- Joined
- May 25, 2013
Back in the early 1970s, there was a film movement called Blaxploitation, in which films were created with the specific goal of targeting the black audience, which, after the Civil Rights Movement of the late 60s, was in the media spotlight. Some people believe it was to empower black people, but for the most part, when looked back upon, a lot people consider it to be a giant display of tokenism, and if anything helped to cement the idea of black stereotypes in white audiences. This isn't to say that smarter people didn't come around to reevaluate the genre and rebuild some really interesting concepts from it, but the core concept back when it first started, while maybe with some good intentions, was essentially a cash grab by movie studios who A) didn't understand black culture; and B) didn't care to understand it so long as they were making money.
Fast forward roughly about 40-45 years, and I am seeing a similar trend except for women and it is also a significantly lazier attempt. Women are having more prominent roles in films, but the ones that are getting the most attention are literally remakes of existing movies like "Ghostbusters," "Ocean's Ocho" and "Splash." It feels like Hollywood is doing the exact same thing they attempted in the 70s, except not even bothering to try make anything new or creative or embracing anything except outright shilling and kvetching about oppression online. Maybe the later movies like the ones I mentioned above will be okay, but if Ghostbusters is to be the archetype, and it does nothing but enforce the stereotypes it had within (the sassy black lady who literally gloms onto the white folk, the abrasive self-obsessed fat lady, the eccentric lesbian, and the mousey nymphomaniac), then I have little hope for any progress in Chixploitation films.
