Eat Your Heart Out

However painful and imperfect the transition to a tolerant society continues to be, by 1996 most of America had moved on from blackface and mammies, including Harriet Young. Things were far from perfect but they were obviously far better than in 1927, the year The Jazz Singer was released, and what apparently caught Harriet’s attention in that movie was a more modern topic for an era obsessed with tabloid TV and pop psychology: the intensity of Al Jolson’s love for Mom.

Jolson’s blackface performance of My Mammy, the first use of a soundtrack in the movies, was an emotive, over-the-top affair which reinforced racial stereotypes. It was probably well-suited to the mores of the day, but 70 years later Mammy was getting hammy, creating the perfect set-up for a satirical send-up. Harriet of course obliges.

From the song My Mammy (1918),
music by Walter Donaldson
lyrics by Joe Young & Sam Lewis:

Mammy,
Mammy,
The sun shines east, the sun shines west,
I know where the sun shines best…
 
And so did Harriet Young.