Holy shit that was the fastest upvote I ever got.

Dupe, but the original is dead and I didn't see the resubmit link.

the American flag costumes are just too on the nose

God damn

Al Jolson was a favorite of my grandfather.

When I was about 6 years old I was treated to a very long screed about how the black man was bringing the white man down, and stuff like that that would be considered too over the top and unrealistic for a lifetime movie about racism.

Anyway I remember him referencing Al Jolson as an example of ... I guess non-bringing-white-people-down music.

The thing that set him off on this tirade?

My cousin was playing a Niel Diamond record.

anyway he accidentally taught me to pigeonhole all racists as broken dumbfucks at a very early age and he's been dead a long time, so, happy ending.

Dee Camp-Town Ladies...???

Al Jolson is actually credit and with doing a lot to help fight discrimination against African Americans on Broadway and improve their exposure.

Then there’s this.

His legacy is...complicated...

There's a great picture of Eva Braun dressed as Al Jolson for a costume party, permanently ending the debate over whether or not she really was a naive idiot barely aware of what her boyfriend did for a living.

Imagine coming home from that party and scrubbing off your blackface in the bathroom while a pyjama-clad Hitler sits on the edge of his bed, looking vaguely unhappy about something.

Do you think she asked him if something was wrong, and he was like ".......never mind. It's nothing. I'm going to bed."

Once I was at the bar with a friend of mine, and another mutual friend of ours comes in. Now this guy is a welder, and somehow it became his whole life, and as some show of how manly his profession is, he would never clean up after work and show up at the bar all covered in soot and black dust. So I says to him "What, did you just get done eating out Al Jolson's ass?".

My other friend got offended, and it came out that he didn't know Al Jolson performed in black face, and that he thought he was actually a black man. The only exposure to him he had ever had was all of the Al Jolson movie posters that were hung up around his grandmas house.

Also DEM PANTS!