More on Blaxploitation and Crossover films

More on Blaxploitation and Crossover films:

Blaxploitation films

In the 1970s Hollywood began to produce a new type of film designed to appeal to urban black audiences. Stories were set in ghettos and featured plotlines dealing with crime, drug-dealers, prostitutes and pimps. White characters were labelled as honkies or crackers and played corrupt policemen or politicians.

These so-called blaxploitation films were intended to signify black empowerment, but in fact they perpetuated common white stereotypes about black people. The NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the National Urban League opposed the genre and formed the Coalition Against Blaxploitation (CAB) which led to the end of this generic form of cinema.

Multiracial ‘crossover’ films

In the 1980s Hollywood moved into producing films with themes aimed at broad, multicultural audiences. Black story lines were acted by black casts and distributed to a general mass media audience. However, these productions were not made by black producers or directors, so African-Americans had little control over the way in which black screen images were portrayed.

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