We here at Better Chatter hope you've enjoyed our celebration of blaxploitation across the nation. But we've barely touched on what makes these films so exciting, funny, thought-provoking, offensive, inspiring, tragic, etc, etc. To fully appreciate their power you must experience blaxploitation firsthand. We've comprised a brief list of some essential primers for further exploration. Get to know the themes, actors, and music. You will be rewarded. Plus, you'll feel cool as shit.
-Black Belt Jones (1974)
-Black Caesar (1973)
-Cleopatra Jones (1973)
-Coffy (1973)
-Cotton Comes To Harlem (1970)
-Dolemite (1975)
-The Mack (1973)
-Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil's Son-in-Law (1977)
-Shaft (1971)
-Superfly (1972)
-Sweet Sweetback's Badaaasss Song (1971)
-Three The Hard Way (1974)
Here's a trailer to get your juices flowin'. Enjoy.
Showing posts with label blaxploitation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blaxploitation. Show all posts
Friday, August 31, 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
He’s A Complicated Man
On a grey winter day in Michigan, I opened my locker and grabbed my sneakers for seventh-grade basketball practice. As Bobby Benke waited for me, he noticed a drawing I had done displayed prominently inside the locker door.
"Shaft, huh? It’s cool," he said. "You must really like the 70s."
"Dude, I can’t get enough of it," I replied.
After that, Bobby started to jokingly call me Shaft. Once he saw the depth of my obsession, it swiftly turned sincere and other people started calling me Shaft too. But the name didn’t truly become my identity until Sam Stewart muttered “Nice job out there Shaft” during a basketball game. Sam was arguably the coolest kid in school. He was also black. As an extremely lanky, dorky white kid, it should have felt strange. But it was like I had gotten his blessing to use this persona. By the end of seventh grade, 90% of my friends called me by my new nickname. With a little help, I even turned a Shaq basketball shirt into a Shaft badass shirt, which I wore anytime I exercised (its second incarnation is still in my possession). Only those who knew me well would refer to me as Shaft, like they had earned the honor. My genuine love and near obsession with blaxploitation films had spread throughout my middle school. Shaft and Bryan became one and the same.
By freshman year of high school, the nickname had all but disappeared. Only a few friends still referred to me as the beloved blaxploitation icon. It didn’t really bother me and became kind of an inside joke. Most of enormous East Kentwood High School weren’t aware of my former obsession, which had waned considerably at that point. But the name was still a part of me, and it was ready for a rebirth.
In the spring of ’97, my fellow freshman baseballers and I were set to order our warm-up jackets. We were told we could put our first name, last name, pretty much whatever we wanted on it. A couple buddies and I decided to be unique and put our nicknames. When the coach, a jovial fellow in his late twenties, saw my nickname, he couldn’t stop using it. The team then knew me exclusively as Shaft and called me it in school. It seemed like everyone who heard it started using it.
"How’s it goin’ Shaft?"
"What’d you get for Question #8, Shaft?"
"No, I won’t go out with you, Shaft."
The name I had loved and adored was bigger than ever. Friends, classmates, even people I barely knew called me Shaft. But it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as it had once been. When strangers used it, I wasn’t sure how to respond. Should I give them a knowing wink? Do I pretend to be their friend? Do I ignore them? I was no longer Shaft the ardent lover of blaxploitation, I was just some kid named Shaft. The name was bigger than I was and it felt like a gimmick. Unfortunately this lasted through high school, but as the peripheral friends left my life, so did the dilution of my nickname.
By college the nickname had another, more satisfying rebirth. Michigan State was teeming with my closest friends, who were the only ones using Shaft at that point. When others heard it, they knew it was very important to me, even asking if it was okay for them to use it. The name regained its honor and was again a true reflection of my personality. To this day I’m known as Shaft across the country and it’s a constant reminder of my youth, my obsessions, and my adoration of cool. It’s the greatest nickname I could have asked for. And as a dorky white boy from the Midwest, it’s completely ridiculous.
"Shaft, huh? It’s cool," he said. "You must really like the 70s."
"Dude, I can’t get enough of it," I replied.
After that, Bobby started to jokingly call me Shaft. Once he saw the depth of my obsession, it swiftly turned sincere and other people started calling me Shaft too. But the name didn’t truly become my identity until Sam Stewart muttered “Nice job out there Shaft” during a basketball game. Sam was arguably the coolest kid in school. He was also black. As an extremely lanky, dorky white kid, it should have felt strange. But it was like I had gotten his blessing to use this persona. By the end of seventh grade, 90% of my friends called me by my new nickname. With a little help, I even turned a Shaq basketball shirt into a Shaft badass shirt, which I wore anytime I exercised (its second incarnation is still in my possession). Only those who knew me well would refer to me as Shaft, like they had earned the honor. My genuine love and near obsession with blaxploitation films had spread throughout my middle school. Shaft and Bryan became one and the same.
By freshman year of high school, the nickname had all but disappeared. Only a few friends still referred to me as the beloved blaxploitation icon. It didn’t really bother me and became kind of an inside joke. Most of enormous East Kentwood High School weren’t aware of my former obsession, which had waned considerably at that point. But the name was still a part of me, and it was ready for a rebirth.
In the spring of ’97, my fellow freshman baseballers and I were set to order our warm-up jackets. We were told we could put our first name, last name, pretty much whatever we wanted on it. A couple buddies and I decided to be unique and put our nicknames. When the coach, a jovial fellow in his late twenties, saw my nickname, he couldn’t stop using it. The team then knew me exclusively as Shaft and called me it in school. It seemed like everyone who heard it started using it.
"How’s it goin’ Shaft?"
"What’d you get for Question #8, Shaft?"
"No, I won’t go out with you, Shaft."
The name I had loved and adored was bigger than ever. Friends, classmates, even people I barely knew called me Shaft. But it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as it had once been. When strangers used it, I wasn’t sure how to respond. Should I give them a knowing wink? Do I pretend to be their friend? Do I ignore them? I was no longer Shaft the ardent lover of blaxploitation, I was just some kid named Shaft. The name was bigger than I was and it felt like a gimmick. Unfortunately this lasted through high school, but as the peripheral friends left my life, so did the dilution of my nickname.
By college the nickname had another, more satisfying rebirth. Michigan State was teeming with my closest friends, who were the only ones using Shaft at that point. When others heard it, they knew it was very important to me, even asking if it was okay for them to use it. The name regained its honor and was again a true reflection of my personality. To this day I’m known as Shaft across the country and it’s a constant reminder of my youth, my obsessions, and my adoration of cool. It’s the greatest nickname I could have asked for. And as a dorky white boy from the Midwest, it’s completely ridiculous.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
A Brief Note on "Blaxploitation Week"
Yes, that's right. For one week only, Bryan and I are posting about our love of Blaxploitation and our memories of growing up watching and obsessing over it. Just to give you one idea of our longstanding passion for the genre: For almost 10 years, Bryan was called, almost exclusively, "Shaft" by his friends and loved ones. I am not making this up. Even his parents and grandparents got into it! Personally, I tried to go by "Dolemite" but, sadly, it never stuck...
So anyway, we're big fans. And, seeing as how the massive grant given to us by the Rockefeller Foundation stipulates we have to raise awareness of worthy causes, we decided there was no greater cause than getting every man, woman, and child to sit down and watch Melvin Van Peeble's classic film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
So c'mon, do us (and the Rockefellers) a favor and watch it already!
So anyway, we're big fans. And, seeing as how the massive grant given to us by the Rockefeller Foundation stipulates we have to raise awareness of worthy causes, we decided there was no greater cause than getting every man, woman, and child to sit down and watch Melvin Van Peeble's classic film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
So c'mon, do us (and the Rockefellers) a favor and watch it already!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Blaxploitation in the Basement
Growing up a middle class kid in the suburbs with enough money to get by but not enough to really spend on anything interesting, my weekends were filled by long walks with friends, atrocious pickup basketball, and Blaxploitation cinema.
Like so many of the things that I was interested in while in high school, I didn't realize until years later that most kids my age didn't posses my deep and abiding love for the 70's Blaxploitation era. They weren't interested in debating who was the greater star, Richard Roundtree or Rudy Ray Moore. They weren't calling themselves by nicknames like "Shaft" in middle school. And, this one is the hardest to believe, they weren't having long, complicated fantasies involving Pam Grier! Crazy...
For whatever reason, we almost always watched these movies in our friend Chris's basement. The FAYGO Red Pop (or, alternately, Rock n' Rye) flowed like wine. Although we generally stuck with black cinema of the early 70's, it was not uncommon for another later 70's film(such as a Zucker Brothers film like Kentucky Fried Movie) to slip in as well.
The personal highlight for me would have to be watching Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil's Son-in-Law.
A very difficult to explain movie, all I will say is that it prominently involves the devil, over-the-top slapstick comedy, and, without a doubt, the worst martial arts ever recorded on film. I will never lose the mental image of my friend Todd repeatedly falling to the floor, crying with laughter, during various scenes.
While its debatable whether we really "got" what was going on in the films, our joy and appreciation was certainly genuine. They were too dated and anachronistic to make us as feel as though we were doing the equivalent of co-opting hip-hop. Plus, we were too young to understand the political implications of the films. What we were, was a bunch of dumb white kids who stumbled into a world of cool far, far removed from any we had met before.
It would be impossible for me now to watch one of those films without thinking of a hundred different meta-questions about the genre and what it stood for cinematically, racially, and even in its generally cringe-inducing depiction of women. Still, the "Blaxploitation in the Basement" era is a nice reminder of a time when I had the luxury of enjoying a movie without a hint of self-consciousness or nostalgia or political concerns clouding the experience.
Oh yeah, and the music fucking ruled.
Like so many of the things that I was interested in while in high school, I didn't realize until years later that most kids my age didn't posses my deep and abiding love for the 70's Blaxploitation era. They weren't interested in debating who was the greater star, Richard Roundtree or Rudy Ray Moore. They weren't calling themselves by nicknames like "Shaft" in middle school. And, this one is the hardest to believe, they weren't having long, complicated fantasies involving Pam Grier! Crazy...
For whatever reason, we almost always watched these movies in our friend Chris's basement. The FAYGO Red Pop (or, alternately, Rock n' Rye) flowed like wine. Although we generally stuck with black cinema of the early 70's, it was not uncommon for another later 70's film(such as a Zucker Brothers film like Kentucky Fried Movie) to slip in as well.
The personal highlight for me would have to be watching Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil's Son-in-Law.
A very difficult to explain movie, all I will say is that it prominently involves the devil, over-the-top slapstick comedy, and, without a doubt, the worst martial arts ever recorded on film. I will never lose the mental image of my friend Todd repeatedly falling to the floor, crying with laughter, during various scenes.While its debatable whether we really "got" what was going on in the films, our joy and appreciation was certainly genuine. They were too dated and anachronistic to make us as feel as though we were doing the equivalent of co-opting hip-hop. Plus, we were too young to understand the political implications of the films. What we were, was a bunch of dumb white kids who stumbled into a world of cool far, far removed from any we had met before.
It would be impossible for me now to watch one of those films without thinking of a hundred different meta-questions about the genre and what it stood for cinematically, racially, and even in its generally cringe-inducing depiction of women. Still, the "Blaxploitation in the Basement" era is a nice reminder of a time when I had the luxury of enjoying a movie without a hint of self-consciousness or nostalgia or political concerns clouding the experience.
Oh yeah, and the music fucking ruled.
Monday, August 27, 2007
From Art to Exploitation
As an impressionable young middle schooler, I spent countless weekends perusing the Super Action section of my local Blockbuster. Here I discovered a world I became obsessed with. A world of inner-city struggle for countless African-Americans in the bleak and occasionally optimistic 1970s. They were films made by blacks for blacks with no regard to what wealthy white America thought. But I feel the film industry is now truly blaxploiting African-Americans.
The movies I grew up loving were gritty and dark and dealt with social issues like rampant drug use, racial tension between blacks and whites, and the Devil's family struggles. They were true indie films with only a lucky few getting adequate funding. They turned charismatic actors like Fred Williamson, Pam Grier, and Jim Kelly into stars, and not just among black communities. These groundbreaking films oozed cool, and easily had the funkiest soundtracks white people ever heard.
Today, there is a new type of blaxploitation. One that exploits blacks more than ever and lacks all the honesty the 70s films fought to convey. The recent film Who's Your Caddie? has a few African-Americans attempting to gain membership into a whiter-than-white country club. But each character perpetuates stereotypes I'm sure most people would like to dispel. I'm sure those involved with this film would like to think they're empowering African-Americans by having black heroes, but the jokes and observations never get past the surface stuff we're already aware of. And worst of all, Hollywood is luring talented people like Cedric the Entertainer of Big Boi of Outkast to star in these films. Who's Your Caddie? is counteracting the intelligent social commentary Big Boi and Andre 3000 have brought to mainstream America. Hollywood is trying to get all the money it can out of black-America while being more racist than ever before.
I'm sure most of you haven't seen Who's Your Caddie?, so keep not watching it. Though if you're looking for something interesting, raw, and at first a little strange, I advise you to find a Super Action section wherever you can. It might not be a genre you'll fall in love with, but I doubt you'll watch anything more indie anytime soon.
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