Blaxploitation was a genre of film which was made for black people, by black people, usually with a mostly black cast. It was the first genre to let African Americans represent themselves in films. In 1971 Gordon Parks directed a film that would blow the stereotype of African Americans in cinema out of the water. The film was called Shaft and starred Richard Roundtree as the streetwise detective John Shaft. It was the first blaxploitation film to gain critical recognition and was famous for putting the entire blaxploitation genre into the spotlight. Shaft’s character was an
Un-precedented demonstration of how black cinema had become as liberated, self reliant and powerful as it was at the time. He is nothing like Sam’s character in Casablanca; instead he is the exact opposite. He does not do what white people tell him to do, yet he upholds the law by being a detective. He is never seen ‘bowing down’ to the white man by referring to white people as ‘sir’ or ‘boss’ like Sam had done so frequently in Casablanca. In act, Shaft even insults people in the film by calling them “White mother F******”, and treats them with little or no respect if he bumps into a white person. He also makes fun of how the amount of African American respect for white people has deteriorated by saying “My negro friends don’t walk around with rabbits feet anymore”, which could be interpreted as him saying he’s sick of being like Sam’s character, and is ready to fight back with more than songs and hope (violence etc).
The mise en scene of the opening credits of the film also tells us exactly what Shaft is all about. You can tell from the first moment, when Shaft walks through traffic as if he is invincible and that he is a strong, larger than life character. The Isaac Hayes soundtrack boasts “Who is the man that would risk his neck for his brother man? - SHAFT!” and “Who is the black private dick who’s a sex machine to all the chicks? - SHAFT!” which tells us that Shaft is a very heroic, sexually active, racially aware man and that he is the main character of the film. The very fact that he is sexually active is also a first in cinema, seeing as black sexuality was often oppressed in the movie industry at the time. The sex scenes between Shaft and the white woman would have previously been illegal and unable to have been film because of the fact that African Americans and white people where not accepted by society to be seen to have sexual relationships. For example, a sex scene between a white and black person would have the same effect on an audience as seeing a scene from a video nasty horror film.
There are many reasons for this sudden change in representation. The main reason was that in the 1939-1945 world war, many African Americans lost their lives fighting for America and defending its freedom. This showed that African Americans where just as willing to die for their nation as the white Americans. Another reason for the sudden change in representation was the fact that more African Americans where following the teachings of such black revolutionaries such as Martin
Luther King Jr and Malcolm X. Martin Luther King preached that African Americans should integrate into white society and not succumb to racism anymore, but by peaceful means. Malcolm X, on the other hand, taught that African Americans should fight the white Americans and create there own separate society which could be self reliant and even more powerful than the white society. Malcolm X’s thoughts where that the white man was the ‘Devil’ and that African Americans should have no part what so ever in white society. They both preached that racism should end and that they should be able 2 speak for themselves and not always do what the white society told them to. They both also had a huge following among the African American society, and encouraged a lot of people to fight racism ‘by any means necessary’.
This was a major reason that African Americans wanted African Americans to represent themselves in cinema, and not let white people give false representations of them (such as ‘Sam’ in Casablanca). They felt that they wanted to be able to represent themselves in all forms in media, including films.
The effect of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King on black culture was extraordinary, especially to the young. The black panthers, a militant black revolutionary group, where extremely influential. At the 1968 Olympic games in New Mexico, two medallists raised there fists to do the Black Panther salute during the national anthem. This showed how powerful and liberated African Americans had become at the time. Celebrities and athletes had started to publicly declare their support for black revolutionaries, such as Muhammad Ali and Marlon Brando (who was also a Black Panther member). Muhammad Ali had even thrown his Olympic gold medal into a river in protest at the American government’s treatment of African Americans at the time. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King had brought new hope to African American culture and society, and helped them keep their heads up during a time of oppression. They both succeeded in giving them courage to do what they wanted, and not give in to the racial hatred at the time.
Nowadays, there are a lot of black directors who have made films directed at black audiences that have gained critical recognition in the mainstream to, for example The Hughes Brothers and Spike Lee. Also,
many black actors have now become the most successful in Hollywood and have the ability to choose whatever role they wish (Denzel Washington, Will Smith). Gone are the days that black people could only represent themselves as characters like Sam, they can now represent themselves as characters of authority like Police Officers (Training Day [2001]),Lawyers (Enemy Of The State [1998]), The president (Deep Impact [1998] and even god in the film Bruce Almighty [2003]. The biggest box office hit of 1997 was Men in Black, which starred Will Smith: a black actor. Samuel L Jackson is one of the most sought after black actors in Hollywood, and makes a lot more money than a lot of white actors.
