Blaxploitation Movie Project

Welcome to the Blaxploitation Movie Project here at Cinemageddon. Blaxploitation is a film genre that emerged in the United States in the early 1970's when many exploitation films were made that targeted the urban black audience; the word itself is a portmanteau of the words “black” and “exploitation.” Blaxploitation films starred primarily black actors, and were the first to feature soundtracks of funk and soul music. Variety magazine credited Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song with the invention of the blaxploitation genre,although others concede that because the film was conceived and produced independently and directed by a black filmmaker, the Hollywood-financed film Shaft is closer to being blaxploitation, and thus, is more likely to have begun the genre.

Almost all blaxploitation films featured exaggerated sexuality and violence. When set in the North or West Coast of the U.S., they tended to take place in the ghetto and dealt with pimps, drug dealers, and hit men. In all these films, it was common to see drugs, the Afro hairstyle, “pimpmobiles,” and negative white characters, often corrupt police officers and government officials, along with drug dealing organized crime members who were easily fooled. These characters were often referred to by various ethnic slurs, most often “honky”. When set in the South, the movies most often took place on a plantation and dealt with slavery and miscegenation.

Following the lead of Sweet Sweetback, many of these films featured funk soundtracks with heavy bass, funky beats and wah-wah guitars. This style of music actually evolved into a bona-fide musical genre, also called blaxploitation. Prominent examples of this style include Curtis Mayfield's Superfly and Isaac Hayes' Shaft.

At the same time, the films also stereotyped blacks, the audience they aimed to appeal to, as pimps and drug dealers. This dovetailed with common white stereotypes about black people, and as a result many called for the end of the blaxploitation genre. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Urban League joined together to form the Coalition Against Blaxploitation. Backed by many black film professionals, this group received much media exposure and hastened the death of the genre by the late 1970s.

UPDATE: This project is now under the supervision of ShadyGuy. If you have any questions or remarks regarding the Blaxploitation project you can PM him.

Here is an extensive and ever growing list of blaxploitation films. If you have any movie or OST from this list please upload it and add this line to your torrent description:

[url=http://cinemageddon.org/doku/doku.php?id=projects:blaxploitation_movie_project][img=http://cinemageddon.org/cauldron/blaxWIKI-banner2.jpg][/url]

Also please don't forget to update the completion table when you add a download to the wiki.

While the blaxploitation era came to an end in the late 70s a few movies appeared that were heavily influenced by this genre. These are listed below. Movies in this category can be freely added as they are found, since they're of interest to enthusiasts, but they will not receive a bonus.

Here's a list of documentaries that might be of interest to blaxploitation enthusiasts.