Where on campus can you find Pam Grier as a vengeful nurse? Shaft and Superfly? The Blaxploitaton Film Series, co-sponsored by the African American Center and the Africa and the New World minor, will bring these figures to campus over the next two months.
"This particular film series is looking at the production of black films in America," said Lisa Coleman, director of the African American Center, speaking about the six installments chosen for the series.
So what exactly is blaxploitation? The term refers to a cultural film explosion that lasted from 1970 to 1980, consisting of over 200 films released by major independent studios that featured black main characters and themes. At Tufts, the "Blaxploitation" series will feature hits like Shaft and relatively unknown classics like Coffy, starring Pam Grier.
"We picked some really popular films, but we also picked ones that were not as well known but are really important to this film genre," says Kalahn Taylor-Clark, a graduate student at the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences who helped helped organize the program.
Blaxploitation is a term "particularly used to describe a series of films that are trying to deal with some of the stereotypical images of the past," said Coleman. "Things like black people being represented as mammies, butlers, those kinds of things."
Still, Coleman recognizes the stereotypes and detrimental images of the black community the films foster. "Their depictions of women are highly problematic, as are their depictions of some of the black males as pimps or drug dealers," she said. These paradoxes eventually brought about the genre's downfall.
Blaxploitation films crossed the borders between movie genres. Before the 1970s, blacks had traditionally portrayed subservient roles in films, such as train porters and waitresses. But all that changed with the advent of Melvin Van Peebles' groundbreaking film, Sweetback's Baadassss Song. It was the first commercially successful black theme film depicting a black man coming out on top of the establishment.
Although blaxploitation films were popular with the general public, they promoted the negative image of blacks as gangsters, drug dealers, pimps, and thugs. Ironically, Hollywood exploited the black actors who played these seemingly groundbreaking roles. Nevertheless, the films served an important cultural function for the black community, both economically and culturally.
"Simultaneously, it's one of the only times in history where you have black producers, directors, and actors in the film. So, it is practically the only moment in history where you have an inordinate amount of black people who are actually employed in all the different sites in film production," Coleman said, describing the dichotomous nature of blaxploitation films.
Coleman and Taylor-Clark recognize the negative, as well as the positive elements of the blaxploitation film movement. "It's important because it shows how blacks in the United States are viewed through the media and through their own eyes, in a way, because they're also creating the movies and are in the movies," said Taylor-Clark. "It's also important to see how that changes and how the stereotypes change."
Both Coleman and Taylor-Clark serve as organizers and moderators for the weekly film events. "Blaxploitation" is one of several film series sponsored by the African American Center. Past film series have included South African film and Afro Latino film.
"All the film series are used to look at blacks in the Diaspora," Coleman says. In this aspect, the film series serves as an important link to the Africa and the New World minor.
The films will be shown Wednesday nights in Olin 12, except for tonight's showing, which will take place in Anderson Hall's Nelson Auditorium.
