Blaxploitation - Stereotypes

Stereotypes

The genre's role in exploring and shaping race relations in the US has been controversial. While some held that the Blaxploitation trend was a token of black empowerment, the movies were accused by others of perpetuating common white stereotypes about black people. As a result, many called for the end of the genre. The NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and National Urban League joined together to form the Coalition Against Blaxploitation. Through their influence, during the late 1970s, they contributed to the demise of the genre.

Blaxploitation films such as Mandingo (1975) provided mainstream Hollywood producers, in this case Dino De Laurentiis, a cinematic way to depict plantation slavery, with all of its brutal, historic and ongoing racial contradictions and controversies, including sex, miscegenation, rebellion and so on. In addition, the story world depicts the plantation as one of the main origins of boxing as a sport in the U.S. In the early 1990s, a new wave of acclaimed black filmmakers focused on black urban life in their movies, particularly Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing and John Singleton's Boyz n the Hood, among others. These films made use of elements of Blaxploitation, but also incorporated implicit criticism of the genre's glorification of stereotypical "criminal" behavior.

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Famous quotes containing the word stereotypes:

    There are certain stereotypes that are offensive. Some of them don’t worry me, though. For instance, I have always thought that Mammy character in Gone with the Wind was mighty funny. And I just loved “Amos ‘n’ Andy” on the radio. So you see, I have enough confidence in myself that those things did not bother me. I could laugh.
    Annie Elizabeth Delany (b. 1891)

    All stereotypes turn out to be true. This is a horrifying thing about life. All those things you fought against as a youth: you begin to realize they’re stereotypes because they’re true.
    David Cronenberg (b. 1943)

    There is a striking dichotomy between the behavior of many women in their lives at work and in their lives as mothers. Many of the same women who are battling stereotypes on the job, who are up against unspoken assumptions about the roles of men and women, seem to accept—and in their acceptance seem to reinforce—these roles at home with both their sons and their daughters.
    Ellen Lewis (20th century)