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*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 (1974 film)|Foxy Brown]] and [[Get Christie Love!|Christie Love]].
*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 (1974 film)|Foxy Brown]] and [[Get Christie Love!|Christie Love]].

*Hollywood comedy ''[[Undercover Brother]]'' spoofs popular racial [[stereotypes]] and blaxploitation movies, in particular Shaft. [[Afro]]-clad [[protagonist]] Anton Jackson (aka "Undercover Brother") along with Brotherhood members such as Sistah Girl and Conspiracy Brother fight to stop a plot by [[The Man]] to foil the seemingly locked presidential bid by a popular African-American General.


== See also ==
== See also ==

Revision as of 20:46, 17 August 2006

File:Sweetback poster.jpg
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (Melvin Van Peebles 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 African American audience; the word itself is a portmanteau, or combination, of the words “black” and “exploitation.” Blaxploitation films starred primarily black actors, and were the first to feature soundtracks of funk and soul music. Although criticized by civil rights groups for their use of stereotypes, they addressed the great and newfound demand for Afrocentric entertainment, and were immensely popular among black audiences. The blaxploitation genre officially began in 1971 with the release of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. This film is also noteworthy in that it was written, directed, produced, and funded by Melvin Van Peebles, an African American. This remained the premise of the early blaxploitation films; film by, for, and about black people. [1]

Common qualities

Almost all blaxploitation films featured exaggerated sexuality and violence. When set in the North or West Coast of the U.S., they tended to take place in the ghetto and dealt with pimps, drug dealers, and hit men. In all these films, it was common to see drugs, the Afro hairstyle, “pimpmobiles,” and crooked and corrupt white police officers. When set in the South, the movies most often took place on a plantation and dealt with slavery and miscegenation. [2] [3]

Stereotypes

These films were made for an African American audience and often showed negative depictions of Caucasian characters; whites were often cast as crooked and racist police officers or government officials, and the racial slur “honky” was frequently used toward them. Italian Americans were frequently portrayed negatively as drug dealing members of the Mafia whom black characters would often rip off. Anti-Italian epithets such as “dago” and “wop” were used in conjunction with “honky” against these characters.

At the same time, the films also created a negative stereotype of African Americans, the audience they were designed to appeal to, as pimps and drug dealers. This stereotype fit with common white stereotypes about black people, and as a result many called for the end of the Blaxploitation genre. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 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 quickened the death of the genre by the late 1970s.

Though still regarded as racist by many, some film scholars defend the cinematic genre as instrumental in bringing greater screen presence to African Americans. Furthermore, blaxploitation films laid the foundation for future filmmakers to address racial controversies regarding inner city poverty. In the early 1990s, a new wave of acclaimed African-American filmmakers focused on African American 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

see also List of blaxploitation films
File:Shaft Movie.jpg
Shaft (1971)

Later media references

Later movies such as Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) and Undercover Brother (2002) , as well as Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown (1997) and Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003), 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.

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 $hort) have taken the no-nonsense pimp persona popularized by the films Superfly, 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.”

Parodies and spoofs

The Hebrew Hammer was jokingly referred to as a “Jewsploitation” film, by analogy with the Blaxploitation genre.
  • The anime series Cowboy Bebop features several episodes with blaxploitation themes, particularly Mushroom Samba which extensively parodies blaxploitation movies.
  • The Hebrew Hammer (2003) is another parody of blaxploitation films, but with a Jewish protagonist. In referring to the film, director Jonathan Kesselman coined the term Jewsploitation as a joke, to allude to the film being a satirical Jewish exploitation film.
  • In The Simpsons episode “Simpson Tide” (3G04) a TV announcer says “Next, on Exploitation Theatre...Blackula, followed by Blackenstein, and The Blunchblack of Blotre Blame!”
  • The Simpsons episode 1F18 is entitled Sweet Seymour Skinner’s Baadasssss Song.
  • 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 and Dr. Funkenstein” also make fun of the inexperience of the cast and crew in the Blaxploitation era, making references to 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 would meet and face off against Black Belt Jones.
  • Among Saturday Night Live’s longest running and most popular sketches, “The Ladies Man,” parodied blaxploitation’s exaggerated sexuality. The Ladies’ Man, played by Tim Meadows, featured an Afro-topped and sexually-crazed talk-show host who believes himself to be the living definition of what females search for in a man.
  • Cartoon Network’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 one of the main characters, Boxy Brown is a cardboard box with a crudely drawn face with a goatee on it that dons an afro. Whenever the character speaks on the show ’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. Dick behaves much like the original Max Payne (down to the “constipated” grimace and metaphorical speech) but wears an afro and mustache, and talks with an African-American accent.
  • Hollywood comedy Undercover Brother spoofs popular racial stereotypes and blaxploitation movies, in particular Shaft. Afro-clad protagonist Anton Jackson (aka "Undercover Brother") along with Brotherhood members such as Sistah Girl and Conspiracy Brother fight to stop a plot by The Man to foil the seemingly locked presidential bid by a popular African-American General.

See also

Further reading

  • What It Is...What It Was!; The Black Film Explosion of the ’70s in Words and Pictures by Andres Chavez, Denise Chavez, Gerald Martinez ISBN 0786883774
  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ [2]
  3. ^ [3]
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