Dolemite. D’Urville Martin, 1975.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #113, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 90 minutes.
Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Much can be said, has been said, about this tale of crime, crooked cops and soul music set in the Fourth Ward. Stand-up comedian Rudy Ray Moore stars as pimp suit wearin’, trash talkin’ Dolemite, and delivers several funny monologues in the African-American story telling tradition of loosely rhymed verse.
Of specific interest is his tale of “Ol’ Shine” who worked onboard the Titanic. As the great ship is going down, fancy ladies beg Shine to save them at his own expense and he returns their pleas with smooth dismissal.
I was surprised to hear a historical story in this context rather than another amusing string of ass-whoopin’ banter, and specifically interested by the exact content. Soon after the Titanic sank in 1912, songs sprang up in the black community using the event as a platform to discuss racial inequality. Most of these songs reference one or more prominent African-Brits who were denied boarding despite having purchased tickets, the captain saying “I ain’t haulin’ no coal.” The result of course is that the humiliated passengers were spared horrible deaths. Other songs and stories of the period suggest that the sinking was divine retribution for the black shipbuilders who lost their lives unnecessarily during construction.
In the sixty years between the mid-teens and the mid-seventies, these songs traveled from plantation fields and rural prisons of the southeast to swaggering uptown neighborhoods. They were remembered and disseminated at a time when many of the people involved were illiterate and without telephone service, and long before the easy communication of Twitter and text messages. In the thirty years between the mid-eighties and 2018, far wealthier and better educated Americans retain little awareness of major news events or cultural happenings just a few decades ago, but they sure do know a lot about college basketball and the Kardashians.
