It seems indisputable that Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry (1902-85) was and remains the most problematic performer in Hollywood history. As Stepin Fetchit, he played the ultimate caricature of the lazy, incoherent Black man, earning and losing a million dollars in the process. He was American cinema’s first Black star, before Sidney Poitier, before even Hattie McDaniel.
To many observers, both now and at the time, Fetchit was an embarrassment, an enabler of the worst kind of stereotyping by white filmmakers. To others, he can be seen as a talented and intelligent performer who was knowingly satirizing white attitudes. This was certainly Fetchit’s own understanding of what he was doing.
Fetchit’s achievements are undeniable. By the time he appeared in The Prodigal, he was the most popular Black actor in Hollywood and the first to receive featured billing. He was the first to obtain a long-term contract with a major studio. In six years, from 1929, he appeared in 26 pictures. His studio, Fox, publicized his extravagant lifestyle, his expensive suits and bevy of Chinese servants.
Donald Bogle represents Stepin Fetchit as a highly-gifted performer who consciously developed a character that would both delight and not threaten white audiences. Fully aware of the injustices his characters experienced, he creates them as beings so far removed from reality that they cannot be demeaned by their treatment: his characters were “inhabitants of detached, ironic, artistically controlled worlds”.
Ironist or not, Fetchit could not outrun the Civil Rights Movement and his work opportunities declined, though John Ford, a friend, gave him one last opportunity to shine in, fittingly, The Sun Shines Bright (1953). As the servant Jeff, Fetchit is the character who holds Judge Priest to his course and is the moral centre of the film.
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