What is Blaxploitation?

Discrimination & Race Relations Film History & Criticism

Dr. Sophie Raine

PhD, English Literature (Lancaster University)

Date Published: 23.04.2024,

Last Updated: 23.04.2024

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Table of contents

Definition and origins

Blaxploitation describes a wave of (often low-budget) films that cast Black actors in major roles and dealt predominantly with themes of crime, sex, drugs, violence, and racial conflict in an urban setting. In the 1970s, blaxploitation exploded onto the Hollywood screen, ushering in a new age of Black film stars and directors. These films were largely marketed to inner-city Black youth. While many of these were action films, blaxploitation also includes other genres such as the Western, like The Red, White, and Black (Cardos, 1970; later released under the name Soul Soldier) and horror such as William Crain’s Blacula (1972). For more on these genres, see Mia Mask’s Black Rodeo (2023) and Jamil Mustafa’s The Blaxploitation Horror Film (2023).

Many blaxploitation films follow the same template: a Black protagonist (usually a private detective, drug dealer, pimp, or vigilante) seeks vengeance on, or otherwise overcomes oppression from, white authority figures, typically using illegal or unorthodox methods to navigate white institutions.

The term “blaxploitation” (a portmanteau of black and exploitation) is credited to Junius Griffin, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as a criticism of this new wave of films which, he argued, were exploitative, violent, and contributing to Black stereotypes in cinema:

At present, black movies are a “rip off” enriching major white film producers and a very few black people. [...] Such films are the cancer of “Blaxploitation” gnawing away at the moral fiber of our community. (“Black Movie Boom: Good or Bad?” The New York Times, 1972)

Critics and activists debated over who was being exploited and by whom. Fred Williamson, star of blaxploitation films such as Black Caesar (Cohen, 1973) and Three the Hard Way (Parks Jr., 1974), made the following comments in the documentary Baadasssss Cinema (Julien, 2007):

NAACP and CORE [Congress of Racial Equality] – they’re the ones who created this terminology: black exploitation. That has to be clear, on the record. It came from them. It didn’t come from the white press. Who was being exploited? All the black actors were getting paid. They had a job. They were going to work. The audience wasn’t being exploited. They were getting to see things on their screen they’d longed for. (Quoted in Mikel J. Koven, Blaxploitation Films, 2010)

Blaxploitation Films

Mikel J. Koven

NAACP and CORE [Congress of Racial Equality] – they’re the ones who created this terminology: black exploitation. That has to be clear, on the record. It came from them. It didn’t come from the white press. Who was being exploited? All the black actors were getting paid. They had a job. They were going to work. The audience wasn’t being exploited. They were getting to see things on their screen they’d longed for. (Quoted in Mikel J. Koven, Blaxploitation Films, 2010)

Definition and origins

The emergence of the genre

Key characteristics

Black characters: heroes/heroines, gangsters, and vigilantes

Urban settings

Crime, violence, and action

Soundtrack

Iconic films

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971)

Shaft (1971)

Super Fly (1973)

Coffy (1973)

The legacy of blaxploitation

Further reading on Perlego

Bibliography

Filmography

Popular articles

Popular articles

Definition and origins

The emergence of the genre

Key characteristics

Black characters: heroes/heroines, gangsters, and vigilantes

Urban settings

Crime, violence, and action

Soundtrack

Iconic films

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971)

Shaft (1971)

Super Fly (1973)

Coffy (1973)

The legacy of blaxploitation

Further reading on Perlego

Bibliography

Filmography