From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mammy is a variant of "mother", used most prominently by blacks in the Southern United States during slavery and for a time thereafter. It is no longer in common use and, when used today to refer to a black woman, it is considered an ethnic slur.

Contents 1 Archetype 2 In pop culture 3 In music, film, radio, and television 4 In video games 5 See also 6 External links

The mammy archetype is, perhaps, as old as slavery itself— that of a dark-skinned, heavyset, big-busted, matronly black woman wearing an apron and a kerchief on her head. She generally is a wet nurse, maid, cook, seamstress, nurse, or another kind of domestic servant who was an earth mother type, good-natured, sometimes jovial and loud. Like the emasculated black "pappy" or "uncle", she is asexual, despite often having given birth to many children.

A number of variations and usage of the mammy character became prominent in pop culture during the pre-civil rights period. One of the most notable examples is Aunt Jemima, a mascot for Quaker Oats's Aunt Jemima brand pancakes, pancake flour and mixes, and syrup. In recent years, however, the packaging has been redesigned to replace the mammy image with a more contemporary image.

Mammy characters were a staple of blackface minstrelsy, giving rise to many sentimental show tunes dedicated to or mentioning mammies, including Al Jolson's My Mammy from The Jazz Singer and Judy Garland's performance of Swanee from A Star is Born. Various "Mammy" characters would appear in radio and TV shows. One prominent example was the radio and later short-lived TV show Beulah, which featured a black maid named Beulah who helped solve a Caucasian family's problems. The manner in which the black maid was depicted on the show led to charges by the NAACP that the show was perpetrating a racist mammy stereotype. In the 1940s and early 1950s, Mammy Two Shoes, the housekeeper in Tom and Jerry presented an animated example of the stereotype, complete with dark skin and African American accent.

The videogame Chrono Cross, released in 1999, features a character named "Macha" who is reminiscent of a mammy character. She is a portly, black housewife who tolerates no sass from her children. She also fights with a frying pan and folds enemies like laundry. In the original Japanese version of the game, Macha was called "Mamacha".

• Aunt Jemima
• Mami Wata
• Uncle Tom
• Hattie McDaniel
• Madame Sul-Te-Wan
• Big Momma's House

• Pilgrim, David. "The Mammy Caricature". Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. Ferris State University, Michigan.