Blaxploitation

Although the films of the Blaxploitation era were popular among Black and White audiences, the films reified negative representations of Black culture and life. All of these images, whether aggressive, violent, animalistic, or emasculated, point to the dehumanization of Black men in…

As a minority, living in a world surrounded by racism and stereotypes can be very difficult to face. Many males believe that to become accepted by society, they must possess typical masculine qualities. According to modern culture these traits include strength, defiance, and assertiveness. These characteristics, however, are misrepresentations of black masculinity, and should not be a factor when defining men. A perfect example of how inequality deeply affects social interaction and developing…

screenwriting, and social nuance. 1967 was the year that also saw Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Kramer, 1967), In The Heat of The Night (Jewison, 1967), and Hurry Sundown (Preminger, 1967) cement the careers of Sidney Poitier and Diahann Carroll. Poitier and Carroll were among a handful of actors to appear in major Hollywood productions that addressed themselves to the blackness of the actors, while suggesting accommodation of their civil rights environs. With the contemplation of mixed…

Towbin, Mia Adessa, Shelley A. Haddock, Tony Schindler Zimmerman, Lori K. Lund, and Litsa Renee Tanner. “Images of Gender, Race, Age, and Sexual Orientation in Disney Feature-Length Animated Films.” Journal of Feminist Family Therapy 15.4 (2004): 19-44. Taylor & Francis Group. Web. 9 Oct. 2015. The authors are associated with the Colorado State University Human Development and Family Studies Department; two are professors. The purpose of the article is to analyze the way race, gender, age, and…

The films centers primarily around black subculture and gangs. A key theme of the film is that the community must use the same violence as gangs do, if they want to get of the gangs. Original Gangstas was directed by Larry Cohen (1996) and is a Blaxploitation film, a type of film genre that cast black actors in low budget films that would target a black audience, which centers on gang violence in Gary, Indiana in the mid 1990’s. The films starts out explaining how the gangs were formed due to…

“The genre received its appellation of blaxploitation from Griffin, who argued that these films exploited African Americans and offered no redeeming aesthetic or cultural value” (Sims,…

In the movie Get Out directed by Jordan Peele, he uses influences from the essay “Blaxploitation Horror Films: Generic Reappropriation or Reinscription” which is centralized around the ideals of white supremacy and racism in America, and how that has changed over time. According to Harry Benshoff, “The social and political meanings of the race, of course, are not fixed but are matters of ongoing construction and contestation ” (Benshoff, 3) Racism and the ideas behind slavery have constantly…

Many people know about African Americans in the film industry, but not many know about the path they had to take to get there. African American films have always played a significant role in my family. We loved to see films that make us laugh, but also ones that revealed more about the history of our race, especially since my distant cousin Pearl Bailey starred in many of those motion pictures. The fact that my cousin worked in film during a time that African Americans were looked down upon in…

The American Film industry, even in the 1940’s, was thought to be a progressive space full of liberal ideologies and access to diversity, but unfortunately, this was not the case for African Americans, especially pre-dating the Civil Rights Movement.“Classical Hollywood, in its role as America’s dream factory largely maintained the myth of Black inferiority while minimizing America’s long history of racial injustice.”African Americans were discriminated against in all areas of society, including…

Prostitution Should Be Legalized. Today, prostitution has mostly negative stigmas added to it, which could be believed to come from many of the Blaxploitation movies that gave an idea of pimp and ho culture. These movies showed situation where women would be taken advantage of and tricked into become prostitutes, and they would be disrespected and beaten. But even though some of these tragic scenarios have become reality. This isn’t the only environment that prostitution is found and…