Painted in acrylic latex and scraped to emulate an antique advertisement, Michael Ray Charles’ (Forever Free) Big Mama's Hot Link Heaven (1996) is part of the artist’s satirical marketing campaign for the fictitious Liberty Brothers Permanent Daily Circus—a carnivalesque spectacle of Black caricatures. Charles replicates the Black stereotypes used in vintage commercial art out of a belief that “by confronting Jim Crow imagery, we can expose today’s increasingly subtle racist stereotypes” and thereby avoid “[reliving] the racial tragedies that stain our history.” The artist's use of exaggerated stereotypical representations depicts racial typecasting and reveals its enduring cultural impacts.
In the present example, Charles reckons with the disquieting legacy of the “mammy” stereotype, a caricature which depicted female slaves as contented and satisfied despite their subjugation. The artist depicts a Black woman, labeled “Big Mama” in scrollwork, in a style popularized by minstrelsy’s exaggerated blackface makeup. The cheerful colors, the bold type, and the figure’s uncannily large smile are at odds with the concerning messages inscribed in the painting, which proclaims, “The greatest blow on earth” and “hotlink heaven.” The subject is in a vulnerable pose on the ground, and her costume, a vibrant red and white bikini, coupled with her unflinching gaze that confronts the viewer, grapples with the fetishization in historical caricatures.
Depicted in a manner consistent with mammy stereotypes, the subject in (Forever Free) Hot Mama’s Hot Link Heaven is rendered as an object for sexual gratification and amusement, who, nonetheless, remains unwaveringly joyful. Charles demonstrates how such stereotypes reduce people to simplified stock characters who supposedly relish in their own depersonalization, erasing their suffering. The woman’s Cheshire Cat grin is eerily excessive, indicating the depiction’s insincerity. By appropriating commercial aesthetics, akin to Warhol, and utilizing polite satire, akin to Goya and Daumier, Charles creates a graphic and communicative image that offers biting commentary on history and its ramifications. (Forever Free) Hot Mama’s Hot Link Heaven is an incisive parody which imitates and exaggerates the racially charged commercial art of the past.
