Theoretical readings remain to be a significant aspect within analysing and furthering our understanding of cinema. These critical interpretations also lead to spectators gaining further respect and thought for a piece. This is vital for the 1971 Blaxploitation film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (Van Peebles, 1971). During the almost 50 years since its release, there have been countless readings and critical writings on the impact that this movie possesses.
Sweetback depicts a young black male, raised in a brothel in the centre of Los Angeles. Sweetback as a character challenged the social conformities of 1970s America. This is due to the fact that he is driven by his sexual desires and is capable to manipulate others in favour of himself and his survival. This stand-alone piece raised and braved the social issues of mid-century life inside America. The protagonist is wrongly charged with a crime. However, Sweetback remains to be extensively chased by white police authorities. This piece highlighted social issues that were prevalent through the ‘60s/early 70s, and that arguably still remains today. Because of this, Sweetback is acclaimed as being the first Blaxploitation picture. Additionally, declared as being a piece that was able to encapsulate societal issues while remaining engaging for audiences. However, due to its huge status and celebration of being the first film of its kind. There is an ongoing discussion on whether this film fails to tackle certain social conflicts and or handle the racial divide correctly.
Donald Bogel, film historian, examined racial stereotyping within cinema and identified six key customs that were evident inside the film industry. Within his 1973 book Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, Bogel highlights the damning cliché of ‘The Buck.’ ‘The Buck’ is described as being ‘the most damaging of all stereotypes perpetuated by the film industry’ (Doughty, Etherington-Wright, 2018, pg. 235) due to the negative connotations displayed to impressionable audiences. This intensely racial convention displays black characters as being potential rapists, savage and lustful. The 1950s and early 1960s continued welcomed films that either presented racial stereotypes or an exaggerated fantasy of the black community. Cinema failed to tell stories that related or enticed black audiences. It could be disputed that Hollywood attempted to avoid the continuation of racial stereotypes by purely presenting ethnic minorities as flawless and innocence beings. Once again leading to black audiences failing to feel represented and unpatronised. Van Peebles’ wanted to stray from perfect black characters, performed by actors like Poitier, and generate a more enjoyable experience for a black audience. If Van Peebles’ had produced a film with conforming editing techniques and idealistic characters Sweetback may be unseen as iconic as it is today.
A prime example of a film that lacked to capture the truth of the black community is In the Heat of the Night (Jewison, 1967). Within this piece, Sidney Poitier is displayed as an ‘ebony saint.’ Poitiers’ perfection and innocence didn’t encapsulate the reality of black men and women in mid-century America. Bogle commented on Poitier roles stating ‘they were non-funky, sexless and sterile’ (Bogle, 2001, pg. 173). This ‘sexless’, ‘sterile’ persona is completely absent in Sweetback due to the independent, vulgar character displayed on the screen. Joan Mellen examined the character of Sweetback, stating that it ‘[refurbished] the old racist stereotype of 'the buck’, the black stud… [Sweetback] is nothing more than an embodiment of how white society has fantasised black sexuality’ (1978, pg. 332). This perspective was reciprocated with many viewers of Sweetback. Mellen’s observation of Van Peebles ‘refurbishing the old racist stereotype of the 'buck’’ is due to the excessive use of pornographic-like scenes. Sweetback is presented as being a primitive, sexually rampant character making him perfectly replicate Bogle’s stereotype of ‘The Buck.’
On the contrary, these explicit scenes have also been hugely celebrated due to its extraordinary contrast to more prior black-oriented films. This film was enormously welcomed by black teen audiences and members of the Black Panther movement. Since its 1971 release, Sweetback has been hugely discussed and argued as to whether it is as iconic and influential as some hail it to be. A main celebrator of the piece was Huey Newton, it has been noted that ‘Huey P Newton, one of the Panthers' most notorious leaders, believed the film's story fitted so neatly with his own ideas that he devoted a whole issue of the Panthers' newspaper to it and declared it mandatory viewing for members.’ (Gritten, 1995). Because of the piece becoming such a prominent factor within the Black Panther’s history, it is a valid argument to the film being a drastic impact within the cinematic industry. Reid (1988) that ‘… caused the white studios to introduce black-oriented themes, black heroes, and new motifs — black sexuality, anger, and violence — into the American action film genre.’ As a result of this, Sweetback is celebrated for projecting the black community in a favourable light and by exceeding cinematic boundaries that a white Hollywood had created. Sweetback combats this expectation of the ‘ebony saint’ and displays an independent black man, literally and metaphorically, escaping the constraints of a suppressive white society. This once again echoes Newton reasoning for ‘[declaring] it mandatory viewing for members’ as it did have such a poignant impact for both the black community and film industry. The celebration of this film and these scenes, in particular, indicate how controversial and revolutionary this movie truly was. The fact that spectators and critics alike were seen to praise this debatable piece indicates there are undeniable aspects that frankly revolutionised and altered cinema.
The opening sequences remains a pinnacle point within the film that critics still discuss even after 48 years following its release. The introductory scene of Sweetback displays the footage of a 10-year-old Mario Van Peebles having sexual intercourse with one of the prostitutes from the brothel. This explicit opening scene has had many interpretations and reactions. Bennett described this opening sequence as ‘the rape of a child by a 40-year-old prostitute’ (Boyd, 2011). The graphic footage was seen to be merely unnecessary and horrific by Ebony magazine and farther went on to dismiss the film for its pornographic like scenes. However, this opening contrastingly was celebrated by Newton as being footage of a ‘young boy being baptised… into his true manhood.’ The contrast of interpretation, from ‘rape’ to a spiritual ‘baptism’, fuels a completely different understanding of the film. Once again demonstrating the contrasting belief of whether this film is a celebrated piece of black cultural history, or if it further fuels cinematic stereotypes and racial biases.
Correspondingly, feminist critical interpretations and readings have also led to the discussion of whether this film is celebrated for satisfactory reasons. Feminism is a film theory derived from feminist politics. In relation to film, feminism is a critical study of pieces and whether they possess an ability to prevent there being a sexual imbalance throughout a motion picture. This “sexual imbalance” could arise through there being an underline sexist tone, an evident depiction of women being passive or it being merely projected via the ‘male gaze’ (Mulvey, 1975, pg.62). Film theorist Laura Mulvey coined the term ‘male gaze’ as referring to the presentation of women. Within the arts, it is typical for women to be displayed as being sexual objects of personal pleasure for male viewers. This ‘male gaze’ is present in Van Peebles’ film Sweetback through its presentation of women. All female speaking characters within the piece either are sex workers or have sexual intercourse with the protagonist. These characteristics relate to Mulvey’s concept of the ‘male gaze’ as all female personas within the movie are reduced to sexual objects, for the pleasure of the film’s spectators and creators. Ed Guerrero states that there is ‘significant absence of any black feminist criticism of the film at [the] time’ (1993, pg. 91) of Sweetback’s release in 1971. This lack of discussion from black feminist spectators leads to there being unnoticed faults within the blaxploitation piece. bell hooks’ remark regarding black spectators having to ‘either to identify with the white woman or resist identification” (Doughty, Etherington-Wright, 2018, pg.188) may justify the lack of immediate discussion from black feminist viewers. The fact that women were reduced to mere sexual objects arguably resulted in the black female audience members wishing to completely detach themselves from ever relating to the piece.
Women being marginalised within film is something that is quite prominent in Sweetback as well as that came before its release and continues to be an issue today. 1985 welcomed the release of Alison Bechdel’s comic Dykes to Watch Out For - The Rule. The comic introduced the concept of only watching films if the satisfied three simple rules. A film must contain at least two (named) women in it, that they speak to each other, but about something other than men. A film that fails to fulfil any of these three rules is Sweetback. This is as a result of the film not containing any named women that converse with one another. Spite there being women present within the piece they are neither named nor have a conversation with one another. A scene depicts two sex workers but only interact with a police officer as an attempt to protect Sweetback, and never talk to each other. With this particular film, spite having the black community in mind and the foreground of the piece. Black female spectators may ‘resist identification’ completely. Although Sweetback is celebrated able to highlight social issues surrounding the black community in society; women’s position is ignored/hidden and women are used as a sexual object throughout this film. This raises there being a discussion on whether this film can truly be hallmarked as being influential if it ignores and adds to existing societal flaws.
An aspect within feminism that bell hooks explored inside her piece The Oppositional Gaze (1992) was that feminism neglects issues of race the same way they regard sexism within cinema. This is the opposite case within Sweetback. This is due to the fact that filmmakers aimed to highlight social issues that were prominent within the black community while completely disregarding and failing to voice the poor treatment of women within the same society. However, bell hooks’ ideology still reigns true. The undeniable link between race and feminism must be further discussed within cinema. The ideology that the feminist movement fails to successfully exist without the inclusion and representation of others was coined as Intersectionality by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. This branch of feminism aims to voice how inequalities within society overlap with different qualities such as race, class and gender. As it is evident that this blaxploitation film heavily focuses upon men and their desires, women’s struggles and desires — particularly those of black women — are disregarded and belittled. Van Peebles had the ability to voice racial problems within society while completely avoiding and adding to other prevalent conflicts are why such a divided response arose after its 1971 release. The commented upon ‘absence of any black feminist criticism of the film’ (Guerrero, 1993, pg. 91) can be once again argued to the lack of representation and discussion of the struggles black women faced/face within society. On reflection, Sweetback can be used as a peak within cinema regarding the poor representation of women, significantly women of colour. As a film, Sweetback also accentuates the importance of discussion and representation regarding the objectification and sexualisation of women and people of colour within media.
Sexual objectification theory is the treatment of a being just as a body (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). This experience of being reduced to pure anatomy is predominantly frequented when for the consumption of the male gaze. Media and film are the paramount victims of presenting characters purely to serve the purpose of pleasure, of usually male spectators. This is the key discussion point of Mulvey’s 1975 study. Within this Mulvey explores the two ‘pleasures’: scopophilia and voyeurism. The concept of ‘scopophilia’ relates to when people or images are viewed as erotic objects. This wholly correlates with Sweetback as the sole purpose of women being used within the piece is to add a pleasurable aspect to the film. This view of female personas in the film as being ‘erotic objects’ is apparent to be from the protagonist of the film, the filmmakers and spectators. As this is such a hugely celebrated film while being derogatory to women, specifically within the black community, shows how critics (and filmmakers) used this piece as a fantasy of the black community. Another defining aspect that Mulvey examines and that relates to Sweetback is Voyeurism. Voyeurism is when the “object of pleasure” is unaware of them being watched. This correlates to Sweetback due to the explicit sex scenes intertwined throughout. These scenes result in female characters to be further belittled and objectified. Resulting in both spectators and filmmakers to disregard these women and only feel they are necessary when completing a sexual act.
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song holds many different interpretations after its 48 years of release. These different readings have led to many critical studies regarding the blaxploitation piece. Critics used feminism, race and ethnicity theories as a system to understand and further voice their perspective of the piece. This has resulted in countless works analysing this film and its effect on spectators. After further inspection, it is apparent that Sweetback highlights and tackles prominent social issues within society. However, after further scrutinising the piece, a feminist reading further spotlights issues within the film and its representation of women. In spite of this, Sweetback remains a significant factor within black cinema and the blaxploitation genre.
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