"Baad Bitches" and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films

Notes

Notes Introduction 1.Rhines, Black Film/White Money, 43. 2. Bogle, Toms, Coons, 251–5 2. 3. Yearwood, Black Film, 44. 4. Gaines, “White Privilege,” 337 . 5.hooks, Critical ἀ inking. 6. Willis, High Contrast, 1. 7. Ibid., 4. 8. Everett, “Other Pleasures,” 281. 9. Reid, Redefining Black Film, 4. 10.Tasker, Spectacular Bodies, 8. 11.Ibid., 6. 12.Pough, Check It While I Wreck It, 20–21. 13. Hazel Carby quoted in L. Williams, Playing the Race Card, 4. 14. L. Williams, Playing the Race Card, 4. 15. Ibid., 6. Williams argues that the “old” melodrama of Toms, anti-Toms, and racial victims and villains as presented in Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Birth of a Nation, for example, are made “new” in moral shifts and new media. 16. Ibid., 17. 17. Ibid., 19. 18.Ibid., 21. Chapter 1: The Pleasure of Looking 1.Sloan, “Keeping the Black Woman,” 31. 2. Kincaid, “Pam Grier,” 52. 13 8 . notes to pages 14–24 3. Grier quoted in Hobson, “Foxy as Ever,” 5. 4. Guerrero, Framing Blackness, 98. 5.Sloan, “Keeping the Black Woman,” 31. 6. Guerrero, Framing Blackness, 98. 7. Ibid., 99. 8. Mayne, “Paradoxes of Spectatorship,” 158. 9. Ibid., 159. 10.Linda Williams references Judith Mayne here. See Williams, “Introduction,” 14. 11.Diawara, “Spectatorship,” 213, 215, 216, 219. 12.hooks, “Oppositional Gaze,” 289, 291. 13. Ibid., 293, 294, 295. 14. Ibid., 299, 300. 15.Stewart, “Negroes Laughing at Themselves?,” 665. 16. Ibid., 653, 661, 659. 17. Ibid., 665, 673. 18.Ibid., 661, 665. 19. Ibid., 665. 20. Tarantino appears in Isaac Julien’s 2002 documentary BaadAsssss Cinema. 21.Mann appears in Baadassss (2004), directed by Mario Van Peebles. 22.In 2003,I went to see Resurrection, the powerful documentary about late rapper Tupac Shakur, at the most popular and rather exclusive shopping center in Columbus, Ohio, the Easton Town Center. My black male companion and I stood in line with groups of young, primarily black men, some of whom reached the entrance only to be turned away. We wondered about the reason—were they too young? They didn’t appear to be. Was the little-enforced rule of no admittance without an adult if under a certain age being suddenly enforced? No, as we moved up, we discovered that the policy had been changed solely for the Tupac film; the required age had been raised and “children” younger than that age had to be accompanied by adults. In addition, there was no admittance for certain viewers without “proper” identification. The high school–aged young men in baggy pants and Tupac T-shirts in front of us looked around somewhat helplessly but resigned. One turned to my companion and me, imploring us with his eyes. We reached the ticket taker, and I told him that we were a party of four. The two young men thanked me, their eyes conveying more of their gratitude than they could express. We went in, but my pleasure had been dramatically curtailed by the disturbing implications of the difficulties that youthful black moviegoers faced in merely gaining entry to a public social space. 23.Pough, Check It While I Wreck It, 18. 24. hooks appears in BaadAsssss Cinema. 25.In Black Noise, Tricia Rose offers a helpful analysis of rap music and hip hop, calling them “cultural, political, and commercial forms” that are for a number of young people “primary cultural, sonic, and linguistic windows on the world.” She notes to pages 24–36 · 13 9 also explains that “hip hop . . . attempts to negotiate the experiences of marginalization , brutally truncated opportunity, and oppression within the cultural imperatives of African American and Caribbean history, identity, and community” (21). 26. For further history on hip hop, see Nelson George, Hip Hop America, and Alex Ogg with David Upshal, ἀ e Hip Hop Years: A History of Rap. 27. Rose, “Hip Hop Summit.” 28. Some helpful discussions about the historical roots of the sexist/racist iconography of the black female are provided in Sander Gilman’s Difference and Pathology and Londa Schiebinger’s Nature’s Body. Also see hooks, Black Looks, and Carby, Reconstructing Womanhood. 29. hooks, Black Looks, 65. 30. Collins, Black Sexual Politics, 123–2 4. 31.Ibid., 126. 32. Souljah, Coldest Winter Ever, 4. 33.See Morgan, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost. 34. Here, Collins references a Vibe magazine article about Lil’ Kim. Collins, Black Sexual Politics, 127 . 35.Jones, “Lil’ Kim.” 36...