Although mainly Northern in origin, many minstrel shows, black or white, celebrated "Dixieland" and presented a loose concoction of "Negro melodies" and "plantation songs" infused with slapstick, word play, skits, puns, dance, and stock characters. The hierarchies of the social order were satirized, but seldom challenged. While hokum mocked the propriety of "polite" society, the presumptions and pretensions of the parodists were simultaneous targets of the humor. "Darkies" dancing the cakewalk might mimic the elite cotillion dance styles of wealthy Southern whites, but their exaggerated high-stepping exuberance was judged all the funnier for its ineptitude. Nonetheless, styles of song and dance that began as inversions of the social structure were adopted among the upper echelons of society, often without a trace of self-consciousness.