The bad*ss sub-genre of the 70s

Have you ever seen a Blaxploitation movie?

Have you ever heard of blaxploitation?

Okay so, an exploitation film is a type of low-budget movie that tries to succeed financially by exploiting current trends and presenting edgy content.

And a blaxploitation film is a sub-genre that emerged back in the '70s.

In these movies, black actors were no longer limited to just being sidekicks or playing the roles of victims. In blaxploitation films, they were the main characters.

They were clever, they embraced their sexuality, they had guns.

And they were unafraid of "the man."

Though these movies were originally just made for the urban audience, they generated mass appeal that surpassed ethnic lines. They proved to be extremely profitable.

For example, the original Shaft movie that debuted in 1971 had a budget of $500k and went on to produce $12M at the box office. After Hollywood saw this, the entire genre exploded, and tons of blaxploitation films were made and loved by people all across the country.

So what happened to blaxploitation movies?

Well, certain organizations felt that the characters in these movies were bad role models. They formed the “Coalition Against Blaxploitation” and their influence and all of their campaigning is ultimately caused the genre's demise.

Personally, I find this subgenre to be empowering and I think it’s the perfect time for a comeback.

-Felecia For The Win

Felecia is a software engineer by trade but a philosopher at heart who has amassed a following of over 500K on TikTok by talking about society. Felecia chats about social constructs, social experiments, social programming, and social psychology.