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With an ever burgeoning urban black audience forming a potentially lucrative niche in cinema, the 'Blaxploitation' genre (portmanteau of "black" and "exploitation") found its greatest expansion in the early 70's supporting and expressing African-American culture after consensus departed the turbulent 60's era of civil rights. There are wonderfully expressive titles like “Black Sisters Revenge", "She Devils in Chains", "Black Devil Doll From Hell" or the homage-related "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka".
It was common to tweak previous genres, like horror, by adjusting the narrative and replacing characters by featuring black leads spawning titles like Blackenstein, Blacula and Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde. The crossovers extended to mostly crime-thrillers with outlaws and hustlers plus empowered protagonists often played by Melvin Van Peebles, retired football great Jim Brown, Richard Roundtree (Shaft), and Fred "The Hammer" Williamson. Notable was the casting for strong female characters portrayed by, genre-defining, Pam Grier (Coffy, Foxy Brown, Friday Foster), Teresa Graves (Get Christie Love!), Playboy Playmate Jeanne Bell (T.N.T. Jackson), Tamara Dobson (titular character of Cleopatra Jones and Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold) who were often overcoming "The Man" in the guise of an oppressive system.
Blaxploitation can be fairy broad frequently crossing-over and embracing other genres such as prison films (Jamaa Fanaka's Penitentiary trilogy, The Big Bird Cage, Women in Cages etc.), westerns (Boss, Kid Vengeance, Adiós Amigo), martial arts (Black Belt Jones, Bamboo Gods and Iron Men, Soul Brothers of Kung Fu, Black Samurai), sexploitation (Black Hooker, Passion Plantation, Black Emanuelle 2, Black Lolita), even extending to Nazisploitation (The Black Gestapo) and a few musicals (The Breakin' films, and Sparkle).
Music is less definable but can usually feature disco cuts, soul, funk and jazz soundtracks sometimes with Caribbean influences. Notable numbers can be heard by James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, Marvin Gaye as well as rhythmic instrumentals with deep bass chords.
Fans appreciate the infused revisited Blaxploitation conventions in the modern work of, champions of the genre like, Quentin Tarrantino and recently in 2018's, unfortunately panned, Proud Mary.
Quite a few of the more grassroots Blaxploitation films have either uncontested rights or have slipped into the Public Domain with multiple production companies releasing on poor quality DVDs. On the positive, I was pleased to see that Warner Archive have released quite a few in their usual decent SD transfers; The Grasshopper, The Hit Man, Melinda, The Slams, Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold, The Split, and ...tick... tick... tick...
There are quite a few Blaxploitation Blu-rays released with Vinegar Syndrome, Arrow, Code Red and Olive taking the lead in supporting the genre in HD.
Blaxploitation is one of the more collectable cycles with plenty of cult favorites residing in many fan's digital collections. We've listed almost 200 below as well as a recommended documentary;
Baadasssss
Cinema - A Bold Look at 70's Blaxploitation Films (found in our Documentary Section HERE.) We've also added a Book Section and some desirable Posters and will update this page as necessary, jive turkey. |
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