Padriac Farma
Narrative Studies
Michael Selig
12/2/10
Term Paper: Shaft and The New Black Culture
The narrative style of the film Shaft expresses the socio-political climate of
1970’s America through the Hollywood genre, Blaxploitation. By turning the
stereotypical Black character seen in old black and white films into an urban hero with a
passion for political and social justice, Shaft creates a new way of story telling in Black
cinema. Instead of seeing an oppressed, melodramatic character waiting to be saved, we
see someone who works to make things better for his people, and is able to navigate
through his world, free from the harsh racial overtones that affect the lives of others.
Shaft takes the detective film and turns it into a political commentary about the
relationships between African Americans within their culture, with the police, and with
white America. Additionally, Shaft’s custom-tailored music and mise-en-scene of New
York’s urban landscape heighten the narrative momentum beyond simple dialogue and
reverse shots. It is the way that black cultural producers, Gordon Parks and Isaac Hayes
complement the aural and visual environment that makes this film definitively Black
cinema.
Political Landscape
“At its most primary level, narration is a form of communication intricately
related to a culture’s mythic consciousness.” (Yearwood 124) In the 1970’s, the African
American culture was facing a new, post-civil rights movement era. With emerging
Black actors like Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby, the cinematic image of the Black
American was transitioning from that of a southern supporting character, living in an
environment lead by white dominated capitalism to a post great-migration atmosphere
supported by a political structure that attempted to breakdown old traditions that lead to
overt oppression, segregation, and exclusion.
The 1960’s opened up new ideas of protest, gave birth to prominent black
political figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali. These
new figures of black empowerment would serve as archetypes for the Blaxploitation
protagonist: someone strong, determined, and socially conscious. It is here where we see
John Shaft emerge as the “badass mother” that personified a new attitude that black
Americans were finally able to openly express. With this mindset, Shaft is able to “help
define a group’s existence and reveal vital clues about its world-view.” (Yearwood 124)
Narrative Approaches
When looking at the Black action film, we can look at three categories to identify
its narrative and production style: Resistance, Assimilation, and Appropriation. (Reid
69) With resistance, we see an independent form that empowers black culture and its
people to make the film. The best example of the resistance mode would be a film like
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, an independently funded production that attempts to
inspire its audience to standup to injustice. Assimilation takes pre-formed genre
structures (such as the detective film in Shaft’s case), and molds it into a Black film.
Appropriation mixes conventional Classical Hollywood cinema forms with Black culture
and folklore. For instance, Superfly is a takeoff of the gangster film and uses a character
from black street culture – the drug dealer/pimp – as the hero.
In order to identify the narrative progression of any film, the cultural producers
must decide which mode they will follow. In Shaft’s case, the filmmakers chose the
assimilation mode, which is packaged with a certain set of rules and expectations that can
set the parameters for the story. For instance, MGM decided to make a film for Black
audiences, and they chose a script that was based on a detective novel. With this
information, we already know that there will be a scene in the detective’s office where he
is offered a case. We know that there will be a struggle between good and evil, and we
know that the conflict will be resolved with spectacular action. What is left to decide is
how they want to portray Black culture in comparison to the white majority, how far they
want to push the socio-political boundaries of the film, and how to connect it to its target
audience.
Blaxploitation as Genre
While the Blaxploitation genre began to empower the black audience by way of
personal identity and box office presence, there were a number of critics early on that
deemed the genre as a racially insensitive reinforcement of black stereotypes. Lois Ann
Wadsworth describes these critics as having issues with “depictions of African American
men as arrogant, vulgar studs who particularly enjoyed killing white men.” (Wadsworth
10) There were a significant number of people with the opinion that these films
demeaned all African Americans by being too edgy and resistant to traditional forms of
law and order.
When Shaft debuted, the rising sentiment was that the Black action genre was
more negative than positive. Clayton Riley described John Shaft as “patently unreal.”
He continued by saying that Shaft was a fantasy. (Wadsworth 70) Despite his antiestablishment demeanor, Riley felt that John Shaft did not reflect the thoughts of the
average Black man, and that films like Cotton Comes to Harlem and Sweet Sweetback’s
Baadasssss Song portrayed a more realistic embodiment of the anger most African
Americans felt. This issue may be attributed to the lack of back-story for the character of
John Shaft. Despite Shaft’s personal association with Harlem, and the implication that he
has established relationships with the communities most influential players, the root of
his anger is never deliberately stated. With other films, there is usually a sequence in the
beginning that shows how the main characters changed from the innocent youth to the
embittered militant radical desperately seeking social change.
Other critics, such as Maurice Peterson, lauded Shaft’s unique characteristics. For
his review in Essence Magazine, he stated that Shaft was a film that all audiences,
regardless of race, could enjoy because it is the first film, “to show a Black man who
leads a life free of racial torment.” (Wadsworth 70) In fact, Gordon Parks, Sr. details
how he tweaked the movie to be less offensive to black audiences. “The handling of the
militants, for instance…would have been very bad if it had gone the way the book was
written, because they were just hanging around banging garbage cans as detractors while
Shaft did his thing upstairs, rescuing the girl.” (Wadsworth 71) So for all the criticism
that the film got for watering down the unrest instilled in black culture, it was a conscious
decision by the filmmakers to leave the audience with a sense of empowerment, seeing
the Black community come together, as opposed to relying on an individual to create
change.
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song
Some writers say that Shaft was merely an imitation of Melvin Van Peebles’
independent film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Van Peebles, an American
filmmaker who could not gain access to the Hollywood film industry due to his race,
funded, wrote, directed, and starred in this film, which has become the cornerstone of the
Blaxploitation movement. The story centers on Sweetback, a man who has grown up in
the sex industry and witnesses a black militant being beaten by the police. He manages
to run away from the police officers, the chase being driven by experimental soul music.
Having gone through this experience, Sweetback thirsts for vigilante justice, finding
support from the Black community.
When Van Peebles submitted Sweetback to the Motion Picture Association of
America, it received an X rating for its “violent and erotic content.” (Lawrence 41) With
Shaft, we can see basic elements from Sweetback, such as soft-core sex scenes,
vigilantism, power struggles with the police, as well as with the criminal underworld.
However, being produced by MGM, we can see the difference between the more
traditional Hollywood storytelling style of Shaft versus the gritty, independent angst of
Sweetback. Sweetback was able to address its target audience more directly. For
example, the opening title card says, “This film is dedicated to all the Brothers and
Sisters who have had enough of the man.” Similarly, the last title card addresses the
audience again, saying, “Look out! Cause a bad-ass nigger is coming back to pay some
dues!” (Lawrence 42)
Shaft does not attempt to make overt statements to the audience. The closest the
franchise comes to direct address is in its poster, “The mob wanted Harlem back. They
got Shaft…up to here.” While there are similarities in story and approach, it is safe to
say that Shaft is a more watered down version of the Black independent cinema. Instead
of a direct conflict with the police, the mafia crime family is the antagonist. The hero of
the film comes from the right side of the law, not a sex industry like Sweetback.
However, by seeing the difference in approach between these two films, but still being
able to draw similar concepts and ideas, we can understand the basic model and message
this genre tries to convey.
Cultural Context: Independent Roots in the Classical Hollywood Style
In order to better understand the narrative structure of Shaft, it is important to
understand the cultural context of the Black independent film. Thomas Cripps states,
“Neither MGM nor Gordon Parks mad Shaft; he emerged from a sub-culture whose
parents had seen or heard of Ralph Cooper in Dark Manhattan. In so far as art draws its
life blood from a dynamic relationship with its cultural context, it reflects the vernacular
energy and mythic consciousness of its culture.” (Cripps 154) By creating the film
through the eyes of Black cultural producers, there are certain concepts that are
understood within the narrative analysis. Cripps lays out these concepts as a self-evident
segregation from white life, and looking at themselves without the need of a peephole
into the white world. (Cripps 153) In keeping with the atmosphere of white oppression
and segregation, it is no surprise that as the protagonist of Shaft is African American, and
most of the conflict, or struggles will stem from some sort of white antagonist.
The narrative style of Shaft can be related mostly to the Classical Hollywood
cinema. We are introduced to a world with unfolding information and a cause-and effect
structure that drives the story from scene to scene. The editing and cinematographic
styles tend to remain subtle, as to remain invisible to the audience. Temporally, the story
remains completely linear, never shifting with flashbacks or flash-forwards.
Furthermore, Shaft stays true to the classical style by creating star-driven action with
Richard Roundtree as the leading man.
Aesthetically, Shaft is shown walking in a sea of white people, but he is
eventually singled out in the frame by the urban architecture. For example, an electrical
box blurred out in the foreground may put Shaft as the sole or dominant character in the
frame. A number of these setups are also long shots that start out with Shaft deep in the
background, but filling up the frame as he walks towards the camera, signifying his
growing presence and dominance within the world of the film.
Accompanying the visual, and enhancing the tone of the main character is the
song Theme from Shaft, written and performed by Isaac Hayes. With this music, not only
do we see a new way to introduce a character, but we also see a unique way to setup
feeling for culture, tone, and back-story. Before John Shaft ever utters a word, we are
told who he is, “Who’s the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks?
Shaft!” We are let in on his desire, “Who is the man that would risk his neck for his
brother man? Shaft!” We also know about how much power he holds, “Who’s the cat
that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about? Shaft! You see this cat Shaft is a bad
mother—” The music is so catered to the main character that we are able to pick up on
Shaft’s psychological makeup before he even says a word.
Hayes’ musical composition was so successful because it was able to compliment
the imagery in the film. The music in Shaft served as the model for future Blaxploitation
films such as Cleopatra Jones and Superfly. These songs were often accompanied by a
montage, but were able to stand alone as individual pieces. For example, the soundtrack
to Shaft sold more than 500,000 copies after its release. It was the inclusion of this black
cultural movement in music that allowed for small twists to the rigid formula of Classical
Hollywood cinema.
Shaft’s Theme plays with the context of the imagery much in the same way that
the music in the opening sex scene in Sweetback changed the context of that scene. Huey
P. Newton made note of this importance with music when commenting on the
controversy of Sweetback’s opening sequence, “The music indicates that this is not a
sexual scene, this is very sacred manhood and the act of love, the giving of manhood.”
(Lawrence 43) It is in this way that the use of cultural music can convey certain
impressions that a traditional mainstream audience may overlook.
Narrative Techniques
The narrative exposition of the story in Shaft reveals this new type of Black
Hollywood protagonist with the first shot. Fading in from black, we see an exposition
shot of Times Square. Immediately, we see that this film, which centers on Black
culture, has shifted from the rural, Southern boundaries audiences grew accustomed to in
films like Birth of A Nation, Porgy and Bess, and Song of the South to a new
understanding of what it means to be Black in a Hollywood film. The emergence of this
new type of black American is then symbolized by John Shaft ascending from the
darkness and filth of the subway system, and on to the bustling streets of New York City.
Next, the new attitude that came from Civil Rights era political figures, and the
Black Panther movement is shown through Shaft’s tough, anti-establishment demeanor.
After Shaft exits the subway, he walks into moving traffic, and yells at a cab driver that
honks at him for getting in the way. Shaft’s attitude is heightened by funky, upbeat
music that reinforces his powerful stride as he navigates through the streets.
The Harlem community is captured through montage, while Shaft is looking for
clues and information. He goes through a series of door to doors, asking questions.
Here, we see the fashion of the time, day-to-day minutiae such as asking if he heard the
lottery numbers, and other background details about Harlem’s culture. By showing
Shaft’s interaction with the community, we are able to see a more human side to the man,
instead of merely sticking with the curt, tough guy who lives outside of the law. By
being able to see John Shaft working with community members, we are able to
understand why he has chosen his profession, and what matters to him.
Desire
As in most narrative based films, desire is the single most important element to
driving the story. By knowing Shaft’s desire, we know why he puts himself in life
threatening situations that create so much turmoil in his life. In Shaft, John Shaft’s desire
is subtly implied in several scenes, however there is no Tom Joad-esque monologue that
blatantly states his personal desire. Instead, we see Shaft’s desire for justice and social
equity when a Black man tries to sell him a stolen watch. Shaft flashes his badge,
causing the street salesman to run away. Another quick scene that establishes Shaft’s
desire is when he goes to visit his old partner, Ben. As he approaches the stoop to the
apartment building, he stops to talk to a young boy. Shaft then gives him some money to
buy some food. This gesture establishes Shaft’s desire to take care of the people in his
culture, and his desire to see them be well. This desire is also established when he is
forced to break down an old woman’s door to evade a gang of gunmen. When the gang
leaves, Shaft pulls out a ten-dollar bill and gives it to the woman while apologizing for
the door.
This desire explains why Shaft chooses to take the case that makes up the rest of
the film. Bumpy, a notorious pimp and drug dealer, comes to Shaft because his daughter
has been kidnapped. Bumpy chooses Shaft because of his access to the police, or
“whitey” as Bumpy calls them. This is a point where we see inner conflict within Shaft.
Shaft is reluctant to work with Bumpy because of how much of a negative impact he has
on the community, however Bumpy’s daughter is an upstanding citizen, who is not
involved with her father’s crime ring. Knowing that the daughter goes to college, and is
trying to elevate herself out of her social deficit is why Shaft decides to find her. This
decision is the reason why we are able to identify Shaft as a hero. Despite his tough
exterior, and the difficulty he gives to traditional law enforcement agencies, Shaft still
has a set of morals and ethics that force him to do the right thing, even if it is something
he doesn’t want to do.
Shaft’s desire to see black society succeed and flourish naturally sets up an area
for conflict with white people. There is an ironic moment very early on in the film, when
Shaft’s first exchange of dialogue is with another character, a blind, white man named
Marty who sells newspapers on the corner. When Marty tells Shaft that a pair of men
was looking for him, Shaft asks if they were from Harlem. Marty responds, “How am I
supposed to know?! They all look the same to me!” By pairing this older, stuttering
white man with Shaft, we are given a visual representation of Shaft’s power versus his
white counterparts.
Shaft’s Cultural Connections
There are two other points in the film when Shaft speaks with friends who are
white. In each instance, there is some character issue that prevents these friends from
being accepted fully into their white community. The bartender who works across the
street from Shaft’s office helps Shaft out by letting him serve a pair of mobsters. The
bartender is openly gay, but this does not affect his friendship with Shaft, even when he
pats him on the behind as we walks by. The third white person that Shaft establishes a
friendship with is a woman from the bar. Shaft takes her home and they become
intimate. Being a woman, their friendship is based on sex, which also results in her being
one of the least developed characters in the film.
It should be stated at this point that sex and sexual desire play on many levels of
the film’s narrative direction. On the surface, the nudity and sexual gratuity serve as a
way to titillate the audience and provide additional reasons to pay for the price of
admission. However, within the story, sex is used as a way to convey power and control.
John Shaft’s sexual energy is a departure from the way African Americans were typically
depicted in older films. Novotny Lawrence describes these older depictions, “Prior to the
emergence of the Blaxploitation movement, Black males were typically depicted as
sexually savage or sterile.” (Lawrence 20) By seeing Shaft as a sex symbol who is in
total control of his urges and desire, the audience is shown a new light on the Black hero.
Additionally the fact that Shaft has sex with both black and white women supports the
understanding that he lives in a world where he has access and power with both races.
When we finally see Shaft interact with white men who hold power, his own
unique strength is portrayed through his smart mouth. When police officers track him
down to ask him questions about crime in Harlem, Shaft refuses to give any information,
saying “You want me to pigeon, I just said, ‘Up yours, baby.’” Shaft’s disrespect for the
police, joined with his exclusive access to information makes him impossible to lean on.
Even after he is ambushed in his office, throws a criminal out of his window, and is faced
with losing his detective’s license, he refuses to play ball. When the police raise the
stakes and threaten to imprison Shaft for murder, he responds with a threat to sue for
false imprisonment.
While Shaft struggles with the police, and cabdrivers reluctant to pick up his fare,
the true antagonists in Shaft’s story is the Italian mafia. The true nature of these mobsters
is translated immediately through their language. They are the only people in the film to
use the n-word, and repeatedly use the term, “boy” when referring to Shaft. The mob
members are also placed at the opposite end of the morality spectrum. When Shaft
eventually tracks down Bumpy’s daughter, he holds one of the mobsters at gunpoint in
order to make an exchange. Instead of making a deal, or finding a way to peacefully get
their associate back, they shoot him in order to get to Shaft. By showing this lack of
moral judgment, we are given a juxtaposition of culture, showing us how Shaft and his
culture are truly the good guys, while the mobsters would sooner gun down one of their
own before letting Shaft walk away victorious.
Conflict, Unrest, Spectacular Action
By the end of the film, we have navigated through the story, and have identified
our traditional Hollywood plot points. The good guys in the film are Shaft and his band
of Harlem militants; the bad guys are the Italian mafia. Here, we see a departure from the
classic Hollywood narrative where the individual characters represent specific cultural
groups, and see what Bordwell describes as “art-cinema narration,” where a group takes
the place of an individual character, and becomes the archetypal representation of a
whole cultural group, class, or historical period. (Bordwell, 235) By making this
transition, the text is better able to convey a sense of strength and unity among Black
culture, further referencing the racial issues between black and white society that was
prominent in 1970’s America.
The internalized conflict is that the mob has kidnapped Bumpy’s daughter, and
Shaft must get her back. It is here where we see the spectacular action transition from
Shaft being the sole crime fighter to a group of black men fighting the evil-doing mafia.
Within this sequence of action, we see the black militants band together to fight the
oppressors of one of their own, we see a throwback to the civil rights era with a role
reversal of the black men spraying down the white men with a fire hose. When this
sequence ends, we see that order is restored. The militants jump into cabs with Bumpy’s
daughter, the squad cars pull up to the building containing the mob members, and Shaft
walks away unscathed.
Opposing Arguments to Shaft as Black Cinema
In analyzing the narrative structure and style of Shaft, some feel that while the
film and its genre was able to employ a number of black filmmakers, there was not too
much of a departure from the traditional style of filmmaking that defined American films.
In fact, it can be said that the film emulates the style of filmmaking that can be seen as
non-traditional black storytelling. Charles Gordone is quoted as saying, “For instance,
pictures like Sweetback and Shaft and so forth and so on, are like carbon copies, you
know, of former white movies.” (Manchel 424) Gladstone Yearwood describes
traditional forms of black narration as performative and interactive. Blues uses elements
of improvisation and call-and-response, and is typically a combination of other forms of
narrative such as work songs, sacred harmonies, or field hollers. (Yearwood 133) Other
non-traditional styles of storytelling, such as quilt making and dance, are also prominent
in Black culture.
With the rich art and history of African American art, one might expect the black
cinema of the 1970’s to look more like European art-cinema, but instead they adapted
their narrative text to the popular way of storytelling, eliminating their often-celebrated
elements of audience participation and innovative styles of communication. There is
much thought that Blaxploitation gave Black culture a new voice and power, however,
their voice was ultimately forced to confine itself to a style of filmmaking that was
established by a dominant force that limited the role of African Americans in film for
decades.
Critical Reactions to Shaft
This style of filmmaking for Black culture received mixed reactions. The film
won an Academy Award for best original song, and received nominations from other
award ceremonies such as the Golden Globes and Grammy Awards. A review by A.D.
Murphy, of Variety said, “The film may, to some audiences, begin to slow down towards
the climax, and the last scene is a bit protracted, though not unduly harmful.” (Murphy)
Furthermore, Murphy suggested that the role of Charles Cioffi, an “understanding tough
white cop, whose outstanding characterization single handedly upgrades the plot from
strictly racial polemic, works with Roundtree in avoiding a gangland confrontation
which, to outsiders, would appear to be a racial war. (Murphy)
Roger Ebert criticized Gordon Parks directing job by saying that he chose this
film for commercial survival, however praised the film’s narrative text for staying true to
the stereotypical aspects of the private investigator, “He keeps no regular company.
Private eyes (in the movies, anyway) are loners in a way that defines the word. They live
in dingy walk-up offices, sipping bourbon from the office bottles and waiting for the
phone to ring.” Ebert continues to applaud the film by praising the twist that they give on
the conventional private eye genre, “The nice thing about Shaft is that it savors the
private-eye genre, and takes special delight in wringing new twists out of the traditional
relationship between the private eye and the boys down at homicide.” (Ebert)
Indeed it appears to be the film’s narrative, not its aesthetic wonders, that
audiences and critics want to discuss. The National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People described Shaft and similar films such as Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss
Song, Superfly, and Come Back Charleston Blue as “cultural genocide.” The
organization thought that by inserting so much sex and violence into the Black film
movement, a group with a very short and narrow history in Hollywood, that it would set
back the progress of Blacks in film for years. Their main concern was that the market
would be saturated with mostly low-budget, violent exploitation movies cast and crewed
by mostly Black cultural producers that would be pigeon-holed into this genre for good.
(Manchel 21)
Even with all this philosophical debate amongst the organizations and leaders of
the charge, Black audiences seemed to not hold the same ideals. Shaft was a very popular
film, and sold quite well in movie theatres. The image of John Shaft as this cool, smooth
operator followed by his own theme song, and living by his own rules was still relatively
new to Black audiences, and the fact that finally there was a heroic character that lived
above the oppression and melancholy existence of purported Black culture was enough
for people to support and feed into.
The emergence of John Shaft into popular culture left such a ripple effect that he
was still a common name twenty years later. Will Smith, in his television series, The
Fresh Prince of Bel Air would regularly reference Shaft as the Superman of young Black
men growing up in the city. In I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, a spoof of the Blaxploitation
genre made in 1988, there is a scene where two characters discuss what it means to be a
Black action hero. The response to this question is explained by a group of musicians
following the men playing the soulful theme music reminiscent of the opening sequence
to Shaft.
In each instance where Shaft is referenced, it is rarely a single shot, or camera
movement, or lighting aesthetic that is used to represent the film. Instead, it is a function
of the storytelling that is used. People might sing the theme song that tells us who Shaft
is, others might recite a line of dialogue that expresses Shafts character, and establishes
his relationship to white or black society. As one of the first Blaxploitation films, Shaft
found a way to tell a story from the Black cultural perspective through the lens of
Classical Hollywood cinema. Time may be a detriment to this credit as the
Blaxploitation was eventually saturated by those who repeated Shaft’s narrative formula
over and over, but it should not be forgotten that this is the film that found a way to make
the story of Black culture in the 1970’s mainstream, and gave new light on race relations,
politics, and what it means to be a badass.
Works Cited
Bordwell, David. Narration in the Fiction Film. Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1985. Print.
Cripps, Thomas. Black Film as Genre. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978.
Print.
Ebert, Roger. “Shaft.” RogerEbert.com. 1 Jan. 1971. Web. 13 Dec. 2010.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19710101/REVIEWS/101010
325
Lawrence, Novotny. Blaxploitation Films of The 1970’s: Blackness and Genre. New
York: Routledge, 2008. Print.
Manchel, Frank. Every Step A Struggle. Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing,
2007. Print.
Murphy, A.D. “Shaft.” Variety. 15 June 1971. Web. 13 Dec. 2010.
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117794798?refcatid=31
Reid, Mark A. Redefining Black Film. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
Print.
Wadsworth, Lois Ann. Protest Groups and The Media: African American Response to
the Blaxploitation Movies of the Early 70’s. VIII, 182 leaves. Print.
Yearwood, Gladstone L. Black Film as a Signifying Practice. Trenton: Africa World
Press, 2000. Print.