Tuxedo vest worn by George McFarland as Spanky in the Our Gang film Ye Olde Minstrels
date: label: date made
content: ca. 1941
name: label: wearer
content: McFarland, Spanky
label: maker
content: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corporation
notes: label: Description
content: Tuxedo vest worn by George McFarland as Spanky in the Our Gang film Ye Olde Minstrels. White satin tuxedo vest with black collar. Faded back edging along bottom of vest. Fastens with four black plastic buttons. Off-white lining.
label: Description
content: Spanky was portrayed by child actor George McFarland, who made the character one of the most popular and memorable members of the Our Gang cast in his eleven years appearing in the series. The character first appeared in the series in 1931, when McFarland was three years old. As McFarland became one of the series’ best-known stars, Spanky became the leader of the Our Gang characters. McFarland retired from the series in 1938 but was lured back later that year and stayed with the series in its MGM production era until 1942, when he was 14. McFarland did little other acting in his later years, instead joining the U.S. Air Force, working in sales, and hosting a children’s television series in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He died in 1993 at the age of 64.
label: Description
content: McFarland wore the tuxedo suit in the 1941 Our Gang short Ye Olde Minstrels, in which the gang puts on a blackface minstrel show to raise money for the Red Cross. Blackface minstrelsy was a form of entertainment in which actors would appear in black face makeup and act out stereotypical, grotesque racial caricature for the amusement of the audience. By the 1940s, the nearly century-old minstrel show entertainment form was increasingly seen as old fashioned and racially insensitive. However, the minstrel show experienced a surprising revival of popularity during World War II, when a number of films presented the traditional blackface minstrel show with reverence and nostalgia, its grotesque racial caricature overlooked while its value as entertainment and patriotic cultural heritage were celebrated. In the Ye Old Minstrels short, the character Buckwheat, who is Black, appears visibly uncomfortable when the idea of blackface minstrelsy is proposed as a fundraiser. Spanky, serving as the white interlocutor (emcee), and the other White characters suggest that Buckwheat shouldn’t worry about it, despite the show’s racist and stereotypical humor. Under peer pressure, Buckwheat falls in line and joins the performance apparently without humiliation or shame. The plot and character interactions of Ye Old Minstrels reveal the complicated power dynamics at play in American entertainment’s representation of race and comedy in the mid-20th century.
label: Description
content: The Our Gang film series numbers over 200 short comedies produced by Hal Roach, at his own production studio from 1922-1938 and from 1938-1944 at Metro Goldwyn Mayer. The series, highlighting the adventures and daily hijinks of a group of impoverished children, was a popular and sustained success, bridging the silent to sound era of film production and reaching from the early 1920s through World War II. The series was notable and influential for its always-evolving cast of talented young actors who were directed to act naturally rather than imitating adult acting styles.
label: Description
content: The film series was also significant for its racially integrated cast, with Black characters Stymie, Buckwheat, and Farina represented as equal and valued members of the gang, highly unusual for movies in the Jim Crow era. Black life was often depicted with unusual compassion and empathy and Black actors Billie Thomas (Buckwheat), Matthew Beard (Stymie), Allen Hoskins (Farina), and Ernie Morrison (Sunshine Sammy) earned fame and success co-equal to their co-stars. Morrison was, in fact, the first black actor signed to a long-term contract in Hollywood history. This costume, however, demonstrates the series’ later entries' reliance on stereotypical imagery, dialect, and elements of blackface minstrel performance, which increasingly over the course of the series undercut its early racial progressivism and egalitarian spirit.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: associated subject
content: Motion Pictures
label: associated subject
content: Blackface
label: associated subject
content: Children
label: associated subject
content: Ethnic Stereotype
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Entertainment
label: See more items in
content: Popular Entertainment
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: James and Amber Comisar
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2023.0146.02.03
label: accession number
content: 2023.0146
label: catalog number
content: 2023.0146.02.03
objectType: label: Object Name
content: vest
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: satin (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: plastic (buttons material)
label: Measurements
content: overall, flat: 17 in x 16 1/2 in; 43.18 cm x 41.91 cm