Ethnicity, Music, and Virginia City

Virginia City, Nevada's musical life demonstrated an astounding diversity, while emphasizing class structure, reinforcing gender roles, and underscoring (and sometimes celebrating) ethnicity. In his book "The Roar and the Silence," Ronald James expertly explores the Comstock's unique social workings. According to James, in this 1863 depiction of "Hurdy Gurdy Girls" in a Virginia City music hall, artist J. Ross Browne provides some intriguing insight into the performers and clientele of a run-of-the-mill performance venue.

The dancer in the center is portrayed with distinctly "Irish" features according to standards of the day. She has a rounded face with large cheeks, a recessed chin, and a puggish nose. The overall impression is somewhat impish or elf-like, and we find such depictions quite common in nineteenth century American cartoons depicting the Irish. This also coincides with stereotypes of the day that the majority of Irish women were prostitutes and/or of questionable moral persuasion. No decent woman would ever perform professionally as a musician or dancer, so she had to be Irish.

Second, the male figure near the center of the back row is noticeably darker than the other clientele. On closer inspection, he appears to be African American. This is astonishing for a number of reasons. First, it implies that Virginia City was not generally segregated, at least for African Americans. Second, the Virginians are demonstrating an amazing amount of enlightenment, by nineteenth century standards, in allowing an African American to participate in the enjoyment of a performance by White women who not only danced but who dealt in sexual transactions. It appears, at least according to J. Ross Browne, that entertainment in Virginia City involved many players from diverse backgrounds who were sometimes drawn together by music.

Boris Vian and American Daydreaming

Under the pseudoym of Vernon Sullivan, a fictitious African American author in need of a Francophone translator, twentieth century French writer Boris Vian inspired an international scandal and mythologized the American cultural landscape for generations of Europeans. Sensational and provocative, Vian's romans noirs (J'irai cracher sur vos tombes, Les morts ont tous la meme peau, Elles se rendent pas compte, and Et, on tuera tous les affreux) tackle taboos such as race, sexuality, and violence through the lens of the shrewd Absurdist eye. His interpretations of the American landscape, while jarringly stereotypical in their noir-esque renderings, also contain astonishing clarity in the denunciation of racism.

From the Deep South to the metropolis, Vian cuts away the polished facade of 1950s America to reveal an alternate landscape, a seedy underbelly rife with rape, murder, and revenge. The creation of a distinct sense of place is both astonishing in parts and faulted in others as Vian never personally visited the United States. His sense of place is largely achieved, not through careful attention to detail, but emphasis on the racial tensions pervading the United States of the 1940s and 1950s. Thus, his settings focus not on particular locale but rather America as a whole.

This is the America where an African American could be both a decorated war veteran and a humiliated passenger forced to the back of the bus, an America that boldly appropriated jazz music and filtered it through White musicians and venues while denigrating and belittling its African American inventors. Vian never provides the reader with an intimate presentation of a regionalized American setting but rather a broad depiction of White suburban America as a whole. He contrasts this with the plight of a fringe element, light skinned African Americans who attempt to pass themselves off as White. Ironically, as Vernon Sullivan, Boris passes himself off not only as Black but as African American.

By painting America with a broad brush, he implicates the entire country in his generic portrayals of American vernacular landscapes and the rampant racism underlying them. Moreover, he exploits representations of the United States familiar to French readers to the fullest extent. Ever a master of popular culture, Vian infuses his novels with a heady dose of America, from Hollywood icons to smoke-filled jazz clubs, while still conveying distinct messages against racism. Vian's settings are not regionalized but rather nationalized, because racism was a national topic.