Blaxploitation Quotes

I am a big fan of movies from the '70s.

'Never Die Alone' is primarily a riveting genre film that neatly exhibits the director's growing assurance - Donald Goines would be proud.

There's people saying that 'Jackie Brown' was a blaxploitation movie, when there's nothing at all blaxploitation about it other than Pam Grier being in it.

I imagine it was much different in the 1970s. That was the Renaissance for black actors, albeit in blaxploitation movies. There was a much greater preponderance of work then than there is now.

My first film was a movie shot in 1974. I was 18 on that movie set. It was called 'Big Bad Mama.' I turned 19 on the next movie I worked on, which was a black 'Blazing Saddles.' I worked in the art department. It was called 'Darktown Strutters.'

My favorite movies are from the '70s.

I did a film called 'Black Dynamite' that was very, very funny. That seems to be a film that's kind of a cult classic.

For Black Music Month, I would definitely want to celebrate Isaac Hayes.

If you take the '70s with Blaxploitation pictures, there was a proliferation of black-content films and motion pictures, television, stage plays and so forth at a time when Hollywood was in trouble financially, and it was cheaper to do black films to keep the lights on until they could reestablish themselves.

You know, I hope that someday they make a movie about me. People need to know the story of 'Dolemite;' they need to know my story.

Shaft was a pop culture figure along t he lines of, I guess, Dirty Harry - except that he wasn't as much of a racist. So yeah, I was always a fan.

When Curtis Mayfield made 'Super Fly,' he used the lyric to make a statement.

For me, Mexploitation seemed like something that should have existed, but didn't.

I grew up watching those blaxploitation movies. Ron O'Neal, Richard Roundtree, Jim Brown, Pam Grier. For the first time, I saw 'The Negro' get one over on 'The Man.'

I really like Pam Grier's whole 'Coffy' aesthetic. It's just natural. It's not even anything that they were overdoing back then. I really like that natural beauty kind of thing. But at the same time, I really like thick, winged eyeliner.

I worked at Warner Bros. for a while. I was the head of the minority talent casting. It was like pre-Spike Lee and post-blaxploitation era.

What happened when 'Sweetback' made all that money, the studios were in a very difficult position. They wanted the money, but they didn't the message. This marked the advent of the caricatures which became known as blaxploitation.

Honestly, what 'Luke Cage' is - it's a hip-hop Western. And you have Luke Cage as the sheriff of Harlem.

My cousin was Ron O'Neal, who was 'Superfly.' Films like 'Shaft' and 'Superfly' were the biggest things out there in the early '70s. It's hard to remember just how big they were - how much impact they had on the culture, the music, the fashions, the hair styles.

I'll say one of my all time favorite albums would have to be Willie Hutch, 'The Mack.'

About the time I was 7, I got really into black-exploitation films, so I made my own Wonder Woman, but I made her black.

I probably wanted to be Pam Grier growing up.

All Blaxploitation is, is the opportunity for an African-American cast or lead actor or actress to do the same things that a white action hero gets to do.

Why do we think the '70s were so awesome? That 'freeness' of music was there.

I'm a huge fan of the '70s. I'm obsessed with the music of that time.