0 a style of American film, usually cheaply made and not considered to have a high artistic value, that was popular in the 1970s, involved black actors, and was intended to attract black audiences: --
Yet in this respect blaxploitation was only mirroring parallel developments in popular literature and music of the time, in which a fascination with the ghetto was already prominent.
The few instances of critical self-reflection that are to be found in blaxploitation reside in the soundtracks, whose messages are usually obscured by the larger-than-life caricatures who dominate the screen.
For many rappers, in fact, the elevation of blaxploitation to canonical status has meant a monolithic interpretation of these films as unified, both politically and morally.
One marketing strategy for blaxploitation film was to elide the personas of the musicians who contributed soundtrack with the plot of the film itself.
In more recent slang, portmanteau words such as blaxploitation and ginormous have featured prominently.
Yet in sampling from blaxploitation sound, the original content of these films is sometimes overshadowed by the machismo and aggression of contemporary hip-hop culture.
Other cases of blaxploitation theme-song sampling involve even more drastic departures from a work's original message.
In other words, blaxploitation plots offer a peculiar mix of fantasy and pragmatism, whereby criminal behaviour is at once commended and deplored.
