Riley, Clayton. "A Black Movie for White Audiences :A Black Critic's View of 'Shaft'. " New York Times (1857-Current file) [New York, N.Y.] 25 Jul 1971,D13. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2004). ProQuest. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia, PA. 9 Apr. 2008

 

In this article, a little over 2 months removed from his glowing review of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, Clayton Riley laments the light bulb that inevitably flashed above the heads of Hollywood executives following Sweetback’s commercial success. This light bulb was the beginning of the genre known as blaxploitation. Riley begins earnestly with the line “amusement is a cheap high: being entertained means never having to face the truth.” In this article, he blasts the recently released Shaft, calling it a depiction of a false premise that has no bearing or purpose in the current realm of race relations in America. In other words, it is a giant step backwards. He is disgusted at the new “Hip Black Movie” that serves to deceive and set the Black race back while the White race watches and laughs in mockery. While he respects the director, Gordon Parks, he immediately decides that Shaft lacks both “style and substance.” Since the white private investigator was revealed in the 60s to be a “champion of nothing but his own petty interests”, Riley envisioned that the studios attempted to start over with a Black private dick, which apparently makes it OK. He realizes Shaft will be well received because it creates an image of black men as “noncompetitors” with the farcical, unrealistic depiction of John Shaft that makes white people laugh at the idea that he could be real. Sweetback, he said, on the other hand, resembles “a reality that is black…we may not want him to exist but he does”. White people don’t fear Shaft but they fear Sweetback, which makes this film so disgusting to him.  Even more disgusting is that many black people bought the premise without question.

 

This is an interesting comparison between the two movies – one independently produced and the other produced by studio giant MGM. Melvin Van Peebles, the director of Sweetback, claims that John Shaft was originally a white character, changed to a black character after the success of his film. Inevitably, a character that is accepted by white society ended up on the screen, much to the chagrin of some of the black audience. This article is important in its distinction of Sweetback from the blaxploitation films that followed. Sweetback is NOT a blaxploitation film. However, the films that followed exploited its success and enraged black film critics everywhere, perpetuating a fantasy that had no place in the minds of black youth.

Thompson, Dave. "Blaxploitation: Funk Goes to the Movies." Funk. San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2001. p. 207-213.

Note: this is an essay, not a chapter, from Dave Thompson's book Funk.

The essay begins talking about the recent 2000 re-release of Shaft with Samuel L. Jackson and how the accompanying score had changed from Isaac Hayes’ iconic funk soundtrack to the “urban dance” of R. Kelly, Outkast, and Too $hort. However, back in the early 1970s, the media created narrow stereotypical genres for anything outside the mainstream musical scene and thus, blaxploitation wasn’t just a film movement but a music movement and way of life as well. It originated outside the Hollywood system, where most black actors and directors felt relegated to before the blaxploitation boom. Although blaxploitation was categorized under the B-movie moniker, its connection to the large counterculture of dissatisfied, young, black people gave it a larger impact than your typical B-movie films (i.e. horror, etc.). The “A movies” featured black stars. However, they didn’t address the black audience. Blaxploitation arose out of black society’s need to be represented on screen.

Thomson introduces Melvin Van Peebles and Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song as the answer to that problem. After detailing the production and financial troubles encountered by Van Peebles, he goes into the distribution of the film. However, because only two theaters played it on the opening weekend and nobody would advertise or review it, it was ignored by the media. Additionally, there was no publicity money left over from production, so Van Peebles had to use the "dynamite" soundtrack (recorded by then-unknown Earth Wind & Fire) in order to create awareness for his film. This was the first time that a soundtrack was used to market a film – something that is quite common now. The blaxploitation films that came after would follow suit, each with its own funky soundtrack – Shaft had Isaac Hayes, Superfly had Curtis Mayfield. The essay then describes summarizes the plot of several blaxploitation movies (since it is, after all, in a book about music).

This is relevant because it transformed the way many films are advertised. Instead of going through the traditional avenues of trailers and critical reviews, Van Peebles used funk, the music of the streets at that time, to get the message out that a corresponding movie that was just as funky was playing. With the success of the album, more distributors decided to show the film and eventually, it became the highest grossing independent film ever (at that point). Thus, the distribution and advertisement of this film serves as a reminder to the mainstream of culture's power to create an underground success based solely on word of mouth and music.

Ebert, Roger. "New Jack City". Chicago Sun-Times Online and RogerEbert.com. 1 May 1991. .

This Roger Ebert review of Mario Van Peebles’ New Jack City (1991) shows how far black urban cinema has come in the 20 years since his father Melvin’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971). In contrast to the heroic drug dealers of the early blaxploitation era (i.e. Priest in Superfly), Ebert acknowledges that Wesley Snipes’ character of Nino, a ruthless head of a cocaine business, does not lead the seductive lifestyle of his cinematic drug dealing predecessors. He calls the film a “character study of a bad man running an evil business…written and directed with concern – apparently after a lot of research and inside information.” The urgency in this movie reflects that of Sweetback’s energetic frenzy, albeit with a different message and different consequences. Like his father, Mario does not play it safe, “taking chances to give his film an authentic and gritty feel.” Ultimately, Ebert summarizes the film as a “painful but true portrait of the impact of drugs on this segment of the black community.” He says the excitement of portraying a drug dealer on screen makes it difficult to make an antidrug movie, but this movie pulls it off.

This review is very important to understand the timeline, context, and ultimate consequences of Hollywood’s blaxploitation movement, started by the independent film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. The Hollywood films that followed, like 1971's Superfly and Shaft, portrayed a black urban fantasy. In the case of Superfly, it is a heroic cocaine dealer who ends up using his “ghetto smarts” to outsmart “the Man” while confiding his despair in accepting that the only way for him to “make it” is to sell coke. As his partner says, “it’s the hand ‘the Man’ dealt us.” In the case of Shaft, there is the idea of an in-your-face sexual, cocky, hip black private detective that is embraced by white culture as the new black "answer." Comical to white viewers but dangerously desireable to black viewers. Both films – and the blaxploitation genre in general – exploit the black fantasy that with the “ghetto smarts” and current culture of drug dealing and other criminal activity at their disposal, they can outsmart and ultimately defeat “the Man.” Sweetback helped create and perpetuate this myth with a black folk hero that kills two cops who were beating up a young Black Panther that eventually emerges victorious when he escapes to Mexico. Are we supposed to cheer? The exploitation of this black fantasy – blaxploitation – has created this myth that ultimately holds down black urban culture. When violence against authority and drug dealing are glorified with a sense of pride, the actual impact on the community takes a back seat to the fantasy of the ghetto revolution. Mario Van Peebles’ New Jack City ironically shows the damage on the black community from his father’s ghetto lifestyle glorification. It shows how the liberating feeling of making a blaxploitation film paradoxically imprisoned millions of urban youths in a fantasy that has no bearing or practical use in the real world.