De’Angelo Epps
Primary source essay
4/20/17
Blaxploitation is a film genre that branches off from the exploitation film genre and came to light in the 1970’s right here in the United States of America. This genre uses certain stereotypes and caricatures of the African American population to aim at the black population (mostly those with a more lower middle class urban background) and “empower” the race. These films primarily were based in a setting of poverty in southern urban neighborhoods and featured tons of funk and jazz in every soundtrack. The antagonists were usually followed the model of a racist white man or white group.This was to set up a theme for black empowerment and give a righteous tone to the movie so the crowds of viewers
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These movies were full of sexy and over exaggerated stereotypes of the African American race that painted the masses in a bad light which angered the black population who were dealing with the Civil Rights movement at the time. While the hero of your everyday white film would be someone like Superman, or some larger than life cowboy these movies portrayed pimps, thugs, and hookers as the heroes and main focus. They also had these black characters performing larger than life acts of revenge and heroics against their white foes which angered many due to some seeing these things as a mockery. Some members of black audiences fed up with various racially driven hate crimes viewed these movies as a bad joke thinking things along the lines of,”A real black wouldn’t get away with doing something like that to any white. Later on however we find the influence and success of these films had positive effects as well.
With the huge success of blaxploitive films such as Shaft and Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song the genre wasn’t going anywhere. This meant more and more blaxploitation films were right on the horizon. This opened the way for the 1975 movie Mandingo to burst on the scene and was one of the first cracks at depicting the horrible life of a slave