Blaxploitation Films

Although I have personally not seen any Blaxploitation films of the 70's, I have seen several gansta films and based on the Seiving article, I believe there is a difference. For me, the gansta films of the 80's and 90's created a more realistic approach to current events and living circumstances rather than some woman shooting up lots of bad guys. Movies such as Boyz in the Hood create a more realistic world and portray the Black culture more accurately. That is not to say that they are dangerous, but rather they capture the atmosphere of the lower class more accurately than films of the 70's. In his essay Sieving states, that most of the films of the 70's contained "female action hero- marked her as an unlikely candidate for stardom" and that these films are "films that are by definition sold on the basis of subject matter rather than stars." Another interesting difference between these two is the posters for the films. The Blaxploitation films often contained violent images from the film with the lead female character towering over everyone in a seductive pose, and usually with a gun. The article also states that: each title/ name connotes blackness, theu are always highly sexualized, and "the whites are all bad mothers involved in a narcotics ring." Given these examples, it seems that there is certain a difference between these two genres of film.