116-589: Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s, when the combined momentum of the civil rights movement , the black power movement , and the Black Panthers spurred African-American artists to reclaim the power of depiction of their ethnicity, and institutions like UCLA to provide financial assistance for African-American students to study filmmaking. This combined with Hollywood adopting
232-567: A Golden Globe Award , a Screen Actors Guild Award , a Satellite Award and a Saturn Award . Grier came to prominence with her titular roles in the films Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974); her other major films during this period included The Big Doll House (1971), Women in Cages (1971), The Big Bird Cage (1972), Black Mama White Mama (1973), Scream Blacula Scream (1973), The Arena (1974), Sheba, Baby (1975), Bucktown (1975) and Friday Foster (1975). She portrayed
348-543: A Methodist . Because of her father's military career, the family moved frequently during Grier's childhood. In 1956, they moved to Swindon in South West England , United Kingdom, where her father worked on an air force base. By Grier's account, hers was one of the only Black families in town, though she recalled that they faced no racism or segregation compared to that in the United States: "They didn't care that I
464-496: A host of men, a band of comrades as well as a swarm or flock of animals. In Classical Greek , the word took on a meaning comparable to the concept now expressed by "ethnic group", mostly translated as " nation , tribe, a unique people group"; only in Hellenistic Greek did the term tend to become further narrowed to refer to "foreign" or " barbarous " nations in particular (whence the later meaning "heathen, pagan"). In
580-670: A 1930s twist. In 2004, Mario Van Peebles released Baadasssss! , about the making of his father Melvin's movie (with Mario playing Melvin). 2007's American Gangster , based on the true story of heroin dealer Frank Lucas , takes place in the early 1970s in Harlem and has many elements similar in style to blaxploitation films, specifically its prominent featuring of the song " Across 110th Street ". Blaxploitation films have profoundly impacted contemporary hip-hop culture . Several prominent hip hop artists, including Snoop Dogg , Big Daddy Kane , Ice-T , Slick Rick , and Too Short , have adopted
696-481: A Jewish protagonist and was jokingly referred to by its director as a "Jewsploitation" film. Robert Townsend 's comedy Hollywood Shuffle features a young black actor who is tempted to take part in a white-produced blaxploitation film. The satirical book Our Dumb Century features an article from the 1970s entitled "Congress Passes Anti-Blaxploitation Act: Pimps, Players Subject to Heavy Fines". FOX 's network television comedy, MADtv , has frequently spoofed
812-473: A blaxploitation reference. He has an afro, sideburns, and a mustache. He carries swords, dresses in stylish 1970s clothing, and says that he hunts "Blaculas". A scene from the Season 9 episode of The Simpsons , " Simpson Tide ", shows Homer Simpson watching Exploitation Theatre. A voice-over announces fake movie titles such as The Blunch Black of Blotre Blame. Martha Southgate 's 2005 novel Third Girl from
928-481: A cinematic way to depict plantation slavery with all of its brutal, historical and racial contradictions and controversies, including sex, miscegenation, rebellion. The story world also depicts the plantation as one of the main origins of boxing as a sport in the U.S. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a new wave of acclaimed black film makers, particularly Spike Lee ( Do the Right Thing ), John Singleton ( Boyz n
1044-471: A condom. Pryor married Deborah McGuire while dating Grier in 1977. Grier was formerly romantically linked to Jimmie "Big Wheel" Wheeler, a famous boxing promoter; Soul Train host Don Cornelius ; and basketball player Wilt Chamberlain . In 1998, Grier was engaged to RCA Records executive Kevin Evans , but the engagement ended in 1999. Grier was diagnosed with stage four cervical cancer in 1988, and
1160-448: A cult following with black viewers. Dolemite , less serious in tone and produced as a spoof, centers around a sexually active black pimp played by Rudy Ray Moore, who based the film on his stand-up comedy act. A sequel, The Human Tornado , followed. Later spoofs parodying the blaxploitation genre include I'm Gonna Git You Sucka , Pootie Tang , Undercover Brother , Black Dynamite , and The Hebrew Hammer , which featured
1276-516: A fictional character created for the video game series Fatal Fury , is a prime example of foreign black stereotypes. The sub-cult movie short Gayniggers from Outer Space is a blaxploitation-like science fiction oddity directed by Danish filmmaker, DJ, and singer Morten Lindberg . Jefferson Twilight, a character in The Venture Bros. , is a parody of the comic-book character Blade (a black, half human, half-vampire vampire hunter), as well as
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#17328521812311392-421: A focus on the interface between groups. "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries", therefore, is a focus on the interconnectedness of ethnic identities. Barth writes: "... categorical ethnic distinctions do not depend on an absence of mobility, contact, and information, but do entail social processes of exclusion and incorporation whereby discrete categories are maintained despite changing participation and membership in
1508-546: A less restrictive rating system in 1968. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin , the president of the Beverly Hills–Hollywood NAACP branch. He claimed the genre was "proliferating offenses" to the black community in its perpetuation of stereotypes often involved in crime. After the race films of the 1940s and 1960s, the genre emerged as one of
1624-499: A mercurial character. Ronald Cohen concluded that ethnicity is "a series of nesting dichotomizations of inclusiveness and exclusiveness". He agrees with Joan Vincent's observation that (in Cohen's paraphrase) "Ethnicity ... can be narrowed or broadened in boundary terms in relation to the specific needs of political mobilization." This may be why descent is sometimes a marker of ethnicity, and sometimes not: which diacritic of ethnicity
1740-439: A mid-1970s blaxploitation television series. In the catalytic scene of True Romance , the characters watch the movie The Mack . John Singleton 's Shaft (2000), starring Samuel L. Jackson , is a modern-day interpretation of a classic blaxploitation film. The 1997 film Hoodlum starring Laurence Fishburne portrays a fictional account of black mobster Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson and recasts gangster blaxploitation with
1856-510: A narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, depending on group identification, with some groups having mixed genetic ancestry. By way of assimilation , acculturation , amalgamation , language shift , intermarriage , adoption , and religious conversion , individuals or groups may over time shift from one ethnic group to another. Ethnic groups may be divided into subgroups or tribes , which over time may become separate ethnic groups themselves due to endogamy or physical isolation from
1972-463: A new way, allowing black political and social issues that had been ignored in cinema to be explored. Shaft and its protagonist, John Shaft, brought African-American culture to the mainstream world. Sweetback and Shaft were both influenced by the black power movement, containing Marxist themes, solidarity and social consciousness alongside the genre-typical images of sex and violence. Knowing that film could bring about social and cultural change,
2088-614: A number of stage productions, as well as participating in beauty contests to raise money for college tuition at Metropolitan State College . Grier moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1967, where she was initially hired to work the switchboard at American International Pictures (AIP). She is believed to have been discovered by the director Jack Hill , and was cast in Roger Corman women-in-prison films such as The Big Doll House (1971), Women in Cages (1971) and The Big Bird Cage (1972). While under contract at AIP, she became
2204-519: A preoccupation with scientists, theologians, and the public. Religious institutions asked questions about whether there had been multiple creations of races (polygenesis) and whether God had created lesser races. Many of the foremost scientists of the time took up the idea of racial difference and found that white Europeans were superior. The ethnicity theory was based on the assimilation model. Park outlined four steps to assimilation: contact, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation. Instead of attributing
2320-412: A process known as ethnogenesis, a period of several generations of endogamy resulting in common ancestry (which is then sometimes cast in terms of a mythological narrative of a founding figure ); ethnic identity is reinforced by reference to "boundary markers" – characteristics said to be unique to the group which set it apart from other groups. Ethnicity theory argues that race
2436-524: A profit that those communities would never see, despite being the vastly misrepresented main focus of many blaxploitation film plots. Many film professionals still believe that there is no truly equal "Black Hollywood" as evidenced by the " Oscars So White " scandal in 2015 that caused uproar when no black actors were nominated for " Best Actor " at the Academy Awards. Slavesploitation, a subgenre of blaxploitation in literature and film, flourished briefly in
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#17328521812312552-482: A similar scene in Foxy Brown , in which Pam Grier hides a small semi-automatic pistol in her Afro. Adult Swim's Aqua Teen Hunger Force series has a recurring character called "Boxy Brown" – a play on Foxy Brown. An imaginary friend of Meatwad , Boxy Brown is a cardboard box with a crudely drawn face with a French cut that dons an afro. Whenever Boxy speaks, '70s funk music, typical of blaxploitation films, plays in
2668-402: A staging of Mozart 's opera Don Giovanni in the manner of a blaxploitation film, set in contemporary Spanish Harlem, with African-American singers portraying the anti-heroes as street-thugs, killing by gunshot rather than with a sword, using recreational drugs, and partying almost naked. It was later released on commercial video and can be seen on YouTube . A 2016 video game, Mafia III ,
2784-508: A stand-in for "paganism" in the 18th century, but now came to express the meaning of an "ethnic character" (first recorded 1953). The term ethnic group was first recorded in 1935 and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972. Depending on context, the term nationality may be used either synonymously with ethnicity or synonymously with citizenship (in a sovereign state). The process that results in emergence of an ethnicity
2900-414: A staple of early 1970s blaxploitation films, playing bold, assertive women, beginning with Hill's Coffy (1973), in which she plays a nurse who seeks revenge on drug dealers . Her character was advertised in the trailer as the "baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever hit town!". The film, which was filled with sexual and violent elements typical of the genre, was a box-office hit. Grier is considered to be
3016-498: Is Mandingo , a 1957 novel which was adapted into a 1961 play and a 1975 film . Indeed, Mandingo was so well known that a contemporary reviewer of Die the Long Day , a 1972 novel by Orlando Patterson , called it an example of the "Mandingo genre". The film, panned on its release, has been subject to widely divergent critical assessments. Robin Wood , for instance, argued in 1998 that it
3132-546: Is a kind of blaxploitation Western . Some of the later, blaxploitation-influenced movies such as Jackie Brown (1997), Undercover Brother (2002), Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003), and Django Unchained (2012) feature pop culture nods to the genre. The parody Undercover Brother , for example, stars Eddie Griffin as an afro -topped agent for a clandestine organization satirically known as
3248-603: Is a recurring character). In 2010, Grier began appearing in a recurring role on the hit science-fiction series Smallville as the villain Amanda Waller , also known as White Queen, head agent of Checkmate , a covert operations agency. She appeared as a friend and colleague to Julia Roberts ' college professor in 2011's Larry Crowne . In 2010, Grier wrote her memoir, Foxy: My Life in Three Acts , with Andrea Cagan. Grier received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from
3364-443: Is a social category and is only one of several factors in determining ethnicity. Other criteria include "religion, language, 'customs', nationality, and political identification". This theory was put forward by sociologist Robert E. Park in the 1920s. It is based on the notion of "culture". This theory was preceded by more than 100 years during which biological essentialism was the dominant paradigm on race. Biological essentialism
3480-423: Is called ethnogenesis , a term in use in ethnological literature since about 1950. The term may also be used with the connotation of something unique and unusually exotic (cf. "an ethnic restaurant", etc.), generally related to cultures of more recent immigrants, who arrived after the dominant population of an area was established. Depending on which source of group identity is emphasized to define membership,
3596-420: Is called ethnogenesis. Members of an ethnic group, on the whole, claim cultural continuities over time, although historians and cultural anthropologists have documented that many of the values, practices, and norms that imply continuity with the past are of relatively recent invention. Ethnic groups can form a cultural mosaic in a society. That could be in a city like New York City or Trieste , but also
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3712-642: Is not a noun in Britain. In effect there are no "ethnics"; there are only "ethnic relations". In the U.S., the OMB says the definition of race as used for the purposes of the US Census is not "scientific or anthropological" and takes into account "social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry", using "appropriate scientific methodologies" that are not "primarily biological or genetic in reference". Sometimes ethnic groups are subject to prejudicial attitudes and actions by
3828-442: Is salient depends on whether people are scaling ethnic boundaries up or down, and whether they are scaling them up or down depends generally on the political situation. Kanchan Chandra rejects the expansive definitions of ethnic identity (such as those that include common culture, common language, common history and common territory), choosing instead to define ethnic identity narrowly as a subset of identity categories determined by
3944-526: Is set in the year 1968 and revolves around Lincoln Clay, a mixed-race African-American orphan raised by "black mob" . After the murder of his surrogate family at the hands of the Italian mafia , Lincoln Clay seeks vengeance on those who took away the only thing that mattered to him. The notoriety of the blaxploitation genre has led to many parodies. The earliest attempts to mock the genre, Ralph Bakshi 's Coonskin and Rudy Ray Moore 's Dolemite , date back to
4060-455: Is sometimes used interchangeably with the term nation , particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism . Ethnicity may be construed as an inherited or societally imposed construct. Ethnic membership tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage , ancestry, origin myth , history , homeland , language , dialect , religion, mythology , folklore , ritual , cuisine , dressing style , art , or physical appearance . Ethnic groups may share
4176-669: Is the "greatest film about race ever made in Hollywood , certainly prior to Spike Lee and in some respects still". Blaxploitation films have had an enormous and complicated influence on American cinema. Filmmaker and exploitation film fan Quentin Tarantino , for example, has made numerous references to the blaxploitation genre in his films. An early blaxploitation tribute can be seen in the character of "Lite", played by Sy Richardson , in Repo Man (1984). Richardson later wrote Posse (1993), which
4292-431: Is the belief that some races, specifically white Europeans in western versions of the paradigm, are biologically superior and other races, specifically non-white races in western debates, are inherently inferior. This view arose as a way to justify enslavement of African Americans and genocide of Native Americans in a society that was officially founded on freedom for all. This was a notion that developed slowly and came to be
4408-604: Is to teach people about organic gardening, health, and nutrition among other things. The museum named its first garden in honor of Grier in 2011. In January 2018, Grier said that a biopic based on her memoir is in the works, entitled Pam. In April 2022, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) announced the fourth season of their podcast, The Plot Thickens , would focus on Grier's life and career. Grier met basketball player Ferdinand Lewis (Lew) Alcindor in 1969. Early in their relationship, he converted to Islam and changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar . Abdul-Jabbar proposed to Grier on
4524-518: The "B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D." . Likewise, Austin Powers in Goldmember co-stars Beyoncé Knowles as the Tamara Dobson / Pam Grier -inspired heroine, Foxxy Cleopatra . In the 1977 parody film The Kentucky Fried Movie , a mock trailer for Cleopatra Schwartz depicts another Grier-like action star married to a rabbi . In a scene in Reservoir Dogs , the protagonists discuss Get Christie Love! ,
4640-458: The Caribbean and South Asia . Max Weber maintained that ethnic groups were künstlich (artificial, i.e. a social construct ) because they were based on a subjective belief in shared Gemeinschaft (community). Secondly, this belief in shared Gemeinschaft did not create the group; the group created the belief. Third, group formation resulted from the drive to monopolize power and status. This
4756-668: The Los Angeles Theatre Center . Grier returned to film as Steven Seagal 's detective partner in Above the Law (1988). She had a recurring role on Miami Vice from 1985 to 1989, and made guest appearances on Martin , Night Court and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air . She had a recurring role in the TV series Crime Story , between 1986 and 1988. Her role in Rocket Gibraltar (1988)
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4872-450: The New World were multi-ethnic from the onset, as they were formed as colonies imposed on existing indigenous populations. In recent decades, feminist scholars (most notably Nira Yuval-Davis) have drawn attention to the fundamental ways in which women participate in the creation and reproduction of ethnic and national categories. Though these categories are usually discussed as belonging to
4988-577: The Rudy Ray Moore -created franchise Dolemite , with a series of sketches performed by comic actor Aries Spears , in the role of "The Son of Dolemite". Other sketches include the characters " Funkenstein ", " Dr. Funkenstein " and more recently Condoleezza Rice as a blaxploitation superhero. A recurring theme in these sketches is the inexperience of the cast and crew in the blaxploitation era, with emphasis on ridiculous scripting and shoddy acting, sets, costumes, and editing. The sketches are testaments to
5104-583: The Showtime comedy-drama series Linc's (1998–2000), Kate "Kit" Porter on the Showtime drama series The L Word (2004–2009), and Constance Terry in the ABC sitcom Bless This Mess (2019–2020). She received praise for her work in the animated series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child (1999). IndieWire named Grier one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. Grier
5220-635: The University of Maryland Eastern Shore in 2011. That same year, she received an honorary Doctorate of Science from Langston University . Essence magazine wrote in 2012,"So revolutionary were the characters Grier played that women reportedly would stand on chairs and cheer". Grier founded the Pam Grier Community Garden and Education Center with the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum . The purpose
5336-404: The black nationalist movement in its argument that black and white authority cannot coexist easily. The genre's role in exploring and shaping race relations in the United States has been controversial. Some held that the blaxploitation trend was a token of black empowerment, but others accused the movies of perpetuating common white stereotypes about black people . As a result, many called for
5452-482: The "Annual Players Ball ", has become an often-referenced pop culture icon—most recently by Chappelle's Show , where it was parodied as the "Playa Hater's Ball". The genre's overseas influence extends to artists such as Norway's hip-hop duo Madcon . In Michael Chabon 's novel Telegraph Avenue , set in 2004, two characters are former blaxploitation stars. In 1980, opera director Peter Sellars (not to be confused with actor Peter Sellers ) produced and directed
5568-479: The 1960s and 1970s was influenced by the Black Power movement . Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was one of the first films to incorporate black power ideology and permit black actors to be the stars of their own narratives, rather than being relegated to the typical roles available to them (such as the " mammy " figure and other low-status characters). Films such as Shaft brought the black experience to film in
5684-534: The 1970s. They also often feature a rich orchestration which included flutes and violins. Blaxploitation was one of the first film categories to have female leads portray brave, heroic, active protagonists. Actresses such as Pam Grier in Coffy and Gloria Hendry in Black Belt Jones opened the door for actresses to become action stars which inspired later films such as Kill Bill and Set It Off . Following
5800-561: The 19th century, the term came to be used in the sense of "peculiar to a tribe, race, people or nation", in a return to the original Greek meaning. The sense of "different cultural groups", and in American English "tribal, racial, cultural or national minority group " arises in the 1930s to 1940s, serving as a replacement of the term race which had earlier taken this sense but was now becoming deprecated due to its association with ideological racism . The abstract ethnicity had been used as
5916-671: The AIP films Foxy Brown (1974), Sheba, Baby and Friday Foster (both 1975). With the demise of blaxploitation later in the 1970s, Grier appeared in smaller roles for many years. She acquired progressively larger character roles in the 1980s, including a druggie prostitute in Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981) and a witch in Something Wicked this Way Comes (1983). In 1985, Grier made her theatrical debut in Sam Shepard 's Fool for Love at
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#17328521812316032-463: The Black Hand Side ), coming-of-age ( Cooley High / Cornbread, Earl and Me ), and musical ( Sparkle ). Following the example set by Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song , many blaxploitation films feature funk and soul jazz soundtracks with heavy bass , funky beats and wah-wah guitars. These soundtracks are notable for complexity that was not common to the radio-friendly funk tracks of
6148-489: The Black Power movement seized the genre to highlight black socioeconomic struggles in the 1970s; many such films contained black heroes who were able to overcome the institutional oppression of African-American culture and history. Later films such as Super Fly softened the rhetoric of black power, encouraging resistance within the capitalist system rather than a radical transformation of society. Super Fly still embraced
6264-606: The Greeks. Herodotus (8.144.2) gave a famous account of what defined Greek (Hellenic) ethnic identity in his day, enumerating Whether ethnicity qualifies as a cultural universal is to some extent dependent on the exact definition used. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf , do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups. According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen ,
6380-552: The Hood ) , and Allen and Albert Hughes ( Menace II Society ) focused on black urban life in their movies. These directors made use of blaxploitation elements while incorporating implicit criticism of the genre's glorification of stereotypical "criminal" behavior. Alongside accusations of exploiting stereotypes, the NAACP also criticized the blaxploitation genre of exploiting the black community and culture of America, by creating films for
6496-635: The Left is set in Hollywood during the era of blaxploitation films and references many blaxploitation films and stars such as Pam Grier and Coffy . Ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include a people of a common language , culture , common sets of ancestry , traditions , society, religion , history, or social treatment. The term ethnicity
6612-462: The United States that the ethnicity theory was exclusively based on the immigration patterns of the white population and did take into account the unique experiences of non-whites in the United States. While Park's theory identified different stages in the immigration process – contact, conflict, struggle, and as the last and best response, assimilation – it did so only for white communities. The ethnicity paradigm neglected
6728-994: The added value of being able to describe the commonalities between systems of group identity in both tribal and modern societies. Cohen also suggested that claims concerning "ethnic" identity (like earlier claims concerning "tribal" identity) are often colonialist practices and effects of the relations between colonized peoples and nation-states. According to Paul James , formations of identity were often changed and distorted by colonization, but identities are not made out of nothing: Categorizations about identity, even when codified and hardened into clear typologies by processes of colonization, state formation or general modernizing processes, are always full of tensions and contradictions. Sometimes these contradictions are destructive, but they can also be creative and positive. Social scientists have thus focused on how, when, and why different markers of ethnic identity become salient. Thus, anthropologist Joan Vincent observed that ethnic boundaries often have
6844-492: The artist entails exploitation of the very people to whom they owe their artistic existence." Films such as Super Fly and The Mack received intense criticism not only for the stereotype of the protagonist (generalizing pimps as representative of all African-American men, in this case) but for portraying all black communities as hotbeds for drugs and crime. Blaxploitation films such as Mandingo (1975) provided mainstream Hollywood producers, in this case Dino De Laurentiis ,
6960-471: The audience. The films usually portray black protagonists overcoming " The Man " or emblems of the white majority that oppresses the black community. Blaxploitation includes several subtypes, including crime ( Foxy Brown ), action/martial arts ( Three the Hard Way ), Westerns ( Boss Nigger ), horror ( Abby , Blacula ), prison ( Penitentiary ), comedy ( Uptown Saturday Night ), nostalgia ( Five on
7076-609: The background. The cardboard box also has a confrontational attitude and dialect similar to many heroes of this film genre. Some of the TVs found in the action video game Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne feature a Blaxploitation-themed parody of the original Max Payne game called Dick Justice , after its main character. Dick behaves much like the original Max Payne (down to the "constipated" grimace and metaphorical speech) but wears an afro and mustache and speaks in Ebonics . Duck King ,
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#17328521812317192-449: The belief of common descent. Jóhanna Birnir similarly defines ethnicity as "group self-identification around a characteristic that is very difficult or even impossible to change, such as language, race, or location." Different approaches to understanding ethnicity have been used by different social scientists when trying to understand the nature of ethnicity as a factor in human life and society. As Jonathan M. Hall observes, World War II
7308-435: The blaxploitation era, such as Rudy Ray Moore , Antonio Fargas , Dick Anthony Williams and Pam Grier all make cameo appearances. In one scene, Martin, in character as aging pimp "Jerome", refers to Pam Grier as " Sheba, Baby " in reference to her 1975 blaxploitation feature film of the same name. In the movie Leprechaun in the Hood , a character played by Ice-T pulls a baseball bat from his Afro. This scene alludes to
7424-534: The boundaries of the nation-state. Pam Grier Pamela Suzette Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress, singer, and martial artist. Described by Quentin Tarantino as cinema's first female action star (although, many believe Cheng Pei-pei actually holds that distinction ), she achieved fame for her starring roles in a string of 1970s action , blaxploitation and women in prison films for American International Pictures and New World Pictures . Her accolades include nominations for an Emmy Award ,
7540-419: The condition that she immediately convert to Islam. Grier refused, and he married a different woman that day. Grier met the comedian Freddie Prinze while promoting her film Coffy in 1973. They began a relationship and considered marriage. Prinze wanted her to have his baby, but she was reluctant due to his history of depression and drug addiction . They remained in touch after their break-up. She
7656-573: The context of European colonial expansion, when mercantilism and capitalism were promoting global movements of populations at the same time that state boundaries were being more clearly and rigidly defined. In the 19th century, modern states generally sought legitimacy through their claim to represent "nations". Nation-states , however, invariably include populations who have been excluded from national life for one reason or another. Members of excluded groups, consequently, will either demand inclusion based on equality or seek autonomy, sometimes even to
7772-422: The course of individual life histories." In 1978, anthropologist Ronald Cohen claimed that the identification of "ethnic groups" in the usage of social scientists often reflected inaccurate labels more than indigenous realities: ... the named ethnic identities we accept, often unthinkingly, as basic givens in the literature are often arbitrarily, or even worse inaccurately, imposed. In this way, he pointed to
7888-526: The cultural traits of such groups have no demonstrated genetic connection with racial traits. Because serious errors of this kind are habitually committed when the term "race" is used in popular parlance, it would be better when speaking of human races to drop the term "race" altogether and speak of "ethnic groups". In 1982, anthropologist David Craig Griffith summed up forty years of ethnographic research, arguing that racial and ethnic categories are symbolic markers for different ways people from different parts of
8004-447: The distant past. Perspectives that developed after the 1960s increasingly viewed ethnic groups as social constructs , with identity assigned by societal rules. The term ethnic is ultimately derived from the Greek ethnos , through its adjectival form ethnikos , loaned into Latin as ethnicus . The inherited English language term for this concept is folk , used alongside
8120-452: The distinctions of ethnicity and race that function to set off categories of workers from one another. It is, nevertheless, the process of labor mobilization under capitalism that imparts to these distinctions their effective values. According to Wolf, racial categories were constructed and incorporated during the period of European mercantile expansion , and ethnic groupings during the period of capitalist expansion . Writing in 1977 about
8236-589: The end of the genre. The NAACP , Southern Christian Leadership Conference and National Urban League joined to form the Coalition Against Blaxploitation. Their influence in the late 1970s contributed to the genre's demise. Literary critic Addison Gayle wrote in 1974, "The best example of this kind of nihilism / irresponsibility are the Black films; here is freedom pushed to its most ridiculous limits; here are writers and actors who claim that freedom for
8352-530: The extent of complete political separation in their nation-state. Under these conditions when people moved from one state to another, or one state conquered or colonized peoples beyond its national boundaries – ethnic groups were formed by people who identified with one nation but lived in another state. In the 1920s, Estonia introduced a flexible system of ethnicity/nationality self-choice for its citizens, which included Estonians Russians, Baltic Germans and Jews. Multi-ethnic states can be
8468-414: The fact that identification of an ethnic group by outsiders, e.g. anthropologists, may not coincide with the self-identification of the members of that group. He also described that in the first decades of usage, the term ethnicity had often been used in lieu of older terms such as "cultural" or "tribal" when referring to smaller groups with shared cultural systems and shared heritage, but that "ethnicity" had
8584-518: The fallen monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the United States. Current topics are in particular social and cultural differentiation, multilingualism, competing identity offers, multiple cultural identities and the formation of Salad bowl and melting pot . Ethnic groups differ from other social groups, such as subcultures , interest groups or social classes , because they emerge and change over historical periods (centuries) in
8700-428: The first African-American woman to headline an action film, as protagonists of previous blaxploitation films were men. In his review of Coffy , critic Roger Ebert praised the film for its believable female lead. He noted that Grier was an actress of "beautiful face and astonishing form" and that she possessed a kind of "physical life" missing from many other attractive actresses. Grier played similar characters in
8816-415: The first in which black characters and communities were protagonists, rather than sidekicks, supportive characters , or victims of brutality. The genre's inception coincides with the rethinking of race relations in the 1970s. Blaxploitation films were originally aimed at an urban African-American audience but the genre's audience appeal soon broadened across racial and ethnic lines. Hollywood realized
8932-580: The following types of (often mutually overlapping) groups can be identified: In many cases, more than one aspect determines membership: for instance, Armenian ethnicity can be defined by Armenian citizenship, having Armenian heritage, native use of the Armenian language , or membership of the Armenian Apostolic Church . Ethnography begins in classical antiquity ; after early authors like Anaximander and Hecataeus of Miletus , Herodotus laid
9048-672: The foundation of both historiography and ethnography of the ancient world c. 480 BC . The Greeks had developed a concept of their own ethnicity, which they grouped under the name of Hellenes . Although there were exceptions, such as Macedonia, which was ruled by nobility in a way that was not typically Greek, and Sparta, which had an unusual ruling class, the ancient Greeks generally enslaved only non-Greeks due to their strong belief in ethnonationalism. The Greeks sometimes believed that even their lowest citizens were superior to any barbarian. In his Politics 1.2–7; 3.14, Aristotle even described barbarians as natural slaves in contrast to
9164-558: The genes. Examples of various approaches are primordialism, essentialism, perennialism, constructivism, modernism, and instrumentalism. Ethnicity is an important means by which people may identify with a larger group. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf , do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups. The process that results in emergence of such identification
9280-417: The genre is Slaves (1969), which Gaines notes was "not 'slavesploitation' in the vein of later films", but which nonetheless featured graphic depictions of beatings and sexual violence against slaves. Novotny argues that Blacula (1972), although it does not depict slavery directly, is historically linked to the slavesploitation subgenre. By far, the best-known and best-studied exemplar of slavesploitation
9396-479: The genre's heyday in 1975. Coonskin was intended to deconstruct racial stereotypes, from early minstrel show stereotypes to more recent stereotypes found in blaxploitation film itself. The work stimulated great controversy even before its release when the Congress of Racial Equality challenged it. Even though distribution was handed to a smaller distributor who advertised it as an exploitation film, it soon developed
9512-433: The kernel of a nation which must be defended in times of conflict, or in iconic figures such as Britannia or Marianne . Ethnicity is used as a matter of cultural identity of a group, often based on shared ancestry, language, and cultural traditions, while race is applied as a taxonomic grouping, based on physical similarities among groups. Race is a more controversial subject than ethnicity, due to common political use of
9628-404: The late 1960s and 1970s. As its name suggests, the genre is characterized by sensationalistic depictions of slavery. Abrams, arguing that Quentin Tarantino 's Django Unchained (2012) finds its historical roots in the slavesploitation genre, observes that slavesploitation films are characterized by "crassly exploitative representations of oppressed slave protagonists". One early antecedent of
9744-639: The latinate people since the late Middle English period. In Early Modern English and until the mid-19th century, ethnic was used to mean heathen or pagan (in the sense of disparate "nations" which did not yet participate in the Christian ecumene ), as the Septuagint used ta ethne 'the nations' to translate the Hebrew goyim "the foreign nations, non-Hebrews, non-Jews". The Greek term in early antiquity ( Homeric Greek ) could refer to any large group,
9860-477: The marginalized status of people of color in the United States to their inherent biological inferiority, he attributed it to their failure to assimilate into American culture. They could become equal if they abandoned their inferior cultures. Michael Omi and Howard Winant 's theory of racial formation directly confronts both the premises and the practices of ethnicity theory. They argue in Racial Formation in
9976-479: The modernist understanding of ethnicity as proposed by Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson see nations and nationalism as developing with the rise of the modern state system in the 17th century. They culminated in the rise of "nation-states" in which the presumptive boundaries of the nation coincided (or ideally coincided) with state boundaries. Thus, in the West, the notion of ethnicity, like race and nation , developed in
10092-568: The no-nonsense pimp persona popularized first by ex-pimp Iceberg Slim 's 1967 book Pimp and subsequently by films such as Super Fly , The Mack , and Willie Dynamite . In fact, many hip-hop artists have paid tribute to pimping within their lyrics (most notably 50 Cent 's hit single " P.I.M.P. ") and have openly embraced the pimp image in their music videos , which include entourages of scantily-clad women, flashy jewelry (known as " bling "), and luxury Cadillacs (referred to as " pimpmobiles "). The most famous scene of The Mack , featuring
10208-551: The parent group. Conversely, formerly separate ethnicities can merge to form a panethnicity and may eventually merge into one single ethnicity . Whether through division or amalgamation, the formation of a separate ethnic identity is referred to as ethnogenesis . Although both organic and performative criteria characterise ethnic groups, debate in the past has dichotomised between primordialism and constructivism. Earlier 20th-century "Primordialists" viewed ethnic groups as real phenomena whose distinct characteristics have endured since
10324-686: The pimps, the private eyes and the pushers who more or less singlehandedly make whitey's corrupt world safe for black pimping, black private-eyeing and black pushing. Blaxploitation films set in the Northeast or West Coast mainly take place in poor urban neighborhoods. Pejorative terms for white characters, such as " cracker " and " honky ", are commonly used. Blaxploitation films set in the South often deal with slavery and miscegenation . The genre's films are often bold in their statements and use violence, sex, drug trafficking and other shocking qualities to provoke
10440-509: The poor production quality of the films, with obvious boom mike appearances and intentionally poor cuts and continuity. Another of FOX's network television comedies, Martin starring Martin Lawrence , frequently references the blaxploitation genre. In the Season Three episode "All The Players Came", when Martin organizes a "Player's Ball" charity event to save a local theater, several stars of
10556-716: The popularity of these films in the 1970s, movies within other genres began to feature black characters with stereotypical blaxploitation characteristics, such as the Harlem underworld characters in the James Bond film Live and Let Die (1973), Jim Kelly 's character in Enter the Dragon (1973) and Fred Williamson 's character in The Inglorious Bastards (1978). Afeni Shakur claimed that every aspect of culture (including cinema) in
10672-506: The potential profit of expanding the audiences of blaxploitation films. Variety credited Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and the less radical Hollywood-financed film Shaft (both released in 1971) with the invention of the blaxploitation genre, although Cotton Comes to Harlem was released the prior year. Blaxploitation films were also the first to feature soundtracks of funk and soul music . [S]upercharged, bad-talking, highly romanticized melodramas about Harlem superstuds,
10788-450: The problem of racism became the sole responsibility of already disadvantaged communities. It was assumed that if a Black or Latino community was not "making it" by the standards that had been set by whites, it was because that community did not hold the right values or beliefs, or were stubbornly resisting dominant norms because they did not want to fit in. Omi and Winant's critique of ethnicity theory explains how looking to cultural defect as
10904-433: The public, political sphere, they are upheld within the private, family sphere to a great extent. It is here that women act not just as biological reproducers but also as "cultural carriers", transmitting knowledge and enforcing behaviors that belong to a specific collectivity. Women also often play a significant symbolic role in conceptions of nation or ethnicity, for example in the notion that "women and children" constitute
11020-567: The result of inherited traits and tendencies. With Weber's introduction of the idea of ethnicity as a social construct, race and ethnicity became more divided from each other. In 1950, the UNESCO statement " The Race Question ", signed by some of the internationally renowned scholars of the time (including Ashley Montagu , Claude Lévi-Strauss , Gunnar Myrdal , Julian Huxley , etc.), said: National, religious, geographic, linguistic and cultural groups do not necessarily coincide with racial groups: and
11136-483: The result of two opposite events, either the recent creation of state borders at variance with traditional tribal territories, or the recent immigration of ethnic minorities into a former nation-state. Examples for the first case are found throughout Africa , where countries created during decolonization inherited arbitrary colonial borders, but also in European countries such as Belgium or United Kingdom . Examples for
11252-581: The second case are countries such as Netherlands , which were relatively ethnically homogeneous when they attained statehood but have received significant immigration in the 17th century and even more so in the second half of the 20th century. States such as the United Kingdom , France and Switzerland comprised distinct ethnic groups from their formation and have likewise experienced substantial immigration, resulting in what has been termed " multicultural " societies, especially in large cities. The states of
11368-420: The source of inequality ignores the "concrete sociopolitical dynamics within which racial phenomena operate in the U.S." It prevents critical examination of the structural components of racism and encourages a "benign neglect" of social inequality. In some cases, especially those involving transnational migration or colonial expansion, ethnicity is linked to nationality. Anthropologists and historians, following
11484-407: The state or its constituents. In the 20th century, people began to argue that conflicts among ethnic groups or between members of an ethnic group and the state can and should be resolved in one of two ways. Some, like Jürgen Habermas and Bruce Barry, have argued that the legitimacy of modern states must be based on a notion of political rights of autonomous individual subjects. According to this view,
11600-441: The state should not acknowledge ethnic, national or racial identity but rather instead enforce political and legal equality of all individuals. Others, like Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka , argue that the notion of the autonomous individual is itself a cultural construct. According to this view, states must recognize ethnic identity and develop processes through which the particular needs of ethnic groups can be accommodated within
11716-512: The study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates until recently. According to Eriksen , these debates have been superseded, especially in anthropology , by scholars' attempts to respond to increasingly politicized forms of self-representation by members of different ethnic groups and nations. This is in the context of debates over multiculturalism in countries, such as the United States and Canada, which have large immigrant populations from many different cultures, and post-colonialism in
11832-524: The term in social studies in the 1980s and 1990s. Barth went further than Weber in stressing the constructed nature of ethnicity. To Barth, ethnicity was perpetually negotiated and renegotiated by both external ascription and internal self-identification. Barth's view is that ethnic groups are not discontinuous cultural isolates or logical a priori to which people naturally belong. He wanted to part with anthropological notions of cultures as bounded entities, and ethnicity as primordialist bonds, replacing it with
11948-446: The term. Ramón Grosfoguel (University of California, Berkeley) argues that "racial/ethnic identity" is one concept and concepts of race and ethnicity cannot be used as separate and autonomous categories. Before Weber (1864–1920), race and ethnicity were primarily seen as two aspects of the same thing. Around 1900 and before, the primordialist understanding of ethnicity predominated: cultural differences between peoples were seen as being
12064-506: The title character in Quentin Tarantino 's crime film Jackie Brown (1997), nearly three decades after her first starring role. Grier also appeared in Escape from L.A. (1996), Mars Attacks! (1996), Jawbreaker (1999), Holy Smoke! , (1999), Bones (2001), Just Wright (2010), Larry Crowne (2011) and Poms (2019). On television, Grier portrayed Eleanor Winthrop in
12180-494: The title role in Quentin Tarantino 's Jackie Brown , films that partly paid homage to her 1970s blaxploitation films. She was nominated for numerous awards for her work in the Tarantino film. Grier appeared on Showtime 's The L Word , in which she played Kit Porter . The series ran for six seasons and ended in March 2009. Grier occasionally guest-stars in such television series as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (where she
12296-461: The usage of the term "ethnic" in the ordinary language of Great Britain and the United States , Wallman noted The term "ethnic" popularly connotes "[race]" in Britain, only less precisely, and with a lighter value load. In North America, by contrast, "[race]" most commonly means color, and "ethnics" are the descendants of relatively recent immigrants from non-English-speaking countries. "[Ethnic]"
12412-448: The ways in which race can complicate a community's interactions with social and political structures, especially upon contact. Assimilation – shedding the particular qualities of a native culture for the purpose of blending in with a host culture – did not work for some groups as a response to racism and discrimination, though it did for others. Once the legal barriers to achieving equality had been dismantled,
12528-442: The world have been incorporated into a global economy: The opposing interests that divide the working classes are further reinforced through appeals to "racial" and "ethnic" distinctions. Such appeals serve to allocate different categories of workers to rungs on the scale of labor markets, relegating stigmatized populations to the lower levels and insulating the higher echelons from competition from below. Capitalism did not create all
12644-493: Was Black since they hadn't been raised to hate Blacks. Instead, they'd been raised to hate Germans... In the U.S., especially in the South, we were never able to get buses to stop for us, we couldn't eat in certain restaurants, couldn't use certain bathrooms. Up until 1969, there were department stores in which my father and I weren't even allowed to try on clothing." The family returned to the United States in 1958, when Grier's father
12760-483: Was a turning point in ethnic studies. The consequences of Nazi racism discouraged essentialist interpretations of ethnic groups and race. Ethnic groups came to be defined as social rather than biological entities. Their coherence was attributed to shared myths, descent, kinship , a common place of origin, language, religion, customs, and national character. So, ethnic groups are conceived as mutable rather than stable, constructed in discursive practices rather than written in
12876-549: Was born on May 26, 1949, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina , the daughter of Gwendolyn Sylvia (née Samuels), a homemaker and nurse , and Clarence Ransom Grier Jr., who worked as a mechanic and technical sergeant in the United States Air Force . She has one sister and one brother. Grier said she is of Black , Hispanic , Chinese , Filipino , and Cheyenne heritage. She was raised Catholic and later baptized as
12992-407: Was contrary to the prevailing naturalist belief of the time, which held that socio-cultural and behavioral differences between peoples stemmed from inherited traits and tendencies derived from common descent, then called "race". Another influential theoretician of ethnicity was Fredrik Barth , whose "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries" from 1969 has been described as instrumental in spreading the usage of
13108-564: Was cut due to fears by the film's director, Daniel Petrie , of "repercussions from interracial love scenes". She appeared on Sinbad , Preston Chronicles , The Cosby Show , The Wayans Brothers Show and Mad TV . In 1994, Grier appeared in Snoop Dogg 's video for " Doggy Dogg World ". In the late 1990s, Grier was a cast member of the Showtime series Linc's . She appeared in 1996 in John Carpenter 's Escape from L.A. and 1997 with
13224-527: Was one of the last people Prinze spoke to before he died in 1977. Grier met the comedian Richard Pryor through her relationship with Prinze; they began dating after they were both cast in 1977's Greased Lightning . She helped Pryor learn to read and tried to extricate him from drug abuse. After six months of sobriety, he relapsed. In her memoir, Grier described how her sexual relationship with Pryor caused cocaine to enter her system. Grier confronted Pryor about protecting her health, but he refused to use
13340-472: Was told she had 18 months to live. Through vigorous treatment, she recovered and has since been in remission. Grier lives on a ranch in Colorado. Although she is close with actor and Protestant minister Rosey Grier , she denies the rumor that they are related. For her the culture-shaping effect of cultural contributions made throughout her career, Grier was recognized with a lifetime achievement award at
13456-560: Was transferred to California's Travis Air Force Base , eventually settling in Denver, Colorado , near Lowry Air Force Base . Grier spent part of her upbringing on her maternal grandparents' sugar beet farm in rural Wyoming , where their ancestors had homesteaded after fleeing west via the Underground Railroad to escape slavery. Grier attended East High School in Denver, and appeared in
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