ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ...

the jazz showman at all.
It is possible that she based it instead upon the popular caricatures of Calloway.
Many early twentieth-century posters and notices, advertising Calloway’s celebrated
orchestra, show its leader with an unnaturally long chin and broad smile. It is possible
that Hastings was merely carving a caricature of an artist ever described as “larger than
life.” 199 However, this particular choice seems to have still been conditioned by a more
general understanding of blackface puppetry’s essence.
Hastings advised her fellow puppeteers to use brown paint for “Negroes,” even
suggesting subtle touches of white on the forehead and cheekbones would give the
features more depth. 200 Yet she also felt that “a Negro, pugilist, or pugnacious type”
should have a thick jaw, drawing an essential connection between the archetype of the
giant and the archetype of the Negro. 201 That she equates archetypal qualities of
blackface figures with a violent disposition is telling. Hastings sees the “Negro puppet”
as a part of an object category of its own. Somehow, the visual essence of that category
is something apart from the semi-realistic stylings that characterize the essence of non-
blackface objects.
Further evidence of a categorical imperative for the essence of blackface puppetry
comes from her marionettes for In the Jungle and Sinbad. This object also has an
extremely large upper jaw and nose, reminiscent of a simian’s mandibles. It wears a light
brown grass skirt and has hair to its knees. Hastings did not attempt the same type of
199 Albert Murray, Interview by David Ossman (Washington: National Public Radio, 2004).
200 Ibid., 46.
201 Ibid., 40.
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