Blaxploitation: A Narrative History

FAIN: HB-273567-22

Derrais Armarne Carter
Arizona Board of Regents (Tucson, AZ 85721-0073)

Research and writing leading to a narrative history book of Blaxploitation film framed in relation to multiple, contemporaneous politics of Black self-representation.

Blaxploitation: A Narrative History investigates the emergence of a Civil Rights Movement Black cultural discourse that wrestled over cinematic representation throughout the 1970s. Coined in 1972 by activist Junius Griffin, the term highlighted how upon “discovering” Black filmgoing audiences, the (white) film industry exploited Black actors to create and promote cheaply made films for Black people. Rather than overtax the theme of white exploitation of Black labor, my book argues that the term blaxploitation also identifies lesser known, yet ongoing, intraracial conflicts among Black artists, activists, and intellectuals.