Blaxploitation: The Genre that Saved Hollywood

When I first became curious about the Blaxploitation era of cinema I wasn’t really sure what to expect.  To be honest, I often dismissed the genre as a whole assuming that it was mainly degrading films that only perpetuated negative stereotypes about Black Americans.  However, once I began exploring films of the Blaxploitation genre, I was pleasantly surprised by all of the hidden gems that I discovered.  

It is impossible to fully appreciate Blaxploitation without taking into consideration the political climate of America at the time.  The combined 

cultural momentum of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement, led to Black artists reclaiming their power through representation in the arts.  The Blaxploitation movement was born as a genre within the broader grindhouse film era.   Grindhouses were theaters that played films that other, “more respectable” theaters would not, often featuring exploitation films and sometimes pornography.  Prior to the early 1970’s, representation in Hollywood for Black performers was limited to “mammy” figures and subservient characters that often promoted the cultural assimilation of Blacks into white America.    With the Civil Rights movement of the sixties fresh in their perspective, movie producers of the early 1970s began to make films aimed toward the under-served Black American audience.  Blaxploitation films primarily centered Black characters in Black neighborhoods as the heroes of their own stories,  by overcoming “The Man” or emblems of white institutions that often oppressed the Black community.  Audiences were given a portrait of Black life that had never been seen before on the big screen.  Under the Black-exploitation umbrella, all major genres of film can be found from action and horror, to musical/comedy.  Some popular films to come out during this era include Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), Ganja and Hess (1973), The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973), Cleopatra Jones (1973), Dolemite (1975), and Three the Hard Way (1974).

Blaxploitation films were produced independently and, typically, with extremely low budgets.  Initially, Blaxploitation films were Black cinema produced for the entertainment of Black people.  At the time, Black Americans made up 30 percent of theater audiences, but large studios paid little to no attention to them.  Before then, Hollywood spent exorbitant amounts of money on films featuring popular white celebrities that promoted a culture of glamor and luxury. By the post-war 1960s and a pending Vietnam war, the lavish lifestyle was culturally and politically out of touch.  Major studios lost millions of dollars from big budget films that ended up being flops, like Twentieth Century Fox’s $44 million dollar Cleopatra (1963) starring Elizabeth Taylor.  However, once Blaxploitation films emerged casting Blacks as leads, and in more nuanced roles,  movie ticket sales skyrocketed, breathing economic life back into a dying Hollywood.  In dire circumstances, Hollywood executives began modestly bankrolling films featuring all-Black or majority Black casts for the first time.  According to film historian Ed Guerrero's work on Blaxploitation, the “profits literally saved Hollywood from total bankruptcy.”  The overwhelming popularity of these films established a cinematic voice for a generation that had been severely muzzled in mainstream cinema up until that point.

Poster for the independent film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song

Many credit the 1971 film SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG as the birth of the Blaxploitation movement.  Written, produced, scored, edited, directed by and starring Melvin Van Peebles, the film follows Sweet Sweetback, a Black prostitute who, after saving a Black Panther from racist police and being accused of a crime he didn’t commit, goes on the run from “The Man” with help from his community.  Van Peebles was able to express total artistic control and pushed boundaries by using unconventional camera angles, kaleidoscopic superimpositions, and experimental lighting designs.  Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song was shot independently over 19 days with a measly budget of $150,000.  The film's music was performed by the then-unknown group Earth, Wind & Fire.  Van Peebles did not have money for traditional advertising methods, so he released the soundtrack album prior to the film's release in order to generate publicity.  Marketed to inner-city audiences and driven by the finance principle of low investment and high return, the film went on to make an astounding $15.2 million at the box office.  Following the example set by Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, many Blaxploitation films would go on to feature funk and soul jazz soundtracks as a way to promote films before their theatrical release.  

Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was one of the first mainstream films to incorporate Black Power ideology.  The movie declares at the start that, “This film is dedicated to all the Brothers and Sisters who had enough of the Man.”  Huey P. Newton was so impressed by the film's revolutionary implications, that he made Sweetback required viewing for members of the Black Panther Party.  Sweetback was a landmark for Black and American independent cinema that sent shock waves through the film industry, proving without a doubt that a Black-led film could be profitable.  With the commercial success of Sweetback, Hollywood executives officially gave a green light to the Blaxploitation Era.

Poster for the film Shaft starring Richard Roundtree

Only a few months after the release of Sweet Sweetback, came the pop cultural sensation Shaft (1971).  Shaft was directed by the legendary American photographer, musician, writer, and filmmaker Gordon Parks.  It was one of the first films released by a major American studio to have a Black action hero at the center of its story.  This would allow for Gordon Parks to also make history by becoming the first Black American to write and direct a major Hollywood studio feature film.  Shaft starred Richard Roundtree as a private detective named John Shaft, who is hired by a Harlem mobster to rescue his daughter from the Italian mobsters who kidnapped her.  Roundtree’s style and swagger made John Shaft a visual icon and symbol of Black resilience.  For the first time audiences were able to see a Black man in a position of power that refused to take nonsense from anyone, including “whitey.”  Gordon Parks said that he had hoped the film would inspire young Black Americans by presenting them with "a hero they hadn't had before."

Shaft was shot with a budget of $500,000 and went on to make $13 million at the box office.   According to some film historians, it singlehandedly saved MGM Studios from financial ruin.   The Shaft soundtrack album recorded by Isaac Hayes, was also a major success.  Hayes won a Grammy Award for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture, and a second Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement.   The "Theme from Shaft" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, making Hayes the first Black man to win the award for that category.  Roundtree is also credited with having an impact on the rise of Black American leading actors in Hollywood projects, thanks to his successful performances in the Shaft franchise.  After Shaft the representation of Black masculinity in American films was dramatically changed. It became the norm to see Black men in roles that before would have solely been filled by white men.  At a crucial time for the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, Shaft introduced the world to a new kind of action hero that would forever transform the film industry.  

Poster for the film Super Fly starring Ron O’Neal

The following year Gordon Parks Jr, son of Gordon Parks, would go on to direct one of the most iconic films from the Blaxploitation era, Super Fly (1972).  The film stars Ron O’Neal as Priest, a cocaine dealer intending to make one last score before getting out of the underworld drug business for good.  Super Fly was unlike anything that Hollywood had ever seen before.  For the first time the life of a drug dealer was explored in a way that was authentic and humanizing.  On the surface Priest appears to have it all, but inside is dying to escape the street life.  In the end Priest delivers the iconic line, “I hired the best killers there are, white killers” when disclosing that he has placed a bounty on the crooked Deputy Commissioner’s family if anyone interfered with his escape plan.  

The film is known for the impeccable wardrobe of the cast, as well as Priest’s customized Cadillac Eldorado that served as his own Batmobile.  The soundtrack for Super Fly was written, produced and performed by Curtis Mayfield.  It is arguably one of the best movie soundtracks of all time, and rose all the way to number one on the album charts, with the biggest hits from the soundtrack being “Freddie’s Dead,” “Superfly,” and “Give Me Your Love.”  The soundtrack helped turn the film into one of the most profitable movies of its time, grossing over $30 million at the box office.  Super Fly came along at a crucial moment for the film world.  Mafia movie classic The Godfather, released a few months earlier, proved that there was a market for antiheroes rooted in authentic ethnic cultures.  Black audiences were eager to see films starring the kind of people they recognized: hip, streetwise characters who could beat "The Man" at their own game.

Poster for the film Foxy Brown, starring Pam Grier

Blaxploitation was one of the first film categories to have female leads portray brave, heroic, active protagonists.  There is no way to talk about Blaxploitation without mentioning “The Queen of Blackploitation” herself, Pam Grier.  With her fierce presence, extraordinary beauty, and undeniable talent, she quickly became a symbol of empowerment in an era that desperately needed it.  Grier came to prominence with her titular roles in the films Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974); her other major films during this period included The Big Doll House (1971), Women in Cages (1971), The Big Bird Cage (1972), Black Mama White Mama (1973), Scream Blacula Scream (1973), The Arena (1974), Sheba, Baby (1975), Bucktown (1975) and Friday Foster (1975).  She later went on to portray the title character in Quentin Tarantino's cult classic Jackie Brown (1997).  Tarantino often describes Grier as, “cinema’s first female action star,” and even gave Uma Thurman a copy of Coffy to study in preparation for her role in Kill Bill (2003).  

Pam Grier became a staple of early 1970s blaxploitation films by playing bold, assertive women, and advertised in trailers as the "baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever hit town!"  Until Grier, women often existed exclusively in  supportive/secondary roles to men in film.  She proved that Black women in film could be strong, tenacious and beautiful at a time when roles for women of colour were, in her own words, "practically invisible, or painfully stereotypical".  Grier has been embraced by many feminists for her roles that not only display her beauty, but also her fearlessness and ability to exact retribution on men who challenge her.  Despite criticism of portraying hypersexualized stereotypes of Black women, Grier became the poster child for a new type of heroine.  Grier's sexuality and ability to be a 'one woman hit squad' was a great thing for other women to see at that time.  Essence magazine wrote in 2012,"So revolutionary were the characters Grier played that women reportedly would stand on chairs and cheer."  A fiercely self-reliant, independent woman who redefined Black American beauty standards, sexuality and womanhood, making her the undisputed Queen of the Blaxploitation boom.  

Today conversations surrounding the Blaxploitation era can often be complex.  Critical of the subject matter of the films, the perceived glorification of violence, substance abuse and misogyny, these films had a complicated relationship with Black Americans and wider audiences at the time.  On one hand, some believed that Blaxploitation movies had strong ideological ties to the Black Power movement.  But on the other hand, people accused the movies of reinforcing negative images and stereotypes about Black Americans.  Over 200 Blaxploitation films were made in under a decade, half of which are arguably completely and gladly forgettable.  However, for the first time movies portrayed Black people as 3-dimensional characters who were willing to stand up and be the heroes of their own stories.  Black people were able to see themselves in primary roles outside of the stereotypical subservient characters in earlier race films.  Through Blaxploitation the portrayal of Black life on film has been able to broaden and evolve in ways that it otherwise may not have.   The Blaxploitation movement continued to influence generations of Black independent filmmakers through the mid-80s and early-90s, such as Spike Lee and John Singleton. 

What started as a low-budget subgenre for grindhouse theaters has become one of the most important pop cultural landmarks in American cinematic history.  The reputation of the Blaxploitation film genre today has shifted to American cult classics worthy of deeper analysis.  I have grown to have a deep love and appreciation for the films from the Blaxploitation era.  Through these films you are able to view a raw and unfiltered snapshot of Black American life that has never been duplicated.  I encourage anyone who has never seen any Blaxploitation films to explore the genre for themselves.  If you are unsure of where to begin, then I suggest starting with the films mentioned above and expanding from there. So next time you’re at home searching for something to watch, turn on a Blaxploitation film.  I can guarantee that you will be in for a treat.