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Some of the more explicit Blaxploitation films do not make the most common themes of these kinds of movies central to the plot. The best of them nod at the traditional issues that abound in black exploitation movies, mostly those that are made making use of things that surround the culture and society of African Americans. Unlike the general exploitation genre, however, this is does not have derogatory underpinnings.
One film could have gotten to a level that would have been a cut above the best of these epics. This was the 1972 movie Trick Baby, based on an eponymous novel by the author Iceberg Slim, then a leading light in black writing. Whereas the novel is an intense tale of the underworld, the film wasted the potential by being, as one critic put it, watered down.
This movie is about two friends living and operating in Philadelphia, where they make a living deceiving people. The characters are called Blue Howard and White Folks, and being half white, folks could be somebody that is white. This fact helps them in their adventures to con people, and the movie is about their plan for their biggest con to date.
Of course racial dynamics propel the plot here, and these are mostly a given from a novel that was based on the real experiences of author Slim, a former pimp before he made bestselling novelist in the African American writing genre. These are delineated well enough in this film, although black men themselves who watched the central role of Folks were let down. Again, there was a lack of intensity and nothing of masculinity present in a half white character.
White Folks is the product of a black woman who had a baby from a white customer, thus the title. The accident of birth becomes the locus through which both film and book moves, although in the movie the intensity was seen as lacking. Production went ahead to complete a feature that works with subjects easily told through the visual medium.
In this regard, this feature can be explained, because to intensify or deepen the focus on Folks would have made some people squirm. With the lack of honest friction or real issues about racial conflict, the movie went on to become a somewhat feel good crime movie that dissolved the issues out of hard focus. The theme of black crime might have been well told, if not for the way the focus became the driver for the film.
Movies always tend to dehumanize a story so that the visual language becomes the moving element for any moviegoer. This defect is still present in modern entertainment industry, no matter the many new, great films that have supposedly transcended this lack. Mostly, the industry helps create movies that in the end only have that undercurrent of a hustle, a con that exploits the public.
The plan hatched by the conspirators is complicated by a former crime that involved a Mafia relative. This final nod to the cliche film ending is something that will turn a critics stomach, and this is perhaps the gamble. Perhaps the real point behind this work is the bid to become an impactful sensation.
The director for the movie was Larry Yust, who soft focused the many things that could have made it unacceptable with the general public. This organism is a very sensitive one that also allows and condones so many blasphemies. The Blaxploitation film can be very discomforting, and so the elements that make it so are often taken out.
One film could have gotten to a level that would have been a cut above the best of these epics. This was the 1972 movie Trick Baby, based on an eponymous novel by the author Iceberg Slim, then a leading light in black writing. Whereas the novel is an intense tale of the underworld, the film wasted the potential by being, as one critic put it, watered down.
This movie is about two friends living and operating in Philadelphia, where they make a living deceiving people. The characters are called Blue Howard and White Folks, and being half white, folks could be somebody that is white. This fact helps them in their adventures to con people, and the movie is about their plan for their biggest con to date.
Of course racial dynamics propel the plot here, and these are mostly a given from a novel that was based on the real experiences of author Slim, a former pimp before he made bestselling novelist in the African American writing genre. These are delineated well enough in this film, although black men themselves who watched the central role of Folks were let down. Again, there was a lack of intensity and nothing of masculinity present in a half white character.
White Folks is the product of a black woman who had a baby from a white customer, thus the title. The accident of birth becomes the locus through which both film and book moves, although in the movie the intensity was seen as lacking. Production went ahead to complete a feature that works with subjects easily told through the visual medium.
In this regard, this feature can be explained, because to intensify or deepen the focus on Folks would have made some people squirm. With the lack of honest friction or real issues about racial conflict, the movie went on to become a somewhat feel good crime movie that dissolved the issues out of hard focus. The theme of black crime might have been well told, if not for the way the focus became the driver for the film.
Movies always tend to dehumanize a story so that the visual language becomes the moving element for any moviegoer. This defect is still present in modern entertainment industry, no matter the many new, great films that have supposedly transcended this lack. Mostly, the industry helps create movies that in the end only have that undercurrent of a hustle, a con that exploits the public.
The plan hatched by the conspirators is complicated by a former crime that involved a Mafia relative. This final nod to the cliche film ending is something that will turn a critics stomach, and this is perhaps the gamble. Perhaps the real point behind this work is the bid to become an impactful sensation.
The director for the movie was Larry Yust, who soft focused the many things that could have made it unacceptable with the general public. This organism is a very sensitive one that also allows and condones so many blasphemies. The Blaxploitation film can be very discomforting, and so the elements that make it so are often taken out.
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