Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)

It seems we have reached a period of cinema where nostalgia marketing is at an all-time high. A good third of new releases are remakes, sequels, or re-imaginings of pre-existing successful films. It’s no secret that the motivation for reboots is easy money. The concept being if it was a hit once, it will be a hit again. Similarly, film studios have a habit of giving beloved films culturally sensitive ‘updates’ to concepts deemed unfavorable in retrospect. This is often accomplished by the text going out of its way to specifically call attention to the outdated messaging and the corrections being inserted.

So when I witnessed a trailer for a Shaft remake in 2019, I had to wonder, what themes would be considered in need of a 2019 makeover? I admit it could use a rework — the original movie’s plot is pretty flat, and the appeal basically hangs itself entirely around Shaft’s charisma. But to me, Shaft is most notably a time capsule of the Blaxploitation genre, which has a complicated past.

Depending on who you ask, it’s a film movement of either empowerment or demeaning exploitation. But undeniably, blaxploitation was a response to the lack of Black-centered stories in film. Prior to the 1970s, Black characters in film were either squeaky clean and morally perfect Sydney Poitier types, or worse, relegated to side characters who only served to uplift the white protagonist with little characterization of their own. Black directors such as Melvin Van Peebles took it upon themselves to provide an alternative to these sanitized, white-pleasing roles. In comes Marvin Van Peebles’ low-budget film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, a film “dedicated to the Brothers and Sisters who had enough of the man.” This also set the standard for most blaxploitation tropes: superstud badass protagonists, excessive violence, explicit sex scenes, inner-city crime — sometimes drug-related, all set to an ever-present funk/soul soundtrack.

But most importantly,Sweetbackis a story of a wise-cracking, ultra-cool Black man from a poor background who fights against police authorities and wins. This sentiment, working in tandem with the rise of the Black Power movement, would become a staple of the genre, and no doubt a part of its appeal to Black audiences — even to those who refuted the more exploitative elements.