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Home , BaadAsssss Cinema, Blaxploitation, Independent film, John Shaft, Shaft (franchise), Shaft (novel)

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NEITHER PG NOR P.C. The Era

hree of last sum- Actor Ron O’Neal, as Young- mer’s popular film blood Priest in Superfly (1972), makes a strong fashion statement. comedies—Barbershop, , and release and BBC broadcast are Austin Powers: Goldmem- scheduled for 2003. berT—recalled, in one way or Two 1971 films—the detec- another, the vital, action- tive movie , directed by packed, sexy, and short- the esteemed black photogra- lived 1970s film pher Jr., and known as “blaxploitation.” Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, The hilarious Undercover a profane, X-rated sexual Brother was a direct blax- romp through the underbelly ploitation send-up; Austin of ghetto life that was pro- Powers time-traveled to duced and directed by Melvin hook up with blaxploitation Van Peebles—launched the character Foxy Cleopatra; trend. The Black Panthers re- and Barbershop rekindled the quired members to watch debates on black political Sweetback, which, despite its correctness that eventually flaws, knocked Love Story o≠ doomed the earlier style. the top of box-o∞ce charts for Now a fourth film, the 50- two weeks. Sweetback, so un- minute documentary like anything before , BaadAsssss Cinema, describes stunned black . “In the era in the words of ac- the theater there was not a tors and directors who cre- sound,” recalls Van Peebles ated it. “There were no real on-screen. “You could have studies that took any of heard a rat pissing on cotton.” those films seriously,” says Previously, black characters— Isaac Julien, visiting lecturer especially baad black charac- in -American studies ters—did not “make it to the and visual and environmen- end of the movie,” he explains. tal studies, who directed “But Sweetback got away— BaadAsssss Cinema. “The films that never happened in a weren’t well received by the movie before.” black intelligentsia, but they were very which sponsored the $500,000 documen- Elvis Mitchell, an African-American popular with both audi- tary along with the Ford Foundation, film reviewer for , con- ences.” The Independent Channel, broadcast the film in November; a DVD sulted on Julien’s film and observes dur-

16 January - February 2003 Film stills courtesy of the Channel 95-5746. print information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-4 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For copyright and re Right Now

ing it, “In the mid 1970s, white cinema Goddess of sex, was about defeat. There was Nixon, sass, and strength: Pam there was Watergate, and feminism was Grier in Foxy making men rethink their roles. These Brown (1973, black movies had heroes who won—they inset) and today. could e≠ect change, they had charisma.” In an on-screen interview, actor Samuel NAACP L. Jackson says, “The black heroes were coined the antiheroes—they were pimps, drug term “blax- dealers, gangsters. But they were all ploitation.”) fighting against The Man.” Mitchell, “The seeds of however, remains clear-eyed about the black political correctness began to fact that the films were made “purely take hold; the black bourgeoisie was from a commercial impulse—to get as vaguely embarrassed about these many in the theater as humanly films,” says Julien. “There was a dou- possible.” ble standard in operation, penalizing That they did. Shaft, with its memorable the blaxploitation films while leaving score, grossed $12 million de- their white counterparts intact. Un- spite a shoestring budget estimated at fortunately, the discussion of how $500,000 to $1.5 million (star Richard these films work cinematically and Roundtree earned a mere $13,000). Some artistically never gets beyond the credit Shaft with saving MGM from bank- question of whether they show ruptcy. Superfly (1972), a film detailing the positive or images of black urban adventures of a cocaine dealer, was characters.” another hit. Studios woke up and smelled The blaxploitation era ended the cash. “What did was sup- around 1976, but its influence con- press the political message and add tinues. Actor Fred “The Hammer” caricature,” Van Peebles explains, “and Williamson convened a cinematic blaxploitation was born.” Soon, gangster- reunion of several top blaxploita- movie remakes using black actors, tion stars in Original Gangsters (1996) and through popular like hip-hop, like Black Caesar, and horror films, such director cast Pam they live on, almost in the unconscious.” as Blackenstein and , appeared. Grier as the title character of 1997’s Jackie craig lambert in Foxy Brown (1973) and Brown. Julien agrees with Tarantino that Tamara Dobson in (1973) there is “a certain Americanness at the isaac julien e-mail address: were African-American actresses center of these films that got lost. Still, [email protected] playing tough, sexy babes who set their own terms. 1,000 THINGS THAT DON’T WORK “On the surface, a film like Blacula is hysterical,” says Julien. “But if you decon- struct the film, it reveals, in a cinematic sense, the anxiety about race relations in The Power of Negative Thinking the .” Social messages were often present in an “underground code” oing science is always more fun bad batting averages, scientists often decipherable by black audiences, Mitchell when your predictions prove true learn from a good whi≠, says Hersey pro- explains. In one scene, for example, detec- and your experiments shine. Posi- fessor of cell biology Bjorn R. Olsen. Many tive cannot get a taxi, but a cab tive results are satisfying, signifi- experiments fail, or produce controver- that passes him by stops a block away for cant, even lucrative, and scientists sial, ambiguous, or unexpected results. a white fare. laborD long and hard to get them. Like For those who bravely—or accidentally— Organizations like the National Associ- baseball sluggers stepping up to the plate, go where few have gone before, Olsen and aton for the Advancement of Colored Peo- many scientists hope for home-run out- Christian Pfe≠er, a visiting research fel- ple and the Congress of Racial Equality comes and dread research slumps for low in pediatrics at Dana Farber Cancer and spokesmen like Jesse Jackson de- good reason: swing and miss too often Institute, have created the Journal of Nega- nounced blaxploitation cinema, despite and maybe your contract, or your funding, tive Results in Biomedicine to push such out- its popularity, for providing poor role won’t be renewed. comes into the mainstream. models to black youth. (In fact, the Although ball players can’t win with “The word ‘negative’ is a little bit

Harvard Magazine 17 95-5746. print information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-4 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For copyright and re