Black Outlaws and the Struggle for Empowerment in Blaxploitation Cinema

Abstract

This essay argues that the bad men tales in 1970s blaxploitation cinema were more than just a glorification of deviant behavior and Black outlaws. In spite of their flaws, these films were important because they served as microcosms of the struggle of Black men to achieve power, agency, and define their self-identity in an American society that had attempted to disenfranchise and emasculate them since slavery. These anti-heroes became alternative examples of Black resistance during and after the long Civil Rights movement.