Sometimes, there was even a third part in which the show ended with a one-act play about the careless life on a plantation. .
The minstrel shows often displayed exaggerated stereotypical characters such as the black slave and as a counterpart the dandy who both served as an element offering the audience a kind of comic relief in the early beginning of blackface minstrelsy. Although these shows were supposed to authentically illustrate African-American every-day life, they unmistakably presented disparaging caricatures of the then ethnic minority and in return emphasized the whiteness and therefore the difference of the actors and audience as well. However, those performers created an inimitably American art form which until then had not existed in antebellum America. .
Though blackface minstrelsy certainly had a special entertainment value, it was often ignored that it was an important part of establishing the national identity of America. Not possessing an explicitly American culture and not producing any cultural products such as music or art until then, Americans faced the problem of always being influenced by Europeans which they actually wanted to prevent. Thus, one of the three main founders of blackface minstrelsy – Edwin P. Christy – caught what he recognized as native music which in fact were the songs of African-American plantation workers; the general dance movements and the sense of rhythm inspired him to compose his minstrel show as well. Hence a new all-American art form was brought into being. But still, the mere existence of minstrel shows should damage the general image of blacks in that they were portrayed as being highly emotional and happy about being slaves, but on the other side they appeared brutish, lazy and sex-driven on stage. Furthermore, these shows were the only way for Northerners or for those who just migrated to the United States to learn something about the otherness of the so far unknown African-Americans and thus spreading white supremacy all over the country.