Ep. 27: A Very Visual Episode

Here's My Number, So Call Me Ishmael

Put on your 3D glasses now.

Remember when movies were silent for a long time and then The Jazz Singer came out and people lost their minds? This is kind of like that without blackface.

When I was researching this joke, I read through the Wikipedia entry on The Jazz Singer and there are, no lie, six full paragraphs dedicated to a discussion around whether it was cool that there were blackface scenes in that movie. Like, can we just acknowledge that it wasn't cool?

I originally wanted to make this comparison because The Jazz Singer was the first talkie, and this is like, the first podcast that is SO evocative that you might as well be watching a movie. But then I got really sidetracked by that Wikipedia article.

I get that, at the time, cultural critics had different interpretations of what the blackface scenes signified, and that it's dangerous to erase those discussions lest we repeat our shitty past. But six paragraphs? The entire Wikipedia article on the fascinating French idiom "L'esprit de l'escalier" is shorter than the The Jazz Singer's various stuffy critical defenses of blackface. I'm over it! We're ALL over it.

Anyway enjoy the podcast