Wednesday, February 2, 2011

BLACK OURSTORY MONTH: Niecy Nash




Niecy Nash was the host of a TV show, Clean House. It was an interesting show with a unique cast. The premise of the show was a simple cleaning of people’s homes. All the guests had lost the ability or the will to keep their homes clean, and inviting. Niecy had three assistants: an interior designer, a fix-it-guy, and a woman who was skilled at organizing incomprehensible messes on a limited budget. The host family invites the Clean House crew into their home, introductions are made, and the mess is surveyed, and personalities are examined. What held the show together is Niecy Nash.

Niecy Nash is often called sassy; she is, but there is more. Her connection to the history of film is beautiful, to say the least. Niecy Nash appears from the annals of Negro cinema, and the comedic legacy of Black women comediennes who did not have the right to perform ‘flat footed’ in front of white audiences. Negroes, in their time, could sing and dance in front of white audiences, but standing upright flat footed was forbidden by white sensibilities, and Jim Crow. It wasn’t until Playboy’s founder, Hugh Hefner, hired comedian Dick Gregory to perform in his club in 1968 that law changed. – Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories


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