
That's actually pretty interesting as an example of the limits of satire