by S. Himasha Weerappulige

Bouncy wah wahs, groovy basslines, mellifluous strings.

Perfect afros, bell-bottoms, butterfly collars.

Bold statements. Ironic social commentaries. 

Heroic and often controversial antiheroes, all fighting ”the man”.

This, but also, much more, was the Blaxploitation genre. A brief cinematic movement tied to the civil rights era introduced new visual and musical codes for the Black community but faced criticism from within the community for its portrayal of characters. The genre remains an interesting case for several reasons: firstly, it’s an important example of how music and film are deeply and viscerally interlinked, to the extent that music can become one of the main characters of the celluloid tape. Secondly, a study of this fleeting cinematic experience also raises important questions on the politics of culture and film production.

Does following industry dynamics change the narratives of a film, and hence the political message behind it? The difference in political impact can be noticed when comparing Melvin Van Peebles “Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) and Gordon Park’s “Shaft” (1971), who both shared iconic soundtracks and distinctive aesthetic languages that made the community feel seen, but also followed two very different production rationales. Can a soundtrack be the driving force of a moving image? Can the revolution be televised?

Blaxploitation characters were bold, strong, resilient and unapologetic. The scores were no exception to this, and often became one of the movie’s characters themselves. Music comes to aid the character, where words and lines did not suffice. The scores were characterised by a complex embroidering of funk, soul, jazz, gospel hymns and rhythm and blues, reflecting the vibrant musical spectrum of black music till that time. They did not just accompany the film, they were cultural statements that tied history, social commentary and aspirations of the communities they would sing about. Aspirations of freedom, and of lightness. Commentary of systemic oppressions, and its weight on the communities they sang about. Composers used a variety of instruments to craft dynamic soundscapes, with each instrument embodying different emotions. Funky basslines provided depth and rhythm, while horns added intensity. Strings brought drama and sophistication, and electric keyboards and synths contributed a futuristic texture. The iconic wah-wah pedals defined the genre's distinctive tone. When discussing the scores of this genre one cannot not mention the sounds of “Sweetback” and “Shaft”, who share a similar level of impact and experimentation, though also highly differ in the political stance they took.

Sweetback was a watershed oeuvre for black cinema in the US. It told the story of a man on the run, after having helped a revolutionary militant who had been attacked by the LAPD. The movie depicted nudity, rebellion, and survival. All features that were never associated to black characters in American movies. 

Musically, the movie distinguished itself for its avant-garde and experimental nature, incorporating notes that went from blues to psychedelic rock, decorated with gospel hymns. The result was a raw and unpolished sound that mirrors the film’s gritty aesthetic. The music often feels improvised, highlighting the film's sense of urgency and unpredictability. The vocals equally give a sense of immediacy, and weld together spoken words and chants that shed light on the film’s underlying theme of rebellion. “The first song, “Sweetback Losing His Cherry” juxtaposes the spiritual “Wade in the Water,” with sounds of love making. The gospel song, “This Little Light of Mine,” is interspersed with frenetic soul blasts. It upends any previous notions of sex, religion and violence to mirror the chaos and questioning of the era”, says Mario, Van Peebels’ son, who also starred in the movie at the age of 13 (Van Peebles, 2017).

Though today it would be hard to tell, as the soundtrack appears to be viscerally linked to the equally experimental and profane celluloid it belongs, the score remained unwritten for most of the filming, until Van Peebles stumbled into an unknown band of the time called Earth, Wind and Fire. The album was hence composed by the band together with Van Peebles and it was revealed before the film itself. The radios created excitement around the movie, and the film promoted itself, without the need of expensive commercials. At first only two theatres accepted to display it.  Peebles would stand in front of the place and listen to the comments of the community. Even Huey P. Newton, the Black Panther co-founder was enthusiastic about the movie, and devoted an entire issue of the Black Panther Party’s newspaper to Van Peebles’s film (Newton, 1971).

“Huey was going on about how the police were dealt with in the movie and how the community rallied around Sweetback and his brother named Momo, who was a revolutionary—he was a person in the community who was making changes; he wanted a different type of system. So we looked at that as being part of us. Sweetback is uniting with the revolutionary because the enemy is the same '' says Billy “X” Jennings, who was a young Panther and Huey’s assistant at the time.[1] “What it also shows is that, throughout the movie, as Sweet Sweetback moves through the community, he had aid; from women who were prostitutes, church members, or gangsters. stuff like that. It was like a circle that showed if people perceived you’re doing something positive for the community, people would rally around you and help you.”

The Panthers requested all members of the community to go see the movie, and organised with one of the few theatres that were showing the movie - The Fox Theater in Oakland – to let Party members in groups of 30 to 40 at a time, for free. “People would go in and talk to the screen, engage with the character, feel its anger and hope”, adds Billy.[2] Its success spread like wildfire.

Just a few months apart from Sweetback, another blaxploitation cult movie that had a profound impact on afro-american experience came out. On screen, a handsome Black man knives his way through the traffic of New York. He’s wearing a long leather coat, a turtle neck and an impressive moustache. “Who is it? Shaft!” asks and answers the score. 

 Whereas Sweetback’s songs were integrated in the narrative, the music in Shaft enhances it. The well known “Theme from Shaft” by Isaac Heyes stressed the confident nature of the main protagonist, a private detective who was hired by a Harlem mobster to rescue his daughter from an Italian mobster. Heyes had originally auditioned for the title role in the film but failed to get the part. He then got offered by MGM (the studio that produced the movie) to compose a score for the opening scene. It was a make-it-or-break-it-moment. The result was a 16-note hi-hat ride pattern that told the detective's story and intentions: “to get what he wanted, according to his terms”. Funnily enough when he submitted the score, it had no lyrics.  “I thought that that was what a theme song in a movie had to be: an instrumental. I wrote the lyrics in twenty minutes” (Howard 2008).[3]

He won two academy award nominations and an Oscar becoming the first black artist to win a non-acting academy award. It meant a lot for the community.  Coming from Tennessee and born in 1942, Heyes was orphaned at a very young age and had worked in a cotton field, a hog factory, and many other odd jobs, making his way to the 44th Annual Academy Award, where he performed covered in golden chains. 

Interestingly enough, Shaft is inspired by a novel where the main protagonist is black. However, the first studios that intended to produce the film wanted to initially cast a white actor before casting Richard Roundtree. Parks, who had previously been a photojournalist, wanted to create a movie that portrayed a side of New York and of the black community that had rarely been seen on screen. And moreover, he wanted to depict it with a certain lightness that had never been associated to black stories. The main character is quasi-worshipped by the camera through low-angle shots that had only been reserved for white heroes until then. The movie was among the first of many movies that wanted to centre blackness on the screen, where black characters were not sidekicks, and would win at it.

Most importantly, it was a source of lightness and entertainment for a community that never saw itself on screen. As stated by Ed Guerrero, film historian, “This film was created less to impact black consciousness and more to simply show a fun film, which people could attend on Saturday night and see a black guy winning” (1993).[4] Sweetback and then Shaft made Hollywood producers understand that there was money in black movies too, and that gave the beginning to a whole new declination to the genre. The genre was not shielded from criticism anyways. In 1972, Junius Griffin, one of the presidents of the NAACP, argued that the genre was "proliferating offences' ' to the black community depicting black characters strictly linked to drugs, promiscuity and violence. He hence coined the term “blaxploitation”, a blend of the words “Black”, and “exploitation” movies (Anderson, 2018).[5] 

Both Shaft and Sweetback were influenced by the movements of the time and brought a form of black experience on screen. Though both clearly left a huge impact on the musical and cinematographic landscape, they also relied on very different production structures.

Sweetback, as many other blaxploitation movies that followed, had a shoe-string budget, orchestrated by a one-man-band. The film was entirely written, directed, acted and even scored by Van Peebles. His fingerprints are hence present on each fragment of the gritty celluloid of the movie.  Van Peebles in Isaac Julien's documentary “Baadassss Cinema” explains: “I had a grudge towards what I saw on screen growing and then I was like: Shit it can do better than that. (….) We never made it to the end of the movie. He (sweetback) got away” (Van Peebles in Julien 2002).[6] And most importantly I did show that there could be a black crew making films for a black audience.

Van Peebles went to great lengths to achieve full creative control. During pre-production, he funnelled funds through a Caribbean bank, established a limited liability corporation, rented a film processing lab to manage his negatives, and deferred his entire salary to secure a completion bond. To avoid industry interference and employ his self-described "Third World crew," he disguised his film as a pornographic feature, thereby exempting it from union regulations, which allowed him to hire black and people of colour typically excluded from production guilds. Van Peebles retained ownership of his film by only leasing it to a small independent distributor (Wiggins, 2012).[7]

Grossing half-a-million, Shaft belonged to a different wave of blaxploitation movies. “The movie came out on the eve of a recession and studios were looking to make fast and cheap hits” says film scholar Raquel Gates. "And one of the things that they do is they sort of — and I say this jokingly, in full sarcasm — is they remember that Black people exist" she adds (Rivers & Quresh, 2021).[8] On that note, historian Charles Woods in a video essay on the genre  “you might add some militancy, or some blackness, but in the end, what you are gonna get green lighted, and what the gatekeepers are gonna let through are those motion pictures which perpetuate the status quo” (Woods, 2016).[9]

On the brightside, it could be argued that in such industrial movies the budget was much higher, and hence the crew was larger. As Roundtree points out in Julien’s documentary “at the end of the day, the film created a way of access to the industry for people that were usually left out of it. Black folks were paid”. And lastly, it could also be argued that despite studios going for less political characters that then defined the blaxploitation genre in pop culture, black filmmakers kept defining their own narrative within and out of these industry dynamics, showing that black films in the 1970’s weren’t a monolithic experience. On that note, I strongly recommend films such as “Uptight” (1968), “Five on the Black Hand Side” (1973), the “The Spook Who Set by the Door” (1973) and even excerpts from the horror “Blacula” (1972), where the supernatural becomes an expedient to also discuss gender dynamics within the black community.

Beyond criticism or acclaim, one enduring element of the genre echoes still strongly today: it’s music. 90’s rap codes inevitably inherited stilemas from the blaxploitation era, and many rappers still reference it with joy. The examples are many, contemporary and not: Snoop Dogg, whose visuals often pay homage to Blaxploitation movies. His home in Los Angeles is well-known for having a hall panelled with blaxploitation posters.  When listening to “Good Kid” by Kendrick Lamar, one cannot not notice how the entire album is presented as a cinematic experience that’s reminiscent of Blaxploitation storytelling codes and echoes the flair of its most dreamy soundtracks.  

Did you catch yourself reciting word one of the clue monologues in the gangster movie “Superfly”, where Eddie apprehends the drugdealer Priest for his life choices? It’s probably because you’ve memorised the lyrics of Jay-z’s “Prelude”, who masterfully samples the conversation. Spoiler, the beat doesn’t drop in the actual conversation. 

"You’ve got this fantasy in your head about gettin’ outta the life and setting that other world on its ear. What the f**k are you gonna do except hustle? Besides pimpin’? And you really ain’t got the stomach for that”

Another  notorious example is “Got Your Money” by one of the Wu-tang clan’s founders, who ironically picks up its aesthetic and video elements from the 1975 crime-comedy about a pimp called Dolemite. 

This character specifically was name-dropped in numerous verses from Jay-Z (Who you with), to Dr.Dre and A$AP Rocky. Despite the character of the pimp being quite questionable, it could be argued that it does make sense how rappers related to figures like him. In the film he finds himself framed for crimes he did not commit, a relatable experience for performers in the field of rap and hip hop. Hence, if criminalisation is inevitable, one could argue, why not re-appropriating such characters within fiction?

The emergence of characters like Dolemite in the 1970s was no accident. Following the tumultuous aftermath of the Watts riots, the killing of revolutionary figures as Malcom X or Martin Luther King, and the decay of urban environments, the pimp archetype rose to mythic status. These figures were seen as self-reliant mavericks striving for control in a systemically unfair society. A line from Dolemite captures this sentiment: "If the nation's leader is committing theft without consequences, what are we supposed to do?" Embracing the tales of pimps was more than mere escapism; it represented a defiance against conventional American success narratives. 

By the 1980s, Blaxploitation films had largely fallen out of favour, as the industry’s attention went elsewhere. Though it could be argued that the genre progressively lost its purpose as Hollywood got involved, it cannot be denied that beyond criticisms and praises, it catalysed the communities' need for storytelling at the time, gifting it with the lightness it was seeking for, with interludes of social criticism that had been until then omitted by the american audiovisual industry. Those movies “did not phrase black as opposite to white”, but better, in Mario’s words, “black as black and not trying to fit in. As black and proud”.

Some might look at such experience with bitterness, when seeing that the Blaxploitation genre failed to create a black hollywood. Others may however argue that perhaps a black Hollywood that followed Hollywood's economic structures wasn’t something that the community searched for in the first place. Hence, Can the revolution be televised? Echoing Gill Scott Heron’s response: probably not. But this does not take away that the people in front and behind the camera may engage in revolutionary practices, with or without the arts involved.

[1] Jennings, Billy x, in “How To Eat Your Water Melon in White Company (and Enjoy it)”, documentario di Joe Angio (2005)

[2] Ibid.

[3] Howard, Josiah (2008), “Blaxploitation Cinema: The Essential Reference Guide”, ed. Fab Press

[4] Guerrero, Ed (1993). Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film (Culture and The Moving Image). Philadelphia: Temple University Press."

[5] Anderson, Tre’vell (8 giugno 2018). "A look back at the blaxploitation era through 2018 eyes". Los Angeles Times. 

[6] “Baaadassss Cinema”, Isaac Julien (2002)

[7] Wiggins, B. (2012). “You Talkin’ Revolution, Sweetback”: On Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and Revolutionary Filmmaking. Black Camera, 4(1), 28–52. https://doi.org/10.2979/blackcamera

[8] Rivers, M. and Qureshi, B. (2021) Looking back on the legacy of ‘shaft,’ 50 years later, NPR. Disponibile a: https://www.npr.org/2021/07/02/1012438840/looking-back-on-the-legacy-of-shaft-50-years-later#:~:text=The%20movie%20came%20out%20on,Shaft%22%20was%20a%20huge%20hit (Accessed: 07 August 2024). 

[9] Woods, Charles (2016), “What Blaxploitation could have been” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SUbhgQnXv0

by Maïmouna Gueye

In the 1970s, African-American women lived through a time of transformation and struggle for their civil, social and economic rights. This decade was marked by significant cultural and political changes, which affected their life: African American women played a pivotal role in the Civil Rights movement, but they often felt that their specific concerns weren’t adequately represented. As a result, the Black Women’s Movement was born, focusing on issues of dual racial and gender discrimination. Organisations such as the Combahee River Collective underlined the importance of intersectionality, a concept that acknowledged the unique experiences of black women compared to those of white women and black men.  

African-American women had to face a dual oppression: racism and sexism. This combination of discrimination made the economic challenges particularly acute. Many of them were employed in low-wage sectors and had limited opportunities for advancement. Despite these difficulties, people like Shirley Chisholm (founder of the Congressional Black Caucus and the National Women’s Political Caucus) and young students such as Angela Davis and Fannie Lou Hamer (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) made significant contributions, often assuming leadership positions and organising protests and marches to fight racial and gender discrimination.  

The 1970s also witnessed an increasing affirmation of Black Power, which celebrated the black African-American identity and culture. Black women embraced this movement, adopting natural hairstyles such as the Afro and promoting the beauty and strength of the black woman.

Writers and intellectuals such as Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker contributed to this cultural renaissance through their works that explored life experiences; they became icons, using their art to express experiences and aspirations. This new wave of cultural expression started to redefine the identity and image of racialised women in American society.

Prior to this cultural revolution, the white establishment had assigned stereotypical and reductive identities to African-American women. In the media and popular culture, they were often portrayed as subordinate, domestic or hyper-sexualised figures. These stereotypes reduced them to marginal roles and denied their complexity and humanity.  

When we reflect upon the representation of black women in cinema, it’s clear that it’s often unsatisfactory and poor. Characters such as Mammy in “Gone with the Wind” and Annie in “Mississippi Burning” show how limited and stereotypical past representation is. Mammy, played by Hattie McDaniel, is one of the most well-known and problematic figures of classic cinema. Although the actress was the first African-American woman to win an Oscar for the role, the character of Mammy is stereotyped as the classic devoted and subordinate “caregiver and maid”, who sacrifices her own life to serve the protagonists’ white family. In contrast, characters such as Ruth Younger in “A Raisin in the Sun” prove how rich and meaningful stories can be when they are portrayed in a complex and realistic way. A true representation of the female figure must be complex, realistic and diversified. It must go beyond stereotypes and show women in a variety of roles and contexts, reflecting the complete gamut of human experience.

Among the many forms of entertainment introduced in our society, film and television are some of the most influential. In addition to their entertainment function, movies and television programmes have become extensions of the representation of us as human beings: these media do not only reflect reality, but also shape and influence societal perceptions and understandings about what it means to be human. They guide our ideas and our actions by providing models of behaviour, ideals and cultural norms. When we see characters on screen, their stories, personalities and relationships can influence our expectations and attitudes in real life. 

Movies are critical sites, political elements which represent, produce and reproduce power relations. They do not only provide entertainment, but also send messages to viewers, helping to form values and belief systems. 

For African-American women, this representation has often been up to scratch. The most commonly assigned roles were those of sexualised figures, maids, or cheeky, aggressive women, angry at the world, as in “The Birth of a Nation” (1915), “Show Boat” (1936) or “The Little Colonel” (1935): the spread of these stereotypes had a strongly negative impact on the black community, since the images remained with the audience and, over time, shaped social reality.

The Blaxploitation genre was born in a context of economic and social crisis in Hollywood, as the film industry sought to attract an emerging African-American audience and exploit the commercial success of movies with urban and crime themes. In search of new markets and profits, Hollywood thus began to produce movies that met these demands.

Blaxploitation played a pivotal role in paving the way for later developments in African-American cinema, influencing subsequent movies and genres which continued to explore and represent the experiences of African-American women in new and diversified ways. The rise of this genre attempted to change the narrative: figures like Pam Grier and Tamara Dobson played the most iconic roles of this period, contributing tremendously to the departure from stereotypical portrayals in cinema. Many proponents of the genre felt that, although Hollywood had attempted to capitalise on an emerging market, African-American creators within the genre had an opportunity to regain control of narratives and representations. 

Given the marginalisation of black women in cinema up until the Blaxploitation era, this approach led to a form of resistance and cultural affirmation: these movies were aimed to take the power back, depicting African-American women in an empowering light and allowing them to redefine their role and image in cinema.

This shift in representation would reach a crucial moment in 1973 with the release of movies like Coffy, Cleopatra Jones and Foxy Brown. Represented as armed, independent, fearless women with heightened sense of style, not only they redefined the beauty standards of black women in 1970s cinema, by wearing natural hair and flamboyant wardrobes, but the roles they played were destined to symbolise the new depiction of black femininity.

The protagonists of Blaxploitation films were often depicted as strong, independent and pugnacious women, who embodied figures capable not only to survive in hostile environments, but also to dominate and overturn power dynamics. Iconic examples include Sheba Shayne in “Sheba, Baby” (1975), played by Pam Grier, and Cleopatra Jones in “Cleopatra Jones” (1973), played by Tamara Dobson. This concept of female empowerment was taken up and reinterpreted by hip-hop artists: in fact, Pam Grier, Tamara Dobson and Jeannie Bell were the initial prototypes on which the Bad Bitch figure was built.

During the 1990s, the emergence of third-wave feminism introduced new concepts of femininity and power, focusing on diversity, inclusion and intersectionality. This movement recognised the diverse experiences of women of colour, LGBTQ+ women and women from different social classes. In this context, the figure of the “Bad Bitch” emerged as the archetypal strong and confident woman. This character represented an expression of female power, independence and authenticity, as well as an affirmation of inner strength and resilience.

In parallel, the 1990s witnessed the rise of pop culture and mass media, with television shows, music, movies and magazines beginning to present images of strong and independent women. TV series such as “Living Single” and “Moesha” brought complex and autonomous African-American female characters to the fore. Rappers such as Janet Jackson, Queen Latifah, Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown and Missy Elliott embodied this new figure, openly speaking about power, sexuality and financial autonomy. Many of them adopted aesthetic and stylistic elements derived from the protagonists of Blaxploitation movies, emphasising the cultural continuity. 

These female artists became role models for many young women: their presence in the media helped to redefine the representation of black women in popular culture, defying stereotypes and promoting a more complex and multifaceted view of femininity. At the same time, the figure of the “Bad Bitch” developed in tandem with macro cultural shifts. Its emergence reflected the evolution of social and cultural expectations concerning women, particularly black women, and represented the growing acceptance and celebration of women’s strength, independence and complexity. 

The “Bad Bitch” emerged not only in opposition to traditional stereotypes, but also as an integral part of cultural change. Its presence symbolised the transformation of power dynamics and the reaffirmation of women’s role in society. This archetype contributed to redefine cultural narratives by providing powerful and complex role models in a decade of profound social and cultural transformations. The figure of the “Bad Bitch” in the 1990s has left a lasting legacy and continues to influence contemporary female artists such as Rihanna, Cardi B, Beyoncé and many others, as well as subsequent cultures. In contemporary rap, female artists such as Megan Thee Stallion, Lizzo and Chlöe represent the new generation of women who embody and amplify this archetype through their music and their style. On the big and small screen, television series and movies such as “Insecure”, “Pose” and “Queen & Slim” offer representations of strong and multifaceted women, influenced by the iconography of the “Bad Bitch”. 

The “Bad Bitch” still exerts a powerful influence on contemporary popular culture, inspiring a new generation of women to celebrate their strength, independence and authenticity. This legacy manifests itself in many forms, from music to fashion, from media to pop culture, making the “Bad Bitch” an enduring and ever-relevant cultural icon, which continues to resonate with new generations.

by Samra Mayanja

In the years preceding the Blaxploitation Era, there was Vietnam and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Medgar Evers, Malcom X and Martin Luther had been assassinated. In this political climate Melvin Van Peebles’ ‘Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song’ (1971) was screened to audiences who watched Sweetback (and his co-conspirators) expose police corruption, fight back and get away. 

In trying to understand the era and the conditions that produced it I spoke to Jennifer G. Robinson a London-based Film Lecturer, Director of the British Urban Film Festival (BUFF) and Founder/Director of Women of the Lens Film Festival. We met online amidst preparation for BUFF’s 2024 programme.

Samra Mayanja: Are there particular features of the Blaxploitation era that you’re drawn to? I keep returning to ‘The Man’ ; it doesn't have a singular face. ‘The Man’ is not exclusively the police, the boss or husband. ‘The Man’ is corruption, greed and violence in one. I wonder how it felt for audiences to see marginalised black people outsmart or defeat ‘The Man’. For me, it acts as a momentary collapse of power and an insight into how it functions. Like, YES, that’s it! That’s the racialised, economic and gender-based harm that is America.

Jennifer G. Robinson: Up until around the Blaxploitation era, you would have black people - I use that term for expediency -  in subservient roles in Hollywood. Even the great Sidney Poitier played these parts. He was never in any role that was going to vanquish ‘The Man’. Billie Holiday was always second to the protagonist, the white woman. She was the maid, the help, the best friend etc. Up until that point, that was all that we’d had. Filmmaking doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it happens in a context. By the time we come to the late fifties and mid sixties there’s push back from wider society against the establishment in terms of the Vietnam War, women's rights, First Wave Feminism, the Civil Rights Movement, with figures like Malcom X and Martin Luther King. So, you get those films about sticking it to ‘The Man’ or the establishment. It’s about saying no to institutions that were trying to rip away your rights. Keep you subjugated, extract your labour and take  away your voice. There’s a paradox. Yes, Blaxploitation was about redressing the imbalance of representation in the film industry. But in terms of women, they still engaged gross stereotypes of Black women.

SM: Are these stereotypes being established or exaggerated in the Blaxploitation Era? How do they morph from servitude; the nanny, mammy and sidekick to the sexual object?

JGR: The representation of Black people and African-Americans certainly came about from a film made by DW Griffiths. He became known as the father of film because of how he used narrative format and camera angles. A lot of stereotypes were set up in his film ‘The Birth of a Nation’ (1915). Tropes like the mammy, the maid, the tragic mulatto, the big scary buck and the piccaninnies. I think African women, in particular, haven't had sexual autonomy over their bodies because of the trade that it derived in the first place. So it’s a bit of a contradiction. When you do claim it, you're still castigated for daring to have that kind of autonomy. All women experience this, but there are a couple of additional levels that black women have had to contend with. Although there’s far more representation of women in those powerful positions, they are still sexualised in ways that are almost depraved.

SM: At times there is an awareness of this within the films. Black women fight back. In ‘Five on the Black Hand Side’ (1973) directed by Oscar Williams, Mrs Brooks stages a coup against Mr Brooks and demands an overhaul of their patriarchal house.

JGR: There’s a famous writer [Donald Bogle] who writes on this in ‘Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks’. He expands on those stereotypes and analyses what they look like in film. You can’t talk about Blaxploitation without discussing this.

SM: In these films there’s a triumphant moment where the central character evades arrest, premature death or disappearance. I imagine cinema halls in the seventies filled with cathartic outpourings! What can returning to this era offer filmmakers and audiences in this political moment?

JGR: Oh that’s interesting. In a lot of ways it reminds me of what has gone on in Nollywood. I’m talking more from a business model perspective. In that, you make your films cheap and fast. Nollywood - from the first editions- had a big audience outside of Nigeria, who wanted to see their own films. They fulfilled what the diaspora weren’t getting on TV or even on the streamers in the early days. It’s very similar to Blaxploitation, although sadly those who were represented in the films weren’t making any money - it was the studios. There was an audience looking for a different representation of themselves than they would ordinarily get. They were going to survive as a character in the film and they were going to get away. They weren’t costly to make; you rolled them out as quickly as possible and you got your returns. I would love to see a collaborative stance that understands what audiences really want to see and a package that fulfils the appetite of the audience. It would be incredible to have business models that create opportunities for others where they would otherwise not exist. There is a disparity, certainly in the filmmaking community that I'm in touch with. It is a film business and there is not enough ‘business’ in too much of the independent film community.

SM: Often Mosa and I speak about the circulation of films that we’ve seen. Film doesn’t only happen in the cinema. [1]

JGR: Circulation also includes exhibition and distribution. That's another quagmire. Filmmakers have to find alternative ways that work for them. The ways that audiences consume and like to consume films it's not necessarily in that high brow way. There is a market for the popcorn bubblegum kind of thing, which you can use to create industry.

SM: In the last few years Hollywood has given us films with black exceptionalism at their core. Films like ‘Green Book’ and ‘Hidden Figures’. But I want to see characters that are reprehensible, ordinary, loved and wonderful. I have fragmented thoughts about the context that could create this type of storytelling. There’s 2020 and George Floyds murder. In marches worldwide people asked ‘what are we doing to prevent premature black death?’. BLM moved people toward an abolitionist perspective in calling for the defunding of police. This is now part of a mainstream political consciousness in ways that it wasn’t before, especially for those who weren’t born criminals. In thinking about the police and prisons, we must also think about what criminalising people actually does and who is really hurting us. I think Blaxploitation does that. The ‘criminals’ are heroes in these films. Heroes because they stick it to the powers that be. We understand that they are a product of their conditions rather than inherently bad people. I’m wondering, is there a second wind for Blaxploitation?

JGR: But don’t you think ‘Brotherhood’ (2016), ‘Bullet Boy’ (2005) and ‘Top Boy’ (2011 - 2023) already do that? There are particular pin points that would lead to something like that. Aside from 2020, what else has there been today? The landmark was Covid and Lockdown. Predominantly black and brown people were working in industries, services and the NHS. They were more likely to contract and die from Covid. In terms of films trying to critique it in the mainstream with the subtlety required. I agree with you. I haven't seen that - not in the mainstream.

SM: I love a section from an article you’ve written in which you speak about the legacy of the Blaxploitation era, as it relates to black women heroines. Can you tell me more about this?

JGR: The main scions of Blaxploitation are Pam Grier with ‘Foxy Brown’, Tamara Dobson in ‘Cleopatra Jones’ and there were many others. My critique of Blaxploitation concerning women is that very often they have very little autonomy in terms of what they do for themselves. Their actions and narratives are about supporting their man, family or communities. This still is the same for all women. I totally reinforce what I say in the piece - without those women in the Blaxploitation period I don’t think we would see black women in action films today and I thank them for it. A reference would be ‘Proud Mary’ (2018) with Taraji P Henson as the lead. That film failed for a number of reasons but it was definitely taking from that period in terms of the narrative and what drove the character. A fantastic passing of the batton.

SM: Similarly to the seventies we are screaming, “make it stop!” While those of us in and beyond the West know imperialism intimately; we know how it has harmed us. In Europe we are acutely aware of how it implicates us in its violence through our work and desires. For all its faults Blaxploitation films offered a cultural catharsis that today would need to unmask interconnected global struggles for liberation.

[1] Samra Mayanja and Mosa Mpetha curate Black Cinema Project. They share and meaningfully discuss films from Africa and the diaspora.

by Andrea Tiradritti

Tubi's latest irreverent promotional campaign is keen to point out how popular the platform has become around the world - much more than children, the French or pickleball (the American version of padel). With 75 million monthly viewers, this streaming service, launched in 2014 and acquired by Fox Corporation in 2020, is indeed becoming more and more relevant in the saturated contemporary audiovisual landscape, attracting the attention of investors and users thanks to its alternative business model compared to that of the industry giants, alongside a truly boundless catalog. A rabbit hole - quoting another well-known commercial of the company - where it’s easy, and in many ways fascinating, to lose oneself.

Unlike Netflix, Prime Video and most other major streaming platforms, Tubi is free. Viewers can access its content (currently unavailable in Europe) without paying a subscription or even creating an account. Relieved not to shell out more dollars for yet another streaming service, Tubi's users must, however, compromise with the platform's chosen mode of financing based on sponsorships and ads, which burst onto the screen, interrupting viewing at unpredictable and sometimes jarring moments. This return to a traditional logic of television experience opens up interesting reflections on the increasingly distracted and fragmented practices with which we are accustomed to consuming media content. It also reveals a tension between innovation and continuity that animates the various constellations of what writer John Wilmes has called the strange and vast Tubi-verse: while on the one hand its distribution mechanisms appear acutely aware of contemporary transformations, hinging on more flexible criteria of access than the traditional ones, on the other hand the economic interests driving its ownership run the risk of reproducing the same power schemes historically adopted to exploit and monetize marginalized market segments. These and other conflicting trends take shape in what is undoubtedly, along with its free access, Tubi's strong point: its enormous catalog, a jungle where trash and rare gems coexist.

Over 50,000 movies and TV series, 200 live TV channels of entertainment, news, sports, and a rich children's section: scrolling through Tubi's homepage can give you a headache, but also a thrill of adventurous curiosity. The platform really offers anything, including an increasing number of independent works by African American filmmakers. Recently, debate about the Tubi’s potential and risks has stirred the Black creative community. According to some, it represents a genuine renaissance for African American independent cinema, as it offers unprecedented support to the careers of Black creatives and technicians who can reach wider audiences without bearing the dizzying costs of Hollywood and theatrical distributions. For others, what appears to be a revolutionary phenomenon capable of emancipating the industry's subaltern forces, is nothing more than another tool for the capitalist reorganization of the new interconnected marketplace, where it is certainly easier to access, but whose subtle constraints do not fully allow the minorities representing themselves on the platform to be masters of their own narrative. These concerns, moreover, are warranted by the fact that Fox, the company that owns the service, has been repeatedly criticized in the past for being a mouthpiece for the American racist right, inciting racial hatred and promoting discriminatory narratives and representations in its programming.

Tied to proprietary interests is the question regarding the effective remuneration of artists. How and how much are independent filmmakers paid? In an article published by the website Medium, David W. King explains how there is no clearly defined rate on Tubi. Instead, a film's earnings depend largely on its value to the platform in terms of its attractiveness to users and investors. In other words, the more popular a film is, the higher the price potential brands will be willing to pay to advertise within it. As the level of ad space and the number of audience impressions increases, the return on the film will increase accordingly, averaging between 10 and 15 cents per view. In such a context, it’s hard to imagine that most independent filmmakers can earn substantial amounts of money, especially considering the costs of multichannel promotion required to rank themselves effectively. According to this system, the film succeeding on Tubi is unlikely to be the most deserving from a qualitative point of view, but the one that best intersects the political interests of the platform and the economic interests of advertisers, addressing a specific target through codified formulas designed to generate a certain pattern of wealth.

The lesson of blaxploitation, which in just a few legendary years shifted from being a subversive cultural movement to a low-quality film genre perfectly integrated into Hollywood production, well captures the perplexities of those who see today the proliferation of low-budget films made by African-American crews on Tubi not so much as an opportunity for collective empowerment, but as a drift reinforcing only  harmful stereotypes. Blaxploitation was born in the early 1970s as an act of defense and rebellion against a white-dominated, racist, and declining film industry. Its roots were political, its outcomes aesthetic. The ideals that animated the early stages of that season focused on constructing an imagery antithetical to that colonized in previous decades by major Hollywood studios, where the bodies and desires of African Americans could not only be included with dignity, but become protagonists. If this ideal was only partially realized, if those films soon exhausted their transformative charge to be tamed by consumer logics, it was because the movement's initial freedom was quickly absorbed by the system it sought to tamper with from within. The space opened by independent and expository films such as Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) was in fact swiftly occupied by industry capital, which found in the hitherto ignored African American audience a new market to exploit. 

In a video essay emblematically titled Tubi: The New Blaxploitation, African American filmmaker Pillboy examines today’s Black cinema landscape, starting from the assumption that that system of power has not changed. In order to conform to Hollywood’s gears (see Moonlight), an African American film still seems compelled to move viewers by recounting racial trauma related to Black identity. Platforms like Tubi, by eliminating a series of controls and giving back to creators the possibility of disseminating their self-produced works through a few simple clicks, apparently fulfill the same liberating function that blaxploitation films aimed to perform fifty years ago: not only granting the African American minority the opportunity to tell its story in ways that break from dramatic or victim-blaming narratives, but also, thanks to this recount, gaining recognition and compensation that could activate virtuous circles for the entire industry.

However, as we have seen, the issue is more complex than that. Pillboy uses the concept of “co-optation” to illustrate how the capitalist system possesses the necessary tools to absorb - precisely, co-opt - any protest movement, even the most threatening, sprouted within its cultural industry. The spread of social media has refined this strategy, allowing corporations and political institutions to ambiguously appropriate through hashtags and tweets battles theoretically unrelated or even contradicting their agendas. It’s no coincidence that the explosion of content expressly targeting  African American audiences on streaming platforms occurred in the spring of 2020, coinciding with protests over the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor by police. Viewing Tubi as a disruptive means is therefore an illusion. The positions of its owners and the advertising logics that guide the valuing of its business tend to favor commercial and caricatural representations of the Black community, emphasizing content of little value. Some scenes from these titles today have gone viral on social media for their absurd unreality and for technical errors so gross that one wonders if they were made on purpose. Instead of articulating the diversity of the African American experience, these portrayals flatten it by turning into farce, memes to be mocked online and on the couch, so as to generate comments, increase traffic and attract wealthy advertisers.

Given this scenario, passing the buck to individual artists seems short-sighted and counterproductive. It is not only by improving the technical level of their productions that African American filmmakers will scratch the structural racist tendencies of the platform. Instead, Pillboy calls for a collective consciousness-raising that will build on the legacy of blaxploitation and allow artists to truly take responsibility for the stories they tell through political action. How the landscape will evolve in the future is impossible to predict, especially considering Tubi's rhapsodic tendency to shed its skin and change policies. What is at stake is the ability of African-American cinema to express itself outside the codes favored by those constantly seeking to attack new markets to consolidate their positions of power. 

Huggins, E., Shames, S. (2022), Comrade Sisters: Women of the Black Panther Party, Melton (UK), ACC Art Books.

Sims, Women of Blaxploitation.

Thomas Cripps, Making Movies Black (New York, Oxford University Press, 1993)

Yvonne D. Sims, Women of Blaxploitation: How the Black Action Film Heroine Changed American Popular Culture (McFarland, 2006).

Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, by Melvin Van Peebles (1971)

Shaft, by Gordon Parks (1971)

Uptight (1968), by Jules Dassin

Blacula (1972), by William Crain

Five on the Black Hand Side (1931), by Oscar Williams

The Spook Who Sat by the Door (19731, by Ivan Dixon

Baadass Cinema (2002), by Isaac Julien

How to Eat Your Watermelon in White company (and Enjoy it) (2005), by Joe Angio

Van Peebles, Mario (2017) https://mediakits.concord.com/p/sweet-sweetbacks-baadasssss-song/liner-notes.html

Newton, P. Huey (1971) “Sweet SweetbackThe Black Panther” in The Black Panther Saturday, Party, June 19th 1971 https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/black-panther/06%20no%2021%201-20%20jun%2019%201971.pdf

Jennings, Billy X (2005) interviewed in “How To Eat Your Water Melon in White Company (and Enjoy it)”, a documentary by Joe Angio 

Howard, Josiah (2008), “Blaxploitation Cinema: The Essential Reference Guide”, ed. Fab Press https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/ThemeFromShaft.pdf

Guerrero, Ed (1993). Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film (Culture and The Moving Image). Ed: Temple University Press

Anderson, Tre’vell (2018). "A look back at the blaxploitation era through 2018 eyes". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on June 8, 2018. Retrieved May 22,2022)

Van Peebels, Melvin (2002), from the documentary “Baadassss Cinema”, by Isaac Julien 

Wiggins, B. (2012). “You Talkin’ Revolution, Sweetback”: On Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and Revolutionary Filmmaking. Black Camera, 4(1), 28–52. https://doi.org/10.2979/blackcamera.4.1.28

Rivers, M. and Qureshi, B. (2021) Looking back on the legacy of ‘shaft,’ 50 years later, NPR. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/02/1012438840/looking-back-on-the-legacy-of-shaft-50-years-later#:~:text=The%20movie%20came%20out%20on,Shaft%22%20was%20a%20huge%20hit

Woods, Charles (2016), “What Blaxploitation could have been” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SUbhgQnXv0

Moore, Sarah (2021) Interview with Naoemi Lefebvre

Gates Raquel (2021) Watermelon Man: Melvin in Hollywoodland

Robinson, Jennifer (2021) The finesse of the Blaxploitation film genre rises with Cleopatra Jones flair