Black Exploitation in Film.
Representation in Shaft
Introduction
This essay will look at two main points on representation, in a pre-determined ten-minute clip of Shaft, firstly cultural representation which in this case is focused on the emergence of the Blaxploitation (Black-exploitation) genre. Then the representation of women and how their gender status affects the film’s narrative, and characters and how the film portrayed both points.
1971 found the emergence of successful Afro-American film producers such as Gordon Parks (1912-2006) with Shaft (1971) and Melvin Van Peebles with his earlier release of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), between them ushering the start of a new film genre, Blaxploitation. With Shaft being “amongst the twenty highest grossing films of the year with retails of $6.1 million, and was accompanied by an award winning soundtrack, best selling soundtrack.” (William L & Hammond M. Contemporary American Cinema, p.188). Although African-American film producers had a lot of input in the earlier Blaxploitation genre, later production had less input and it also led to the demise of the genre by the end of the 1970s.
Cultural representation
Shaft defies previous ‘black cinema’, with black protagonist being the good guy, with a less politically originated militant black figure, like those in Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971). Shaft is contradiction in its cultural representation as it debunks earlier ‘Black cinema’ film by not having the lead protagonist as militant, angry individual out to get the white man as was a popular depiction of previous black characters. Instead “The hero may well be a powerful masculine presence, however, the image of militant Black man has gone.” (Hayward S (2006) Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, p.48). With the emergence of such movements as the Black Panthers in the 1960s it was hard not to draw from these powerful men in black history with their fierce ideologies and pride. Though the character Shaft has a
Introduction
This essay will look at two main points on representation, in a pre-determined ten-minute clip of Shaft, firstly cultural representation which in this case is focused on the emergence of the Blaxploitation (Black-exploitation) genre. Then the representation of women and how their gender status affects the film’s narrative, and characters and how the film portrayed both points.
1971 found the emergence of successful Afro-American film producers such as Gordon Parks (1912-2006) with Shaft (1971) and Melvin Van Peebles with his earlier release of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), between them ushering the start of a new film genre, Blaxploitation. With Shaft being “amongst the twenty highest grossing films of the year with retails of $6.1 million, and was accompanied by an award winning soundtrack, best selling soundtrack.” (William L & Hammond M. Contemporary American Cinema, p.188). Although African-American film producers had a lot of input in the earlier Blaxploitation genre, later production had less input and it also led to the demise of the genre by the end of the 1970s.
Cultural representation
Shaft defies previous ‘black cinema’, with black protagonist being the good guy, with a less politically originated militant black figure, like those in Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971). Shaft is contradiction in its cultural representation as it debunks earlier ‘Black cinema’ film by not having the lead protagonist as militant, angry individual out to get the white man as was a popular depiction of previous black characters. Instead “The hero may well be a powerful masculine presence, however, the image of militant Black man has gone.” (Hayward S (2006) Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, p.48). With the emergence of such movements as the Black Panthers in the 1960s it was hard not to draw from these powerful men in black history with their fierce ideologies and pride. Though the character Shaft has a