Centennial Honors College
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2012
Poster Presentation
Blaxploitation Films Now and Then
Cierra Ford
Faculty Mentor: Jo-Ann Morgan
African American Studies
“Blaxplotation” films are still around today but simply modified for the new generation. In
movies in which blacks are portrayed in a good light there is a negative casting around
it. An example of this is Training day with Denzel Washington. In the movie he plays a
respectable police officer initially later to be found a crooked cop. The film was engulfed
with drugs ,money, and crime with a bit of sex thrown in between. Hustle and flow with
Terrance Howard is another movie which many would consider a “balxplotation” film.
Terrance Howard plays a marijuana selling pimp prostituting women while trying to start
a music career. This reminds me of the character priest who was also a pimp like
character using drugs and women as a means to an end. These characters are bucks in
the light that in Hustle and flow he too had a white woman and was a bit quick
tempered. Denzel Washington was also a bit crazed in his role in the film Training Day.