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He Is a “Bad Mother*$%@!#” Shaft and Contemporary Black Masculinity

2002; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 30; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01956050209602846

1930-6458

Matthew Henry,

Race, History, and American Society

Abstract Recent analyses of contemporary black masculinity have centered on images of the black male in mainstream cinema, mainly in the so-called “hood” films of the 1990s. This article explores black masculinity within American popular culture through the mythic black icon John Shaft and a juxtaposed reading of Gordon Parks's Shaft (1971) and John Singleton's Shaft (2000). These two films reveal how shifting ideologies of race and gender have helped to define black masculinity in American culture. Specifically, this essay considers Singleton's film within the context of the blaxploitation film in order to examine the ideological implications of current constructions of black masculinity.