"Give an Imitation of Me": Vaudeville Mimics and the Play of the Self

Introduction: Replicating Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Science and Culture

“…Susan Glenn notes that these intellectual discussions were mirrored in turn-of-thecentury popular culture via a craze for mimetic performances on the vaudeville stage which celebrated a multiform, labile sense of self. 68 Mimicry could be celebrated as a vehicle of sympathy and imagination.…”

Authenticity and Artifice

“…I lived in New Orleans for June and July of the summer of 2013. I attended 7 burlesque shows, mostly at bars on St. Claude and three more touristic shows at hotels on or near Bourbon Street.…”

“…Vaudeville's mimicry and destabilization was especially tantalizing in a time of empirical knowledge, exact certitude and individuality. In the context of a post-Civil War "crisis of masculinity", where hyper masculinized images of male soldiers and increased participation of women in the public sphere questioned traditional gender roles, female cross-dressing was an important political commentary and expanded acceptable representations and traits of female performers on the stage (Glenn 1998, Sentilles 2003. Strongwoman Charmaine performed in the circus and variety shows, using masculinity to heighten her femininity and craft herself as sexually alluring spectacle.…”

Hearing orientality in (white) America, 1900-1930

“…89. The popularity of certain such acts was related to a proclivity for mimicry of individual personalities; on that more specific post-turn-of-the-century trend, see S. Glenn (1998).…”