Blaxploitation: The Appeasement of The Culturally White Spectator

Chenita White | University of North Carolina Wilmington

This paper explores racial tropes that are popular within Hollywood cinema. The white gaze, or white scopophilia, is at the center of film production, spectators, and their expectations. Therein lies the question pertaining to cinema: why is the white establishment fixated on seeing their effects on the black mind, psyche, and body? Do black filmmakers perpetuate white stereotypes in order to become filmmakers?