This text, Derr, Holly L. "The Pervading Influence of Uncle Tom's Cabin in Pop
Culture." Atlantic. Sept. 4, 2013, uses a multitude of rhetorical strategies to convey information
to a seemingly uninformed audience. With the recent display of the VMA awards and Miley
Cyrus’ performance, it reflected a historical commonplace of the views of the white Americans,
and allowed those who hadn’t heard of minstrelsy to actually understand this addition to the
commonplace of racism. And among many vivid examples, stemming from Miley’s
performance, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (the book and show), the scene from the movie Dimples, and
the historical settings in which these occurred, all of the historic ones may be applied to current
day situations and the audience may indeed realize just how relevant these “historical”
commonplaces are in regards to modern day society.
First and foremost, the author appeals to our sense of knowledge using logos, by which
he questions the audience’s knowledge of history and how this sort of material, which is not
precisely the same, but closely related, and emotional appeals as well by telling us what we are
missing out by not knowing the particular information. He may indeed be using this to capture
our attention, so that we as a curious people would hunger for a better understanding of these
things that we apparently had no clue about. Also, he may have instead had the desire to anger us
with this declaration of how we knew nothing, and the anger would have caused the audience to
pursue a reason why. While this may seem as borderline insulting, it is more importantly a wake
up call to those who think that this is offensive just because of the simple “twerking” that Miley
does. In actuality, we are forced to see the history behind such performances and how contrary to
common belief, this isn’t the first time a performance such as this has been done. So once the
audience understands this, we delve deeper into the history to figure out just how in the world
this thing called minstrelsy relates to Miley’s performance.
Well interestingly enough, this particular sort of “white person views” of black people’s
livelihood is demonstrated by the retelling of the happenings from the 1800’s when Uncle Tom’s
Cabin was a popular book and play/show. The fact brought up by the author that the first
play/show of Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was actually performed before the novel was even
fully completed gives us a glimpse into just how important this show was. The author assumes
that the audience has at least heard of Uncle Tom’s Cabin the novel so by this declaration of this
surprising fact, it has the result of adding to his overall ethos. But not to force a particular view
on the audience, she then increases her logos further by showing the audience that George Aiken,
whose actual works we aren’t explicitly told about (I’m assuming that its not pertinent to the
argument), had the best and most successful of the adaptations. After telling us this, it is told that
despite the novels anti-slavery intentions, Southern pro-slavery writers parodied the performance
and as the author said, “turned Stowe's sympathetic portrayal of slaves on its head.” This seems
to appeal to the audience’s sense of justice and seeing how a vast majority of the audience was
not alive to see this kind of blatant racism in daily life, it really hits home for a lot of them,
further increasing the ethos and pathos of the author. To add further insult to injury, she then tells
of how producers even began to cast “real Negroes” to add to the authenticity by “depicting
black life as it really was.” The use of a historical person’s actual yet so inappropriate claim that
the black people’s lives were “full of happy go-lucky, animalistic should-be slaves.” This
definitely appeals to the audience using pathos by saying something that the author hopes would
upset and anger the readers.
The translating of the situation from back then to specific aspects of the current VMA
performance with Miley and her black dancers with the “black” music, the logos is further
enhanced. The author shows how the song and dance of these “tropes of minstrelsy” called Tom
Shows represented black life and from a white perception. This appeals to current audience
readers and other things they have seen/read which tried to explain black life from a white
perception, using pathos to further increasing her ethos and logos. Now his credibility is
increased due to the appeal to the audience’s particular view of Miley Cyrus and how she used
this notion of minstrelsy to try to get across her idea. Whether it is a good view or a bad view, it
nonetheless adds to the pathos.
The 7 or so minute long video excerpt from Dimples is another way the author conveys
ethos by seeing the hair style of the little black girl named Topsy, who is adopted and “civilized”
by her new white parents. It shows her eating a flower which further made the audience within
the movie roar with laughter seeing that she didn’t know that they were for smelling and
viewing. Additionally, when the professor tries to impersonate the actor playing Uncle Tom, he
speaks with a normal American accent and the actual Uncle Tom actor speaks with a style which
mimics that of the slaves of the time. The continuing laughter of the audience shows just how
people viewed the situation as comedic and not racist and or offensive in the least. Furthering the
logos, the author carries on, telling us that as an epilogue to the show, a minstrel troupe appears,
and Dimples dances in the middle of a group of blackface performers.
Finally, the author speaks of a show on Netflix called Orange Is the New Black, where it
contains a mostly female, racially diverse cast, and it too has a character who, like Topsy from
the movie Dimples, was adopted and “civilized” by white parents. This relationship between
movie and TV show may not have been apparent to the authors and actors, as the author of this
article has stated, but the similarities between the two are still very apparent once the audience
reads this particular piece of the article. By making a connection between the past happenstances
of this frowned down upon form of entertainment called minstrelsy, and the modern forms of
entertainment from today, the author has completed her mission to fully inform and educate the
audience of these historical yet still prevalent acts of entertainment. With all of these things in
mind, the author’s ethos is to a point where the audience truly comprehends the issue at hand.
The logos that she has used clearly can relate to most reading, thus having the fullest impact
possible, and the way she directed the information clearly and with almost no bias uses pathos in
a very convincing way.
So the commonplaces in all of this are that white people of the time had certain views of
the African Americans, which certainly has changed over time, and the author even mentions
that Miley or whoever designed the performance for the VMAs probably didn’t know about it.
Despite this fact, it appeals to our emotions and is designed to get us to realize how inappropriate
Miley’s performance actually is.
The pop culture craze that our country drowns itself in is effected by things beyond our
own time from the past. And having someone who is of the opposite color/race to describe their
opposite color/race’s experiences, it becomes almost a copy/parody of the Uncle Tom’s cabin
shows. Very strong pathos here in that he goes right for our view points and makes us guess
whether or not we were wrong in thinking them. We may never see the day where this form of
entertainment isn’t apparent or even minutely visual in our television shows, movies, books, etc.,
but now that we know about this, we’ll be there to point it out and bring it to light, maybe one
day bringing an end to this outdated and racist form of presenting an idea.