When the “Good One” is “Baaad”: Modern Racism in John Singleton's Shaft

Abstract

John Singleton's 2001 version of the blaxploitation film Shaft reinterprets this iconic representation of Black masculinity within an explicit and self-conscious treatment of the problem of racism. The film moves from a powerfully counter-stereotypical opening scene into a nominal indictment of racism that ultimately reinstates overtly racist stereotypes and privileges racist viewpoints. This paradoxical, multivalent representation of race marks an expansion of the trope of “modern racism”: an expansion that articulates with neo-liberal discourses of race.