Blog post I didn't post because I didn't like it part 2: blaxploitation films

After reading Simeon's very well written post on the similarities of undercover brother and Mumbo Jumbo, I remembered recalled one of my favorite movies Black Dynamite. Black Dynamite is also a satire of blaxploitation films that were made popular with the release of Shaft in 1971. In the movie we see an action packed ride as Black Dynamite, a smooth talking, jive, kung-fu master played by Michael Jai White. The movie follows the typical blaxploitation style plot; the lead finds some plot by the white man to take down the black man and stop them from ever getting out of the ghetto. Our hero Black Dynamite comes to the rescue to kick but and get the orphans off smack. This was some a very good example of a blaxploitation movie as it contained all the similar plot circumstances and circumstances that would be expected in the genre, but it goes out of its way to mock the stereotypes that are magnified by the genre. I'm losing focus, but this is a good very funny satire of blaxploitation films. It shows the played up black stereotypical hero identity that was rose up after Shaft very well. I believe Ishamel Reed was also swept up in this wave of cultural definement and was at the forefront of bringing back this strong sense of black identity along with the black exploitation films may have attempted to do as his book was released in 1972. However, I believe that Ishamel Reed definitely made a much better version of a played up black culture movement then the black exploitation movement did.