minstrel show

American  

noun

1. a once popular type of stage show featuring comic dialogue, song, and dance in highly conventionalized patterns, performed by a troupe of actors traditionally comprising two end men, a chorus in blackface, and an interlocutor. Developed in the U.S. in the 19th century, this entertainment portrayed negative racial stereotypes and declined in popularity in the 20th century.

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minstrel show British  

noun

1. a theatrical entertainment consisting of songs, dances, comic turns, etc, performed by a troupe of actors wearing black face make-up

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Etymology

Origin of minstrel show

An Americanism dating back to 1865–70

Example Sentences

These would influence the American musical, but also shaping the genre were homegrown entertainments—the minstrel show, the revues of Florenz Ziegfeld, vaudeville and burlesque.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 30, 2026

She said Spike Lee was as an important influence, in particular his “Bamboozled,” a 2000 satire about a modern televised minstrel show.

From New York Times • Aug. 20, 2020

Tuesday’s issues, it turns out, can be traced back to a man named Frank Isaac Wixom, a local Gilded Age mini-baron who got his start in the 1880s by operating a minstrel show for lumberjacks.

From Slate • May 21, 2020

Like western bragging and theater riots, the minstrel show appealed to American workers who cherished liberty and equality but worried about preserving them in a topsy-turvy world.

From Textbooks • Jan. 18, 2018

Gangsta rap—while it may amount to little more than a minstrel show when it appears on MTV today—has its roots in the struggle for a positive identity among outcasts.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander