Blaxploitation Parody
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Lance: "Always trying to keep the white man down." |
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Back in the 70s, Blaxploitation films took hard-nosed Black heroes and pitted them against The Man in action-packed stories full of Jive Turkey and Unfortunate Implications, all set to a funky beat. These days, any film producer (with the possible exception of Quentin Tarantino) would be committing career suicide if they tried to make a Blaxploitation film... even if they did it because they loved the genre.
The solution is the Blaxploitation Parody, which allows the producer to showcase the best elements of the genre while avoiding the worst, all while making fun of the whole thing.
Examples of Blaxploitation Parody include:
Advertising
- This ice-cream ad from Chile, featuring a Soul Brotha Afro Asskicker and his Action Girl Ms. Fanservice partner.
Anime and Manga
- "Mushroom Samba" from Cowboy Bebop, which was a mashup parody of two iconic 70s film genres - blaxploitation and Drug Comedy.
Film
- Austin Powers in: Goldmember - "My name is Foxxy Cleopatra and I'm a whole lotta woman!", "You have the right to remain sexy, sugar..." And yes, her name is just "Foxy Brown" and "Cleopatra Jones" put together.
- Black Devil Doll is a very low-budget spoof of blaxsploitation cinema, featuring a foul-mouthed vantriloquist dummy.
- Black Dynamite, an almost perfect recreation of period films.
- Coonskin (also known as Street Fighter), Ralph Bakshi's live-action/animation deconstruction of both Blaxploitation and Song of the South.
- Dolemite - A hard-working pimp fights back against crooked cops who want to frame him for crimes he didn't commit (instead of the rather obvious crimes he does commit). One of the first blaxploitation parodies, but some people think it's a straight example.
- The Hebrew Hammer. A "Jewsploitation" movie, same plot concept, but with Jewish stereotypes. And Santa Claus.
- I'm Gonna Git You Sucka - A 1986 film starring Keenan Ivory Wayans and several other stars of blaxploitation films such as Jim Brown, Antonio Fargas (that's "Huggy Bear" to you Starsky and Hutch fans) and Isaac Hayes.
- Jackie Brown is Quentin Tarantino's homage to the genre.
- Machete started out as a fictitious Mexploitation film whose trailer was part of Grindhouse, but Robert Rodriguez actually made it.
- Undercover Brother - An early 2000s Eddie Griffin film about a Soul Brotha who joins a secret organization in its fight against "The Man" and his quest to "whitewash" influential black figures.
- Pootie Tang is a completely silly spoof of the blaxploitation genre.
- In Hollywood Shuffle, Robert Townsend plays an actor who gets cast in a Blaxploitation film. He's not sure if he should take the job - on the one hand at least he'd be working, but on the other hand he'd be working in one of these. Imagine Spots aplenty.
- The "Cleopatra Schwartz" segment of Kentucky Fried Movie.
Live Action TV
- Just Shoot Me once showed a clip from Nina's own star turn as Foxy Trouble.
- Saturday Night Live had a blaxploitation film parody on the season 36 episode hosted by Jessie Eisenberg (The Social Network) with musical guest Nicki Minaj called "The Bride of Blackenstein," in which Dr. Blackenstein (Jay Pharoah) and his assistant Igor (Jessie Eisenberg) create a bride (Nicki Minaj) for Blackenstein's monster (Kenan Thompson). Unfortunately, despite the fact that the bride has a nice ass (made from two basketballs filled with Jell-O), she is very much the embodiment of the Sassy Black Woman trope (only she's not fat).
Video Games
- Isaac Washington, the secondary protagonist of House of the Dead: Overkill is basically a straight sendup of the average blaxploitation hero, who uses "motherfucker" like most of us would use a comma. Make him mad and he'll rip your balls off.
- Not an entire work, but one of the main characters of Fahrenheit (2005 video game) is an African-American police officer. We get to see his apartment early in the game, and the place is a blaxploitation nightmare.
- The hats released for Demoman from Team Fortress 2 are a parody of this: The small black "'fro" and a pimp's hat.
- Max Payne 2 has the Show Within a Show "Dick Justice", a parody of the first Max Payne with a black protagonist.
Tabletop Games
- SOLID! The D20 Blaxploitation Experience features abilities like "booty slide" and being able to conceal objects inside your massive 'fro.
Western Animation
- It's only a brief clip, but The Simpsons did a memorable gag where Homer is watching a tv-movie titled Blackula Meets Black Dracula. It's pretty much what you'd expect based on the title.
- Also in The Simpsons, Homer watches "Blaxploitation Theater" which is said to feature Blacula, Blankenstein, and The Blunch Black of Bloture Blame. Homer's response? "Ooh, funkay!"
- Similarly, Family Guy once had a fictional trailer for Black to the Future, a Blaxploitative version of Back to The Future.
- Said trailer also mentioned Blackdraft, Caddyblack and Black Kramer vs. Kramer.
- An elder black version of Dracula in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy is parody of Blacula, who talks like Fred Sanford.
- Drawn Together has Foxxy Love, a sass talking black girl and mystery solver who is often fighting against oppressive, and white, institutions (i.e., The Board of Education)
- The American Dad episode "Brains, Brains, and Automobiles" has a Blaxploitation-style fight between Stan and the Chocodile mascot (a crocodile in Pimp Duds), complete with funky soundtrack.
- The Venture Brothers has Jefferson Twilight who is a Blacula hunter.
- Robot Police Officer URL from Futurama is a parody of Blaxploitation heroes. This overlaps with Salt and Pepper and Odd Couple, given his partner is human Police Officer Smitty.
- The Show Within a Show Action Hank in Dexter's Laboratory.
- In an episode of The Cleveland Show, it was revealed that Donna starred in a film she regretted being in, Hot Cocoa Bang Bang.
- In The Angry Beavers, all the forest animals are sitting around a campfire telling a segment of a story. Barry the Bear (an obvious Barry White parody) tells his story segment in this fashion.