Shaft is a 1971 Academy Award winning film directed by Gordon Parks. An action film that has elements of film noir, it tells the story of a black private detective, John Shaft, who travels through Harlem and to the Italian mob in order to find the missing daughter of a black mobster.
The movie is widely considered a prime example of the blaxploitation genre. Blaxploitation is a film genre that emerged in the United States in the early 1970s when many exploitation films were made that targeted the urban black audience; the word itself is a mix of the words “black” and “exploitation.” The movie Shaft (1971) which I am relating to my text is known to have started off the blaxploitation genre. Blaxploitation films tend to take place in the ghetto, dealing with pimps, drug dealers, and hit men. The genre makes frequent use of drugs, the Afro hairstyle, “pimpmobiles," ethnic slurs against whites (e.g. "honky"), and negative white characters like corrupt cops and politicians and easily fooled crime members.
Coach Carter is shown to be set in the ghetto, the teenagers in the movie are dealing drugs and shown as behaving in an anti-social manner and committing a number of crimes. Coach Carter could be shown in the blaxploitation genre as there is a frequent use of drugs and afro hairstyles etc. The opening scene of Shaft clearly shows the blaxploitation genre immediately. Throughout the opening, Shaft is walking down the streets of New York (which is known to be a rough area) and through his actions we can see how the setting can be seen as ghetto to further emphasize the genre of blaxploitation. Furthermore, there is a clip where a black man approaches Shaft to offer him to buy a watch, and once Shaft shows badge the guy runs off, this shows what the setting is like in the movie.
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