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Blaxploitation
Shaft (1971) Blaxploitation is a film genre that emerged in the United States in the early 1970s when many exploitation films were made that targeted the urban black audience; the word itself is a portmanteau of the words ?black? and ?exploitation.? Blaxploitation films starred primarily black actors, and were the first to feature soundtracks of funk and soul music. Variety magazine credited Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song with the invention of the blaxploitation genre.[1] The Hollywood-financed film Shaft is closer to being blaxploitation, and thus, is more likely to have begun the genre.[2]
Common qualitiesWhen set in the North or West Coast of the U.S., Blaxploitation films tend to take place in the ghetto, dealing with pimps, drug dealers, and hit men. The genre makes frequent use of drugs, the Afro hairstyle, ?pimpmobiles", ethnic slurs against whites (e.g. "honky"), and negative white characters like corrupt cops and politicians and easily fooled members of criminal organizations. Blaxploitation films set in the South most often take place on a plantation, dealing with slavery and miscegenation. [3] [4] Following the lead of Sweet Sweetback, many of these films featured funk and soul jazz soundtracks with heavy bass, funky beats and wah-wah guitars. These soundtracks are notable for a degree of complexity that was not common for radio-friendly funk tracks and rich orchestration that included uncommon instruments such as flutes and violins. This style of music actually evolved into a bona-fide musical genre, also called blaxploitation. Prominent examples of this style include Curtis Mayfield's Super Fly and Isaac Hayes's Shaft.[5] StereotypesAt the same time, the films also stereotyped blacks, the audience they aimed to appeal to, as pimps and drug dealers. This dovetailed with common white stereotypes about black people, and as a result, many called for the end of the blaxploitation genre. The NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Urban League joined together to form the Coalition Against Blaxploitation. Backed by many black film professionals, this group received much media exposure and hastened the death of the genre by the late 1970s. Blaxploitation films, such as Mandingo, laid the foundation for future filmmakers to address racial controversies regarding inner city poverty, and in the early 1990s, a new wave of acclaimed black filmmakers focused on black urban life in their films (particularly Spike Lee?s Do the Right Thing and John Singleton?s Boyz N the Hood, among others). Famous blaxploitation films
Later media referencesLater movies such as Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), Superbad (2007), and Undercover Brother (2002), as well as Quentin Tarantino?s Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003), and Death Proof (2007) feature pop culture nods to the blaxploitation genre. The parody Undercover Brother, for instance, starred Eddie Griffin as an Afro-topped agent for a clandestine organization satirically known as the ?B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D.? Likewise, Austin Powers in Goldmember co-stars Beyoncé Knowles as the Tamara Dobson/Pam Grier-inspired heroine, Foxxy Cleopatra. Furthermore, the acclaimed film auteur and noted fan of exploitation films, Quentin Tarantino, has made countless references to the blaxploitation genre in his films, in addition to Jackie Brown. In a famous scene in Reservoir Dogs, for instance, the main characters engage in a brief discussion regarding Get Christie Love!, a mid-1970s blaxploitation television series. Similarly, in the catalytic scene of True Romance, the characters are seen viewing the movie The Mack. John Singleton?s remake of Shaft (2000) is a modern-day interpretation of a classic blaxploitation film. The 1997 film Hoodlum starring Laurence Fishburne was an attempt at gangster blaxploitation, portraying a fictional account of black mobster Ellsworth ?Bumpy? Johnson. In 2004, Mario Van Peebles, Melvin?s son, released Baadasssss!, a movie based on the making of his father?s movie in which Mario played his father. 2007's American Gangster, based on the true story of heroin dealer Frank Lucas takes place in the early 1970s in Harlem and has many elements similar in style to blaxploitation films, specifically when the song Across 110th Street is played. Furthermore, blaxploitation films have made a profound impact on contemporary hip hop culture. Several prominent hip hop artists (including Snoop Dogg, Big Daddy Kane, Ice T, Slick Rick, and Too Short) have taken the no-nonsense pimp persona popularized first by ex-pimp Iceberg Slim's 1967 book Pimp and then by films such as Super Fly, The Mack, and Willie Dynamite, as inspiration for their own works. In fact, many hip-hop artists have paid tribute to pimping within their lyrics (most notably 50 Cent?s hit single ?P.I.M.P.?) and have openly embraced the pimp image in their music videos, by including entourages of scantily-clad women, flashy jewelry (known as ?bling-bling?), and luxury Cadillacs (referred to as ?pimpmobiles?). Perhaps the most famous scene of The Mack, featuring the ?Annual Players? Ball,? has become an often-referenced pop culture icon, most recently by Chapelle?s Show, where it was parodied as the ?Player-Haters? Ball." The genre's overseas influence extends to artists such as Norway's Madcon.[6] Parodies and spoofsThe notoriety of the genre has led to a number of parodies, some of them humorous, others satirical. The earliest attempts to mock the genre, Ralph Bakshi?s Coonskin and Rudy Ray Moore?s Dolemite, were both made during the heyday of the genre, in 1975. The satirical film Coonskin was intended to deconstruct racial stereotypes ranging from early minstrel show stereotypes to more recent stereotypes found in blaxploitation films of the era. However, the work encountered a strong amount of controversy before its release when it was protested by the Congress of Racial Equality, and its distribution was handed to a smaller distributor who advertised Coonskin as an exploitation film. However, it developed a cult followinng with black viewers.[2] Dolemite was less serious in tone and produced as a spoof. Dolemite centered around a sexually active black pimp played by Moore, who based the film on his stand-up comedy act. The film was followed by a sequel, The Human Tornado. Later spoofs parodying the blaxploitation genre include I?m Gonna Git You Sucka, Pootie Tang, Undercover Brother and The Hebrew Hammer, which featured a Jewish protagonist, and was jokingly referred to by its director as a ?Jewsploitation? film. A more recent parody is the invention of the Botsploitation genre championed by the website botsploitation.com featuring robotic version of famous cultural personalities. Robert Townsend?s comedy Hollywood Shuffle features a young black actor who is tempted to take part in a white-produced blaxploitation film. The anime series Cowboy Bebop features several episodes with blaxploitation themes, particularly Mushroom Samba which extensively parodies blaxploitation movies. The Onion?s book Our Dumb Century has an article from the 1970s entitled ?Congress Passes Anti-Blaxploitation Act: Pimps, Players Subject to Heavy Fines.? FOX?s network television comedy, ?MADtv,? has frequently spoofed the Rudy Ray Moore-created franchise Dolemite, with a series of sketches performed by comic actor Aries Spears, in the role of ?The Son of Dolemite.? Other sketches include the characters ?Funkenstein", "Dr. Funkenstein? and more recently Condoleezza Rice as a blaxploitation superhero. A recurring theme in these sketches is the inexperience of the cast and crew in the Blaxploitation era, with emphasis on ridiculous scripting and shoddy acting, sets, costumes and editing. The sketches are testaments to the poor production quality of the films, with obvious boom mike appearances and intentionally poor cuts and continuity. There was even an episode where the Son of Dolemite met and faced off against Black Belt Jones. Saturday Night Live?s long-running character the Ladies Man parodied blaxploitation?s exaggerated sexuality. The Ladies? Man, played by Tim Meadows, was an Afro-topped and sexually-crazed talk-show host who believed himself to be the living definition of what females search for in a man. In the movie Leprechaun in the Hood, a character played by Ice-T pulls a baseball bat from his afro; this scene is a satire of a similar scene in Foxy Brown, in which Pam Grier hides a revolver in her afro. Adult Swim?s Aqua Teen Hunger Force series has a recurring character called ?Boxy Brown? (A play on Foxy Brown, a lead character in another blaxploitation film). An imaginary friend of Meatwad, Boxy Brown is a cardboard box with a crudely drawn face with a goatee on it that dons an afro. Whenever Boxy speaks ?70s funk music, typical of blaxploitation films, is played in the background. The cardboard box also fronts a confrontational attitude and dialect similar to many heroes of this film genre. Sample Dialogue Some of the TVs found in the action video game Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne feature a blaxploitation-themed parody of the original Max Payne game called Dick Justice, after its main character. In the original Max Payne, there is a dialogue between two mercenaries, one of whom admits that he has christened his gun ?Dick Justice.? Dick behaves much like the original Max Payne (down to the ?constipated? grimace and metaphorical speech) but wears an afro and mustache, and talks in Black English. Duck King, a fictional character created for the video game series fatal fury, is a prime example of foreign black stereotypes. The animated series Drawn Together features a character named Foxxy Love who spoofs both 1970s Hanna-Barbera cartoons and blaxploitation characters. Her name is derived from those of the characters Foxy Brown and Christie Love. The Internet phenomenon ?The Juggernaut Bitch!!!? features a Blaxploitation-styled over-dub on a series of X-Men cartoon clips featuring the Juggernaut. The sub-cult movie short Gayniggers from Outer Space, a blaxploitation-like science fiction oddity directed by Danish filmmaker DJ and singer Morten Lindberg. Jefferson Twilight, a character in The Venture Bros., is a parody of the comic-book character Blade (a black, half-vampire vampire-hunter), as well as a blaxploitation reference: he has an afro, sideburns, and a mustache; carries swords; dresses in stylish 1970s clothing; and says that he hunts ?Blaculas.? He looks and sounds somewhat like Samuel L. Jackson. The intro credits in Beavis and Butthead Do America has a Blaxploitation style, even having the theme sung by Isaac Hayes. Professional wrestler Human Tornado's gimmick is done in vein to blaxploitation films. Family Guy has parodied Blaxploitation numerous times using fake movie titles such as "Black to the Future" (Back to the Future), often featuring a black version of Peter Griffin. See also
Further reading
ReferencesExternal links
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