Blaxploitation is a film genre that emerged in the United States in the early 1970s 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 were the first to feature soundtracks of funk and soul music. These films starred primarily black actors. Variety magazine credited Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song with the invention of the ...
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Blaxploitation is a film genre that emerged in the United States in the early 1970s 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 were the first to feature soundtracks of funk and soul music. These films starred primarily black actors. Variety magazine credited Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song with the invention of the blaxploitation genre. Others argue that the Hollywood-financed film Shaft is closer to being blaxploitation, and thus, is more likely to have begun the genre.
When set in the Northeast or West Coast of the U.S., Blaxploitation films tend to take place in the ghetto, dealing with hit men, drug dealers and pimps. The genre frequently takes place in an atmosphere of crime and drug-dealing. Ethnic slurs against whites (e.g. "honky"), and negative white characters like corrupt cops, politicians, women of ill-repute and easily fooled organized crime...
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