6. Jazz Comes To Arthurian England - A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is a 1949 adaptation of Mark Twain's novel by the same name, which features an American man who travels back in time to Arthurian England. (How he manages to get from Connecticut to England is, oddly enough, swept under the carpet.) Since the film was made in the 1940s, it seems only natural that the man in the story would introduce something to the natives that was a major element of popular culture in his own time. So he takes the castle's troupe of musicians who would normally be playing a madrigal or something, and teaches them jazz. Which yes, is another prime example of white people actually inventing music traditionally credited to African American musicians. No big. To be fair, the scene is pretty iconic, and it was the 40s, we're probably just lucky they didn't call it colored music and perform it in black face. One can't help but wonder, though, if there wasn't something more potentially useful he could have taught them. Hygiene, or the basics of sanitation, for example? Jazz is fun and all, but one can't imagine it will be much comfort to them while they're all dying horribly of the plague.