One of my favorite cinematic subgenres is parody. When, in my travels around the blogosphere I came across a blogathon dedicated to just that very thing, I had to jump on it. It's called the "It's Just a Joke" Blogathon and it's hosted by Movie Movie Blog Blog. The rules are simple, just write a post about one of your favorite movie parodies. Psssh! That's easy.
Like lots of kids, I came across lots of movies my parents were watching, our friends told us about, or just happened to stumble across on TV. For me, that meant lots of Blaxploitation flicks. Over the last decade or so, I revisited lots of those movies and introduced myself to a good deal more. Through both phases, I got to know how they work pretty well. Way back in 1988, we got an excellent spoof of them with the Wayans family production I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. It's still the best movie they've ever done, and easily the best of their parodies. I thought that would be it for spoofs of this genre, and it was. At least, it was until 2009 when Black Dynamite hit theaters. It was the brainchild of star Michael Jai White. And it was perfect.
The plot is a familiar one in Blaxploitation circles. Jimmy was killed by some gangster types who have been selling "smack" to neighborhood kids and getting them strung out. It's now up to Jimmy's older brother, Black Dynamite to find out who's responsible, clean up the streets, and exact revenge for Jimmy's death. Yes, our hero's name is Black Dynamite.
From an outsider's perspective, it seems the most difficult thing about making a good parody is making conflicting interests work. What I mean by that is, a parody has to make fun of something yet be good at the exact same thing. Black Dynamite does this. It makes fun of all the tropes and other idiosyncrasies of Blaxploitation while still making a film that resides firmly, and proudly within the genre. It's not afraid to make light of its weaknesses and feeds on its strengths. For instance, one of the things the genre is known for, particularly Dolemite movies, is the boom mic being visible in the shot. Not only does this happen in Black Dynamite we can see the actors visibly distracted by it. At another point, an actor says his stage directions out loud. At still another, during a fight scene one actor is really hit and is ready to start a real fight. We abruptly cut to a continuation of the movie fight with a different actor in the role. There are brilliant little touches like this all the way through. As the late-great Roger Ebert put it in his review, "Black Dynamite gets it mostly right, and when it's wrong, it's wrong on purpose and knows just what it's doing."
Fans of Blaxploitation flicks will also notice lots of genre tropes. There's the ultra-specific soundtrack, the hero's god-like sexual prowess, the date montage, and a stand-in for the Black Panther Party. Of course, things boil down to an evil white man trying to inflict major damage on the black community. One of the more troubling aspects of the genre is that the heroes are often pimps or otherwise travel in criminal circles. Often, they still vow to clean up the streets. Even that's tackled in a funny way. Consider the scene when Black Dynamite tries to enlist the help of a roomful of pimps. Any that aren't with him, well...
Black Dynamite: I am declaring war, on anybody who sells drugs in our community.
Chocolate Giddy-Up: But Black Dynamite, I sell drugs in the community!
Something else is needed to make a great parody: love. A great parody can't be a heartless hammering of the thing it's parodying. It's got to clearly have a love for the thing its skewering. It should come off like the teasing of a sibling, not the bullying of a classmate. There is clearly a love for Blaxploitation cinema all over Black Dynamite. It's most evident in the look of the film. It was painstakingly made to look like it was released in the early to mid 1970s. The effort pays off. I thought it did the first time I saw it, but had that feeling confirmed for me when I was rewatching it for this blogathon. Back in July, I watched Black Caesar and its sequel Hell Up in Harlem as part of the Blind Spot challenge. My daughter wandered in during that, and watched a decent chunk of them both. My wife did the same. They were both out while I was watching Black Dynamite but came home towards the end. My daughter immediately thought I was watching something from my childhood. For a moment, my wife did, too. She only realized I wasn't when she saw Michael Jai White's face.
The aforementioned Black Caesar is one of the movies Black Dynamite draws directly from. Others include Dolemite, Foxy Brown, and Shaft. However, Blaxploitation is not its only target. It also takes on kung fu movies, in particular it goes after one of my all-time favorite movies of any type - Enter the Dragon. It weaves this seamlessly into its tapestry and with no less love than it shows for any other aspect. Given my penchant for Blaxploitation and kung-fu flicks this is a movie tailor-made for me. I laugh from the time it starts all the way through the closing credits.
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