Why read Women of Blaxploitation?

Book cover of Women of Blaxploitation: How the Black Action Film Heroine Changed American Popular Culture

Book description

With the Civil Rights movement of the sixties fresh in their perspective, movie producers of the early 1970s began to make films aimed toward the underserved African American audience. Over the next five years or so, a number of cheaply made, so-called blaxploitation movies featured African American actresses in roles…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Women of Blaxploitation as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Natacha Guyot

Author

This is the most comprehensive and thought-provoking book on women in Blaxploitation that I have read.

Sims provides a clear and structure analysis of how Blaxploitation came to be, how it tied into Black femininity and influenced the film industry.

Sims analysis specific actresses who fronted Blaxploitation cinema such as Pam Grier and Tamara Dobson. She describes how American film needs more multifaceted African American characters following the decline of Blaxploitation and how the genre influenced mainstream action heroines like masculinized ones and mother warriors.

From Natacha's list on The best books on women in American film: from silent troublemakers to final girls.