Azie Dungey – American History to 1877

April 14, 2014

Ignorance in America

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The Ask a Slave web series does an incredible job at portraying the ignorance of so many Americans when it comes to distinguishing fact from fiction regarding history. I myself am guilty of thinking I know something but in reality am just basing my knowledge on a secondhand account full of embellishment or opinion. As Alex mentions in his post, Azie Dungey who uses the moniker Lizzie Mae, effectively captures likely sentiments of slaves at the time with sarcasm and witty responses. I find this to be a necessary critique of Americans’ perceptions of history and more specifically of slavery in the early first century of the United States.

I thought it was interesting and effective to include the “hometowns” of the different people asking questions to emphasize that these people are Americans. It may seem hard for us to imagine that these questions are from real people. I think the fact that the videos maintain the appearance of reality with the question and answer style, albeit coming from different time periods, the hometown aspect further grounds this ignorance in our country as a huge problem. One of the best portions of the series was in Episode 3 when Peter Mencken from St. Louis, MO claimed that “slavery isn’t that bad” saying that it is industrious work where you can get room and board. This is seriously concerning that Americans have not come to the realization that slavery was an absolutely gruesome atrocity waged against people of color.

Aside from the obvious disregard for realities of slavery in early history of the United States, this series demonstrates the overall lack of awareness that many Americans possess when thinking about history. One woman asked how many bathrooms Mount Vernon had and another. The general method of researching/thinking about history has become much more apparent for us this semester but we forget that many Americans are simply unaware of this process to think of the certain events and institutions in a historical context free from an interpretation in contemporary terms. I totally agree with Max when he says that our school system does a disservice to our children and teens when hiding our blemishes and focusing solely on the successes and positive aspects of American history. Furthermore, I think as a whole we laud our forefathers as being heroic men of honor and oftentimes overlook their pitfalls and their position as mere humans that are capable of error. The Ask a Slave series is a concise, comical approach to illuminating the aforementioned ignorance and false perceptions of slavery and American history.

April 14, 2014

The Power of Ask a Slave

Azie Dungey’s webseries Ask a Slave exemplifies the power of satire in addressing reprehensible history. She even incorporates critical voices—in the second episode of the second season—that tell her she cannot joke about something as immoral as slavery. This inclusion of criticism, and the series as a whole, reminds me of two Quentin Tarantino movies: Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. In the former, Tarantino examines a special American force that fights Nazi forces in France; in the latter, he displays the vengeful rampage of a former slave. Both movies, respectively, confront perhaps the two greatest travesties in recent history: the holocaust and slavery. However, Tarantino approaches these events from the perspective of satire. In Inglourious Basterds, he shows that the Americans successfully kill Hitler in a movie theater; in Django Unchained, he incorporates several items that would not have been invented for decades. Tarantino intentionally makes his movies partially false and absurd because it allows the audience to digest a very flawed and equally absurd history. Indeed, it may be the only way to discuss these issues without losing the audience.

Likewise, Dungey bases her show on a preposterous notion—a slave of George Washington who can talk with modern Americans. She furthers the absurdity with her introductory banjo music and animation, which is complete with a wink from her smiling face. Dungey incorporates these aspects into her show because it is easier to reach her audience through this medium. She then proceeds to discuss several deplorable aspects of slavery, but presents them in a humorous manner. A guest jokes that Jefferson’s slaves are treated well because he has sex with them; Lizzie Mae spits out an (admittedly funny) flurry of expletives in response to the notion that “slavery isn’t that bad” after all; and she even flips a guest off. The character of Lizzie Mae confronts ridiculous assumptions of slavery with clever, humorous retorts that never fail to make me laugh. While these represent but a few of her jokes, they collectively indicate the severity and sensitivity of the subject matter at hand. Moreover, she addresses the treatment of Indians when her guest “Red Jacket” visits the show. He discloses that he enjoys burnt corn soup because it commemorates the burning of Indian people and cornfields. He furthers that he got an enormous medal in exchange for his people’s land. Dungey’s decision to address Indian suffrage furthers the idea that she is indeed trying to educate people, but in a different way than a documentary or textbook would.

By discussing these issues in a satirical manner, Dungey effectively reaches her audience. Instead of portraying the serious and very real travesties that slaves endured, she jokes about them in a talk-show forum. As “Ask A Slave’s Critique of the American Education System” pointed out, we lack accurate understandings of slavery because of our decision to not educate all children about the dark side of our history. Dungey very much recognizes this problem. In one episode, she talks to children and even changes her introductory text from “protect the guilty” to “protect the innocent.” In this way, she acknowledges that these kids are victims of the system, and that the only way to reform education might be through the power of satire.

April 13, 2014

Ask A Slave: A Commentary

In the YouTube web series Ask a Slave, the creator Azie Dungey comically portrays a slave living on George Washington’s plantation in the late 18^th century. Using her historical knowledge of the time period, and an extremely dry wit, she sarcastically answers real questions posed to her by individuals she encountered while working as an historical reenactor at Mt. Vernon. Azie, under the alias of the slave Lizzie Mae, admirably illustrates with humor the shocking lack of knowledge that many Americans possess about early American history.

Dungey’s video really highlights a collective ignorance in America about slavery in the United States. Many of the questions posed to Azie where simply shocking to me. Some of the more outrageous questions and statements included the following: “Slavery wasn’t that bad!,” “Do you have any white friends?,” and “What does George Washington think about Abraham Lincoln freeing all of his slaves?” In my opinion, the questions posed to Azie are just absurd. Moreover, It’s disconcerting to me that people would still think that “slavery isn’t that bad,” particularly because it still exists as an underground institution in today’s society. I found myself wishing that the person who made this statement could face the conditions that early slaves did, if only for a couple of days. Perhaps this would allow them to see what a deplorable, degrading, and dehumanizing practice slavery is.

I feel as if the author of the post Ask a Slave’s Critique of the American Education System made an extremely important point when stating that we cannot let Azie’s message get lost in her humor. Azie’s comedic influence in her work is certainly valuable. It makes her videos more accessible and interesting to her audience, and I feel it is a major factor in why they have achieved such recognition and success. However, it’s all too easy to allow ourselves to just take that humor at face value, instead of looking past it and trying to understand why Azie actually made these videos. I don’t think Azie is just making her videos because these questions are ridiculous or funny. She’s purposely illustrating a rather shocking and sad ignorance about our nation’s history among the general populace

Overall, I feel as if Ask a Slave is an important web series. Dungey’s videos are witty, sarcastic, and supremely funny. More important, however, is the fact that they highlight a real lack of knowledge about the early history of the United States. I feel that we as Americans have a responsibility to learn about the history of our country. While this country is certainly one of the greatest on this earth, many mistakes were made along the way to reach the point where we are now. It’s important to learn about them. We don’t want them to happen again.

April 12, 2014

Ask A Slave’s Critique of the American Education System

The Ask A Slave web series offers a humorous yet eye-opening look into how present day Americans view the institution of slavery. In addition to highlighting the ignorance of those asking questions, the series suggests that their completely misconstrued assumptions and queries also reflect poorly on the way slavery is taught. Furthermore, the equally uninformed people asking these questions demonstrate how myths about slavery have lasted over time and that more attention is needed in correcting these problematic misconceptions.

As Rebecca alluded to in her post, one misconstruction that a character had was that Lizzie Mae’s position as a slave was one that she applied for and that it had its own Human Resources department. While this character’s question shows a lack of general historical knowledge as well, it ultimately undermines the hardships that slaves had to face by equating their struggles to a job in present-day corporate America. A similar connection between slavery and employment is wrongfully made towards the end of Episode five in Season one as a young woman asks if slavery is as hard as her job at Forever 21, which she claims is “like slavery.” This comparison is completely inappropriate as it collates the brutal treatment of slaves to a job, which gives monetary compensation and other benefits in exchange for an employee’s work. Both of these examples exhibit primarily how misguided some Americans are regarding the history of slavery. Additionally, these examples indicate a flaw in the manner in which people are educated relating to slavery in this country.

While Ask A Slave is an inherently funny web series due Azie Dungey’s acting prowess and the absurdity of the questions asked, it is important that the work’s overall message does not get lost in that humor. The piece displays the Americans’ generally misinformed position on slavery, but it also begs the viewer to ask how people would ever conjure up such ridiculous questions. While I believe that Americans certainly do have a responsibility to be informed about their country’s history, part of the blame should be put on the nation’s primary, and in some cases secondary, schooling that tends to hide our blemishes and promote our successes. Ask A Slave is therefore an example of the consequences that can arise as a result of Americans being misinformed on an important historical issue.