A Zoot Suit with a Reet Pleat

When researching the Zoot Suit culture in relation to this week’s blog post, I came across this short 3 minute ‘soundie’ entitled ‘A Zoot Suit with a Reet Pleat’. Released in 1942 it stars the popular African American actress/singer of the time; Dorothy Dandridge, dueting with Paul White on wanting the latest fashions during the early 40’s. The first scene cuts to the inside of a store, with White singing in a jazz/vaudeville style on getting a Zoot suit that looks good enough to ‘see his Sunday gal’.

The lyrics of the song itself represent the stylized importance of the Zoot Suit during the early 1940s; White sings about the Zoot’s excessive use of fabric, flashy colors and exaggerated style, which undoubtedly served to function as countercultural statements during the wartime economy. In last week’s reading, ‘The Power of the Zoot’, Alvarez states that for African Americans, wearing the Zoot may have been part of a much longer history of black fashion and cultural production that rejected their marginalization and segregation in urban cities. He also goes on to describe the fact that the Zoot Culture allowed non-white youth to practice a style which identified ‘coolness’ and help reject dehumanization and discrimination of the past. This soundie does not seem to portray a break-away from African American history however, as White’s character clearly displays similarities of black faced minstrelsy. The exaggerated and aggressive vigour of White particularly play reference to this. What is interesting is the fact that rather than the Zoot outfits looking ‘cool’ and fashionable, they look more comedic. White in particular gets dressed in a suit which isn’t the zootiest; the vertically stripped suit and hat seem more odd than hip. What do you think the purpose of this is?

In addition this soundie identifies the fact that the Zoot style had become a kind of subculture during the 40s, which reinforced sociality. For example, from the lyrics, White wants to get a Zoot suit in order to ‘see his Sunday girl’. The idea represented here is that the Zoot played a fundamental role in attracting women and representing material excess. Do you think then that non-white teenagers and young people during this era consciously created the Zoot in order to establish a political voice? Or was it merely a teenage subculture of the period, established in order to rebel against parents, as well as express newfound identities and trends?