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• Blaxploitation
  Blaxploitation

  noun

  a subgenre of American cinema in the 1970s featuring Black protagonists in exploitation films intended to appeal to African American audiences.
• blaxploitation
  blaxploitation

  noun

  a genre of films featuring Black stereotypes

Blaxploitation

American  

[blak-sploi-tay-shuhn] / ˌblæk splɔɪˈteɪ ʃən /

Or Blacksploitation

noun

(often lowercase)

1. a subgenre of American cinema in the 1970s featuring Black protagonists in exploitation films intended to appeal to African American audiences.

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blaxploitation British  

/ ˌblæksplɔɪˈteɪʃən /

noun

1. a genre of films featuring Black stereotypes

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Etymology

Origin of Blaxploitation

Blend of Blax (respelling of Blacks ) + exploitation; coined by Dr. Junius Griffin (1929–2005) of the Beverly Hills/Hollywood NAACP in 1972 in response to the movie Super Fly (1972)

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Blaxploitation blaxploitation

PolyGram executive Harry Weinger reached out to Bitton and asked him to lend the record label his copy of a rare Blaxploitation soundtrack so the company could make a reissue.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 15, 2024

The 1970s movie franchise was iconic as it was among the first of what came to be known as Blaxploitation films, a genre featuring action movies that centred on heroic black characters.

From BBC ● Oct. 24, 2023

This is the second movie that White has written with Byron Minns; the first was “Black Dynamite,” the 2009 Blaxploitation spoof that White also starred in.

From New York Times ● Sep. 14, 2023

A projector above a photo booth shows clips from classic Black films and Blaxploitation movies, along with candid photos of attendees.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 6, 2023

The associations that Blaxploitation that we get from that is just, "Well, it's campy and it's silly and it's not to be paid attention to and we should dismiss it."

From Salon ● Nov. 30, 2022

He also wrote and produced the soundtrack for the blaxploitation film Coffy starring Pam Grier.

From BBC ● Mar. 6, 2025

For the part of the head cook, Payne said he’d been eyeing Randolph, a breakout star of the blaxploitation biopic “Dolemite Is My Name.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 27, 2023

Richard Roundtree, who played one of the first Black action heroes in the blaxploitation '70s era of film, died at 81 of pancreatic cancer on Tuesday in his Los Angeles home, his manager said.

From Salon ● Oct. 25, 2023

Likewise, Whitehead used Richard Pryor as an inspiration for the comedian Roscoe Pope, who has in a key role in the book’s midsection sequence about a blaxploitation film shoot.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 19, 2023

Mr. Badalamenti got started in films by writing music for “Gordon’s War,” a 1973 blaxploitation film.

From New York Times ● Dec. 12, 2022

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