Isaac Julien.In my documentary BaadAsssss Cinema (2002), I wanted more than just an academic conversation about blaxploitation blax·ploi·ta·tion n. A genre of American film of the 1970s featuring African-American actors in lead roles and often having antiestablishment plots, frequently criticized for stereotypical characterization and glorification of violence. , and interviewing the original stars allowed for a complication of stereotypes. Pam Grier talks about being an army brat, so you see beyond "Coffy" and "Foxy Brown" and realize that Grier herself is basically a black middle-class subject. My video installation Baltimore, 2003, Involves the same themes. The kitsch figures of the Great Blacks in Wax Museum The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum is a wax museum in Baltimore, Maryland featuring prominent African-American historical figures. It was established in 1983. About invade the painting galleries of the Walters Art Museum The Walters Art Museum, located in Baltimore, Maryland's Mount Vernon neighborhood, is a small privately-formed art collection open to the public. The museum's collection was amassed substantially by two men, William Thompson Walters ( –1894), who began serious collecting , and Melvin van Peebles Melvin Van Peebles (born August 21, 1932 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright and composer, and the father of actor and director Mario Van Peebles. , who appears as himself, is stalked by a femme fatale who traverses stereotypes of black power, blaxploitation, and black science fiction. Van Peebles's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song gave birth to blaxploitation, but it was a highly stylized styl·ize tr.v. styl·ized, styl·iz·ing, styl·iz·es 1. To restrict or make conform to a particular style. 2. To represent conventionally; conventionalize. , even Godardian film. I originally thought of having Quentin Tarantino, who was an Important voice in the documentary, play opposite Van Peebles: In a way like Van Peebles, in a way like myself, Tarantino excavates the repressed from black popular culture in a non-politically correct way. Melvin was intrigued by Baltimore, and very supportive. The only complaint I heard was that he doesn't get the girl at the end of the movie!--AS TOLD TO DOMENICK AMMIRATI [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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