Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Essay

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom by August Wilson, is a play about ‘displaced Southern black people struggling to survive in a hostile Northern urban environment’ (Adell, 1993, 54), which emphasises the harsh realities of 1920s America for African-Americans. Ma Rainey and her band are indeed familiar with these harsh realities, and it is the white studio owner Sturdyvant, along with Ma Rainey’s white manager Irvin, who contribute to this harsh reality facing African-Americans. I will examine throughout this chapter, the very negative portrayal of white characters by focusing on their obsession with money and the commodification of Ma Rainey’s voice and the blues, their controlling and patronising attitude toward African-Americans, their lack of understanding for African-American experience, and the portrayal of white males as being abusive toward African-American women.
The stage directions at …show more content…
Levee is almost reduced to begging Sturdyvant to listen to him play his own songs, which Sturdyvant immediately objects to. Sturdyvant knows Levee needs him in order to be successful, and is patronising and disrespectful before finally shoving the money for the songs into Levee’s pocket. Levee immediately takes it out and throws it on the floor. Levee’s anger and frustration in this scene highlights the power the while man has over African-Americans. The reader and audience see the white man as being patronising, controlling, and disrespectful. Sturdyvant abuses his position of control over Levee by making Levee think he is doing him a ‘favour’. Although Sturdyvant originally told Levee he could record his own songs, he thinks nothing of taking back his word and refusing to listen to Levee play. ‘Mr. Sturdyvant, you asked me to write them songs… You told me you was gonna let me record them’