Blaxploitation

from black + exploitation

黑人利用/黑人剥削/对黑人兴趣的利用 (尤指在电影中黑人形象程式化且脱离现实)

the use of black people in films/movies, especially in a way which shows them in fixed ways that are different from real life

the exploitation of black people (especially with regard to stereotyped roles in movies)

对黑人的剥削（尤其是关于电影中的定型角色）

（补充：「剥削」是指观众而非演员）

定型角色是一种虚构角色，它的人格、说话方式和其他特质反映了某种文化刻板印象。定型角色可以立即被某个文化中的成员辨认出来。因此，在喜剧和戏仿中经常出现的手法就是将某个定型角色的性格极度夸张化。

Blaxploitation refers to a genre, a film movement, and an important period of cinema history.

The term ‘Blaxploitation’ could sound like a negative label if you have never heard of it before but the term is predominantly used with love and admiration for the film movement of the 1970s, though there are some detractors.

Blaxploitation refers primarily to a wave of independently produced genre films of the early 1970s. The name is a portmanteau of ‘black’ and ‘exploitation. ’ Blaxploitation films were produced independently and, typically, with extremely low budgets. Black-exploitation films were predominantly made by black crews for black audiences, though more widespread appeal around the world was found. Crime, sex, drugs, and racial tensions were common subjects for Blaxploitation movies.

Under the Black-exploitation umbrella, all major genres of film can be found from action to horror, to musical. The term Blaxploitation is one of many exploitation subgenres that were popular in grindhouse theaters of the‘70s such as ozsploitation, hixploitation, and teensploitation amongst dozens of others.

What are Blaxploitation films?

Made by black filmmakers for black audiences

Independently produced and cheaply made

Covered the gamut of genres from comedy to horror

The historical context of Blaxploitation

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. As grindhouses grew more popular, especially in large cities like NYC, the number of grindhouse subgenres ballooned to unmanageable sizes. Grindhouse films were often shot fast and cheap and the level of quality fluctuated greatly from production to production.

The genre burst onto the scene with the one-two punch of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and Shaft from directors Melvin Van Peebles and Gordon Parks respectively. In the months and years following, there was explosive growth in the number of Blaxploitation movies being made. Dozens of Blaxploitation films were shot concurrently and released quickly one after another throughout the early 1970s.

The demand for Blaxploitation films was high, and a brief golden age was experienced before the rabid interest eventually waned.

Blaxploitation films often explored similar themes of crime, fighting back against “the man,” and black American life and struggles of the time, but the films were not confined by style or genre. Films like Blacula and Ganja and Hess explored the horror genre through the Blaxploitation lens while films like Dolemite infused over-the-top comedy into the crime/action storyline. These were some of the most important films of the Blaxploitation era.

Empowering new voices

Black exploitation might sound like black filmmakers and actors were being exploited, and there is some debate over the matter, but most agree that the movement was a powerful and important one in retrospect. A number of directors emerged during this period and went on to enjoy long-lasting careers after the official end of the era.

Blaxploitation movies were made by black filmmakers with black actors for black audiences. These films provided the first on-screen opportunities for audiences to see black characters presented as the heroes taking down white villains. Detractors of the Blaxploitation genre considered the film movement harmful, mainly for perpetuating and furthering stereotypes.

The NAACP joined forces with the National Urban League and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to form the Coalition Against Blaxploitation. This organization called for an end to the genre by the late 1970s and was successful in doing so.

Fresh creative voices were able to forge their own platforms for telling the stories they wanted to tell in the way they wanted to tell them. The explosion of these films of the early 1970s established a cinematic voice for a community and a generation that had been severely muzzled in mainstream cinema up to that point.

Modern Blaxploitation

While true Blaxploitation cinema is thoroughly rooted in the explosive years of the early 1970s, a number of modern filmmakers continue to carry the torch set ablaze by those early pioneers. The Blaxploitation genre has changed a great deal over the years but modern Blaxploitation films do still find life, mostly by paying homage to the originals of the 1970s.

One of the best known modern versions is Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown. Tarantino is a massive fan of not just Blaxploitation films but exploitation and grindhouse films as a whole.

The novel Jackie Brown was adapted from Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard, and featured a white heroine by the name of Jackie Birch.

But Tarantino saw it as an opportunity to tribute the films of old and cast one of the biggest stars of the genre, Pam Grier.

Some of the old Blaxploitation classics are kept alive in the zeitgeist through reboots and remakes, sometimes out of a love for the original, and sometimes out of more cynical, purely-monetary motivations.