Kit & Co. 

In 1975, ABC aired a new type of crime drama that showcased the LAPD’s Special Weapons And Tactics division - otherwise known as S.W.A.T. This team functioned as the go-to squad to handle highly violent and dangerous situations. The leader of this team was Dan ‘Hondo’ Harrelson played by Steve Forrest, a Caucasian actor. It only lasted two seasons.

There is usually at least one Black actor on the principal cast of any given cop show. The 1975 version of S.W.A.T. featured Rod Perry as David ‘Deacon’ Kay. In 2003 they revived the franchise with a theatrical release. Having come off the success of Shaft, in this iteration, Hondo is played by Samuel L. Jackson.

To expand on Jackson’s version of Hondo, Shamar Moore was cast in the 2017 series as the leader of 20-Squad and ‘Deacon’ is played by non-melanated actor Jay Harrington. With producers Justin Lin (Fast And Furious) and Shawn Ryan, this series leans into the 21st century by making the team even more diverse and adds David Lim and Lina Esco. So now we have a “United Colors Of Bennetton” cast that reflects one of the most diverse cities in the US. All joking aside, the principal casting is a breath of fresh air. The guest stars were diverse as well, although the rest of S.W.A.T, not so much.

The stories are sentimentalized, melodramatic fare with impassioned acting - and sometimes overacting. There is sometimes this duality in the storytelling I picked up on throughout its run. While there was clearly some acknowledgement of diversity, there was still some racism and sexism baked in. I think the writers were trying to show how a person can grow to be more compassionate towards people who don’t look or believe like them. Great. However, there was confusion with some characterizations.

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 This is often accomplished by the text going out of its way to specifically call attention to the outdated messaging and the corrections being inserted.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.