Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is a film genre which emerged in the United States in the 1970s. It is considered an ethnic sub-genre of the general category of exploitation films. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for an urban black audience, although the genre's audience appeal soon broadened to cross racial and ethnic lines. The term itself is a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation," and was coined in the early 1970s by the Los Angeles National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) head, and ex-film publicist Junius Griffin. Blaxploitation films were the first to regularly feature soundtracks of funk and soul music as well as primarily black casts.^[1] Variety credited Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, released in 1971, with the invention of the blaxploitation genre while others argue that the Hollywood-financed film Shaft, also released in 1971, is closer to being a blaxploitation piece and thus is more likely to have begun the trend.^[2]

Defining qualities of the genre[link]

When set in the Northeast or West Coast, blaxploitation films mainly are in sub par neighborhoods. Ethnic slurs against whites, for example "crackers" and offensive white characters are common plot and or character elements. Blaxploitation films set in the South often take place dealing with slavery and miscegenation.^[3][4]

Blaxploitation includes several subtypes of films including crime (Foxy Brown), action/martial arts (Three the Hard Way), westerns (Boss Nigger), horror (Abby, Blacula), comedy (Uptown Saturday Night), nostalgia (Five on the Black Hand Side), coming-of-Age/courtroom drama (Cooley High/Cornbread, Earl and Me), and musical (Sparkle).

Following the example set by Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, many Blaxploitation films feature 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 to the radio-friendly funk tracks of the '70s, and a rich orchestration which included instruments rarely used in funk or soul such as the flute and the violin.^[5]

Following the popularity of blaxploitation films in the 1970s, films within other genres began to feature black characters with stereotypical blaxploitation characteristics, such as the Harlem underworld characters in Live and Let Die (1973), Jim Kelly's character in Enter the Dragon (1973), and Fred Williamson's character in The Inglorious Bastards (1978).

Stereotypes[link]

The genre's role in exploring and shaping race relations in the US has been controversial. While some held that the Blaxploitation trend was a token of black empowerment,^[6] the movies were accused by others of perpetuating common white stereotypes about black people. As a result, many called for the end of the genre. The NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and National Urban League joined together to form the Coalition Against Blaxploitation. Through their influence, during the late 1970s, they contributed to the demise of the genre.

Blaxploitation films such as Mandingo (1975), provided mainstream Hollywood producers, in this case Dino De Laurentiis, a cinematic way to depict plantation slavery, with all of its brutal, historic and ongoing racial contradictions and controversies, including sex, miscegenation, rebellion... and so on. As well, the story world depicts the plantation as one of the main origins of boxing as a 'sport' in America. [Ed Guerrero, FRAMING BLACKNESS, Temple U. Press, 1993: pp 31–35]. In the early 1990s, a new wave of acclaimed black filmmakers focused on black urban life in their movies, particularly Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing and John Singleton's Boyz n the Hood, among others. These films made use of elements of Blaxploitation but also incorporated implicit criticism of the genre's glorification of stereotypical "criminal" behavior.

Later influence and media references[link]

Blaxploitation films have had enormous and complicated influence on American cinema. The acclaimed film auteur and noted fan of exploitation film, Quentin Tarantino, for example, has made countless references to the Blaxploitation genre in his films. An early blaxploitation tribute can be seen in the character of "Lite," played by Sy Richardson, in Repo Man (1984). Richardson would later go on to write Posse (1993), which could be described as a kind of blaxploitation Western.

Later movies such as Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), Superbad (2007), Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Undercover Brother (2002), as well as 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 example, stars 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. In the 1977 parody film The Kentucky Fried Movie, a mock trailer for Cleopatra Schwartz depicts another Grier-like action star married to a Rabbi. In addition to Jackie Brown, in a famous scene in Reservoir Dogs, 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.