SUBSCRIBE
Find out by listening to the CultureCast above (by pressing the little blue play botton), or by clicking through and checking out the transcript and further sources.
Blaxploitation films: Pimps, Drug dealers and Blackula (CultureCast #036)
(To play the audio directly in this page, click the little blue play button. To download the file, right click the text link and choose “Save Link As…”)
Visit the home page to play this podcast directly through your browser and to view the whole collection of 90 Seconds to Culture podcasts.
Transcript
Hey honky, this is Joshua Hwang, get yourself cultured with a 90 Seconds to Culture podcast.
Blaxploitation films: Pimps, Drug dealers and Blackula
Blaxploitation films came out of a backlash against the very proper, very white-wased middle class Black man image that was emerging in the late 1960s, with actors such as Sidney Poitier. It was a very “safe” image mostly directed towards whites.
This, however, was not how most black people were living at the time, and filmmakers sought to target films to the young urban Black audience. Common themes in these films were a Black ghetto as the setting, pimps and drug dealers as characters, negatively
portrayed white characters, or least white people being called honky, with funk or soul sound tracks.
The term Blaxploitation comes from a portmanteau of “black” and “exploitation”. The term exploitation does not come from the exploitation of black actors but from the film term exploitation referring to marketing or advertising. Exploiting a famous actor, sex, special effects and more. This type of film has been associated with strong marketing pushes, with weak content.
Some examples of Blaxploitation films include: Shaft, Blackula, Blackenstein, Sweet
Sweetback’s Baadassss Song, Foxy Brown, and Dolemite.
Such films would go on to inspire aspects of movies such as Jackie Brown, Undercover Brother, Kill Bill Volume 1 and much more.
Whether these films are right or wrong for portraying these Black stereotypes is still out to jury, but undoubtedly they have left an impact on film and popular culture as we know it today.
Sources / Further Reading:
Blaxploitation.com
Wikipedia: Blaxploitation
Wikipedia: Exploitation films - A more thorough explanation of “Exploitation” films
Youtube: I’m gonna git you sucka - A silly clip from a blaxploitation (or a parody) film
[tags]blaxploitation, film, blackula, culture, podcast[/tags]
(image from TCM Hitchhiker via flickr)
Subscribe via RSS
{ 0 comments… add one now }