This Is The Army

[zipper179]

As a black person, I say look at it in it's time.. And, not for nothing, black, as well, as, white performers, performed in blackface, multitudinous times..! And, there's more than one 'drag' number in this show, by the way.. Try to enjoy..

[BearyHairy]

This is sad. "And you kids were worrying about a minstrel number being too old fashioned; why it worked as well tonight as it did in the days of the old show..." Filmed in the 40's when it was OK to mock Black people (murdered,mistreated&abused). What would Caucasian people think if Black people donned white-face&portrayed them as lazy, over-sexed, welfare sniffling stooges. There is Caucasoid trash out there, folks. Watch just 1 episode of Maury. Do they make you feel proud? Just curious.

[antinotis]

@BearyHairy As I recall Whoopie Goldberg and Eddie Murray both did white face and I thought it was funny each time. Turnabout is fair play. The Minstrel Show was the precursor of Broadway and Vaudeville. Get over it.

[BearyHairy]

I hope you would agree. BTW-You are white (I think) as am I; if Black entertainers have a laugh, are we as white people that emasculated that we cannot take a breath and laugh, too?! Think of their history and ours, please. Andy Griffith stated that his shows brought out the values of southern rural folks, without mocking them, White people are ponderous folks & have foibles...exuding humor. Peace. Bear

[BearyHairy]

@antinotis Hi. You seem like a nice person, so I’ll be polite in my response to you. I left those comments 9 months ago; & still stand by them. A question to you: If descendants of people destroyed at Dachau arrived to inspect the sight, would you shrug & say: “get over it.” That was your final term, sir, on the subject. Just curious. Human degradation, enslavement, humiliation and murder brought forth upon another set of human beings should never get a free pass, is my stand.

[Awesome1Billy]

Good performance...Nice tune

[Awesome1Billy]

Good performance...Nice tune!

[seamuspowers]

True, to bad people just refuse to wake up from this brainwash about equality.

[seamuspowers]

I honestly believe they came from Cains blood line. I refuse t look at those primitive demonic creatures as my equals. I dont even look at them because to me, they are the lowest life on this planet. I have more respect for vermin than for negroes. Its a grim reality but hey thats how it is. When you see enough of them and observe them enough, you get tired of them and more disgusted by the day!

[XXGDUBSXX]

@seamuspowers I dislike ignorance but im not disgusted by you my friend, if the only dark skinned folks you see are on comedy central then you have a very distorted view, that comedy strives off steryotypes, also i watched comedy central one night and they had a white guy using the word nigger in his act so I dont understand where you see dark skinned people receiving preferencial treatment. Comment like yours fuel peoples anger at show like this it doesnt anger me but Im also not bigoted.

[Noden793]

Haha what a riot, good ol' days indeed!

Go Dixie!

[FreiKonigsberg]

The Good Ol' Days....

[FreiKonigsberg]

HAHAHAHAAAAA! Nice one General!

----GOTT MIT UNS----

[seamuspowers]

lol

[srvinfinity]

The double breasted white suits are pure class. The music is great. They would tell the greatest jokes in those old minstral shows. And the banjo playing was outstanding.

[ipodnano78]

I understand they were racial, but I think some of them were performed good.

[dday0606]

It is unfortunate that this was considered theater at that time, but it was. However, this movie was about a "song and dance" show to recruit servicemen for WWII. There are all kinds of scenes in this, including soldiers dressed as women for THEATER. There is also a great ALL BLACK song and dance scene with great 1940s music and dance. They are great in that! Remember this was 1943.

[9aspengold5]

For those condemning Black Face actors (of that time). What was acceptable 40 years ago, was not acceptable 20 years later. What was acceptable 20 years ago is not acceptable now. Just as what we do now, will probably not be acceptable in 20 years. Grow up, move on. Political correctness is selective.

[seamuspowers]

political correctness is only aimed at european people or people of european descent, after all we are bad people.

[JIMTHERE1]

Yeah its ok for those dumb wayans brothers to wear "white face" but blackface, thats racist.

[seamuspowers]

Thats true. Turn on comedy central, watch the black jokes about white people or should I say 'crackers' and thats ok. But for us to even dare say the 'N'-word were are nailed to a cross in a heartbeat by the media. Its absurd, and sickening. I wish the Dutch and Jews never brought them here, we would have saved ourselves the trouble of having ot deal with these primitive beings today!

[vawlkee51]

Man you nailed it!

Thank you.

[anarchyantichrist]

nice how u can't see reagan at all at the beginning

[bigsexyshaq]

Can't we just appreciate the song? It's one of my favorite Irving Berlin songs, especially Cantor's version.

[SmartBC90]

If one were to simply listen to the song on a CD, without any visuals, I personally can't imagine drawing negative, racist images of black minstrels from the music and/or the lyrics...It's a song from a particular historical period, but might be inappropriate for any new video re-enactment in today's more sensitive environment.

[a5882]

there were afro-americans in this film, joe lewis was one of them with many others

[Poerts]

that's sorta like a black person right?

[cegmglick]

This is the same song that's sung in White Christmas.

[hananddeb91]

do you have the song 'this is the army'? I would like to see that.

we have this movie, btw, and it's not f-in'. so stop saying it is. black minstrels like that used to be very popular.

[cegmglick]

I would like to see the full song of the This Is The Army as well.

I do agree with you about black minstrels being popular too.

[Circlevision91]

For the ignorant...

Black face gags were common in the 30s and 40s. Often this involved a cartoon gag of Mickey getting covered in soot and saying "Mammy." By the way, if you think this is racist, a very talented group of real African American army men take the stage after this and give a wonderful scat routine.

This movie is about army men putting on a relief show to the sound of tons of great Irving Berlin. Reminds me a lot of Beetle Baily.

[draxx77]

"By the way, if you think this is racist, a very talented group of real African American army men take the stage after this and give a wonderful scat routine."

What you left out was, the "real" African-Americans had NO choice for other types of roles, in those days all of the dignified roles were reserved for the likes of Bogart, Gable and Barrymore etc.

Blackface is ALWAYS racist when done by whites.

[wannabeemo6000]

'Blackface is ALWAYS racist when done by whites' - does that mean its only sometimes racist when done by asians?

i know that it was bad but those were the times and this is just accurate, would you rather we just ignored the less tasteful bits of history for the sake of political correctness? really, the world has moved on, maybe you should too

[draxx77]

Why keep bringing blackface to modern times?

There is no racist history of Asians doing BF for the sole purpose of demonizing Blacks, but as you see, there IS a racist history of whites wearing blackface redface and yellowface out of hate.

There are Japanese kids that wear BF in their Hip Hop act, but they do it to pay homage, NOT hate so that is not a problem.

[wannabeemo6000]

its not about hate, its about humour, that is obvious to anyone with the slightest bit of objectivity or intelligence. and im not saying it was right, but it was what happened and we are not going to ignore that just because you don't like it, they are not trying to demonise black people

[draxx77]

And you know this how, because they said so? Oh, wait, they did NOT say that they were being hateful.

I guess Shirley Q Liquer is not being racist either, or the chumps in Birth of a Nation.

Dude, racism is NOT limited to literally lynching a Black man in a tree.

[wannabeemo6000]

'dude' i know. i would not be able to comment on your other examples as i dont know them. i really don't think you are understanding my point, maybe i'm not being clear. i am not denying that blackface performances are/were racist. all i am saying is that in this context, it was not done purely to be directly insulting to African-Americans,they were in their way trying to be entertaining in the accepted fashion of the time, and maybe it is wrong, but thats how it was and that cant be changed

[kkleman]

This is just fucked. a fucking shame

[CutterScene]

WTF - a parody on the Jazz Singer with Al Jolson?

[draxx77]

No that is not what kkleman meant, racist whites doing blackface is a effing shame.

Blackface should be a hate crime.

[shautora]

wow...i dont kno wut 2 say to this...

[seapoidog]

WHat the FUCK? White people are fucked up

[Video4Ridicule]

classic movie, i watched this a lot when i was little in the early 1990s. But now i also follow hip hop.

[FeralChildBuff]

...Disturbing.