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  • Our Gang: A Racial History of the Little Rascals by Julia Lee
  • Valerie H. Pennanen
Julia Lee, Our Gang: A Racial History of the Little Rascals. University of Minnesota Press: 337pp; $24.95 ISBN 978-0-8166-9822-6.

Few decades in U.S. history have been more tumultuous than the 1920s. It was a time when rules about nearly everything—from dress codes to liquor sales—were broken and new rights and freedoms claimed. Yet it was also a decade of fierce backlash, especially where the social position of African-Americans was concerned. The 1920s witnessed the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, the dazzling triumph of jazz, the growth of the black middle class, and the spread of the “New Negro” ideal. At the same time there were riots, lynchings, a surge in KKK membership, and widespread enjoyment of racist humor centered on the types of the kerchief-wearing “mammy,” her lazy “coon” husband, and their child, the shabbily dressed, eye-rolling, watermelon-eating “pickaninny.”

In Our Gang: A Racial History of the Little Rascals, Julia Lee vividly recreates the tense, racially conflicted decade of the 1920s and examines the middle ground on which Hal Roach and his racially mixed gang of Rascals, introduced in 1922, made their way to fame. She then takes us beyond the ‘20s, following the Gang (and their nemesis Jim Crow) into the Great Depression, tracing the comings and goings of cast members against the ever-shifting background of American life. She acquaints us as no previous scholar has done with the black stars of the Our Gang shorts: Ernie “Sunshine Sammy” Morrison, Allen Clayton (a.k.a. Sonny) “Farina” Hoskins, Matthew “Stymie” Beard, and Billie “Buckwheat” Thomas. Lee’s extensive research and storytelling skills together help us appreciate the talents of these four young actors, their lives on and off the set, and their struggles and victories in the “real” world after retiring from the Gang. Lee’s text also allows us to glimpse the careers—and, to some extent, the values—of producer Roach, director Bob McGowan, and others who worked closely with the Gang. Finally, Lee asks us to reflect on the past, present, and future meanings of Our Gang. Just what was it about this blend of slapstick humor, “racial fantasy and nostalgia” (43) that so charmed audiences of the 1920s and ‘30s and could still make kids shriek with laughter in the ‘50s? Has the America we live in today outgrown Our Gang, or could the Little Rascals still have something to say to us, as we wrestle with our best and worst selves?

Perhaps the best way to read this book is to alternate between savoring the text and watching Our Gang shorts for oneself. Topping the must-see list in connection with Lee’s book are Lodge Night (1923), which parodies the KKK; its predecessor Young Sherlocks (1922), which incorporates a tall tale about an interracial “kiddie paradise” (54); Your Own Backyard (1925), where an ostracized black child gets the last laugh; and For Pete’s Sake (1934), which indirectly yet powerfully condemns lynching. Painful to watch and, in the case of Lodge Night, ironically tinged with racism, these episodes still deserve to be thoughtfully viewed and honored for their good intentions—intentions that, as Lee makes clear, took courage to advance in the era of Jim Crow. At the other end of the spectrum are shorts like A Lad an’ a Lamp (1932) and The Kid from Borneo (1933), with “humor” based so strongly on racial stereotypes that one wonders what Roach and his colleagues could possibly have been thinking. Between these extremes are dozens of Our Gang films spanning the years from 1922 through 1938 (the series survived till 1944 but was never the same after Roach sold it to MGM). Reading Lee’s thoughtful comments on many of these films, viewing the films independently, and considering how one [End Page 72] might personally interpret their allusions to race is an excellent way to make the most of this book.

Assessing the degree of racism present in these films is often quite tricky. Consider Little Daddy (1931), where Farina plays a “pigtailed and...

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