BLACULA 1972

Blacula brings the vampire back.

A number of “ploitation” films (sexploitation, blacksploitation or blaxploitation parallel sexploitation) developed to try to find a specific marker. The growing attempt to reach a Black audience lead to the term ”Blacksploitation” and the film Blacula (clearly playing with the name Dracula) appeared as the first entry in the horror genre of Blacksploitation films.

Blaxploitation films appear in the early 1970s and targeted urban black audiences. Blaxploitation films are typified by having primarily black actors (especially in leading roles) , and are known in many instances for soundtracks of "funk" and "soul" music. There is some argument over which film is the first "Blacksploitation" film with Variety magazine holding out for Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) (Melvin van Peebles writer and director) and others holding for Shaft (1971) (by Ernest Tidyman 1928-1984). The argument revolves over whether or not a blacksploitation film must be Hollywood made film or not. Since Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was an independently made film it woesn't qualify under the definition that it be Hollywood produced.

Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was indeed the brainchild of a black filmmaker, but it did not deal with most of the common themes found in later blaxploitation films, it was not thought by some to be a blaxploitation film. So the Hollywood-financed film Shaft wins out in that case. Interestingly enough, Shaft is written by Ernest Tidyman one of the few Whites to win an NAACP “image award" given to people who created positive images of Blacks).

Typically blacksploitation films take place either in Northern or West Coast ghettos or on Southern plantations. Those set in the ghetto tend to deal with pimps, drug dealers, and hit men and make frequent use of drugs, the Afro hairstyle, “pimpmobiles," ethnic slurs against whites (e.g. "honky"), and negative white characters like corrupt cops and politicians and easily fooled crime members. Blaxploitation films set in the South most often take place on a plantation, dealing with slavery and miscegenation.

Following the lead of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, many of these films featured funk and soul jazz soundtracks with heavy bass, funky beats and wah-wah guitars. These soundtracks are notable for a degree of complexity that was not common for radio-friendly funk tracks and rich orchestration that included uncommon instruments such as flutes and violins. This style of music actually evolved into a bona-fide musical genre, also called blaxploitation. Prominent examples of this style include Curtis Mayfield's Super Fly and Isaac Hayes's Shaft.

The films also stereotyped blacks as pimps and drug dealers. Although these might have been viewed as more "powerful" stereotypes than the subservient ones in Hollywood films, the image tended to match with common white negative stereotypes about black people. Some feel that this led to the end of the blaxploitation genre. Organizations like The NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Urban League united toform the Coalition Against Blaxploitation. Many black film professionals agreed. There was much coverage of these groups in the media and it seems to have led to the death of these fimsby the late 1970s.

None the less, many Blaxploitation films, such as Mandingo, raised questions that encouraged future filmmakers to address concerns about race and problems in inner city, such as poverty, and led, in the early 1990s, to a new wave of black filmmakers like Spike Lee and John Singleton who focused on black urban life in their films .

In addition to the problems raised by these films relative to the depiction of Blacks (and indeed any minority) in films, there has been a parallel development of questioning about actors playing characters from specific ethnic minorities who are not of that group.

Asian acts have objected strongly to non-Asians, like Sidney Toler, Peter Ustinov and Warner Oland, playing characters like Charlie Chan. (Interstingly enough Warner Oland's grandmother is Mongol raising the question of just how Asian does one need to be along with the questions of whether it is a physical apperance or a cultural background which is needed!). Actor Peter Fan has held it is better to have Asians play Asians since they don't have to put on a veneer of being Asian first. One can argue that this is precisely the definition of acting - the acor becoming someone he or she is not. Do we really need to find a serial killer to play Hannibal Lechter? Or worse - can a Japanese actor play a Chinese or what???

The problem seems to be the result of a question of economic discrimination rather than acting. If Asian actors are not generally hired (or were not hired) to play Asians, and then the roles of Asians were given to non Asian performers, then just what characters would Asian actors get hired to play? Hence the question should not be phrased perhaps in terms of who can play what role. but whether or not actors are hired without regard to their racial or ethnic backgrounds. At an extreme level this has led to "color blind casting" in which actors are hired as though they were performing on radio where the audience wouldn't see them. In visual media this may raise awkward questions and make the audience wonder about things not meant in the play. A mother (played by a White actor) has a child (played by a Black actor) and the story concerns itself with the problems of a one parent family. Does the appearance of the child imply there is a missing Black father and thereby make a statement about Black family stucture (not intended by the author? In some case the appearance of the performers will greatly effect the story line. Could the audience accept a 300 pound performer as the leading ballerina of the Royal Ballet?????

Blacula is the name of a fictional character that appeared in two blaxploitation horror films produced for American International Pictures in 1972 and 1973, respectively. The character was portrayed by William Marshall. Both films deal with the character of Mamuwalde, an African prince transformed into a vampire and then imprisoned in a sealed coffin by Count Dracula, only to find himself released in the 1970s. The first film was produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff and Joseph T. Naar, directed by William Crain, and written by Raymond Koenig and Joan Torres. Blacula won the "Best Horror Film" award at the 1972 Saturn Awards.

The film wasunfavorably reviewed by those few mainstream critics, who actually bothered to review it. It did however manage to win several horror film awards.

Blacula was a financial success when it was originally released. It has horror fiml "descendents" in Scream Blacula Scream, Abby, Blackenstein, Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde, Ganja and Hess, The House on Skull Mountain, J. D.'s Revenge, Sugar Hill, Def by Temptation, Vampire in Brooklyn. Tales from the Hood, and Bones.

AFTER THE FILM

The film certainl has some moments which become funny rather than serious or horrorfying. The pronouncement of "You shall be Blacula" is so over the top that it provikes laughter in most audiences.

The film does however, provide some positive images of Blacks in the doctor Gordon Thomas (Thalmus Rasulala) and of several Black women in the film - Dr. Thomas's lab assistant Michelle (Denise Nichols) along with a woman cab driver (Juanita Jones) and a woman photographer (Emiy Yancy). The film howver, seems beculiarly anti-gay for no apparent reason.

The story recognizes that vampirism is not the fault of the vampire and in this case Blacula's affliction comes from his having been anti-slavery and defending his wife against some obnoxious statements by Dracula.

Like many blacksploitation films, the film is anti police (although in this case the police seem not particularly corrupt). The trailer for the film makes Blacula out to be a "Black Avenger" and shows mostly scenes of him atacking police.

The film also hints that things are not what they seem, perhaps an allusion to the idea that there are misconceptions about ethnics in real like. For example, Tina believes the buried body of one of the gay interior decorators is actually alive when he leaps out of the grave and screams to Dr. Thomas to stop "killing" him. There are misconcpetions about some police events by Dr.Thomas who feels that he is not being given information because victims are black but in reality it is Blacula who is at the root of the problems.

The films uses shadows (Blacula's entrance into the photographer's lab) to indicate his arrival; slow motion photography when the vampire form of the taxi driver runs down the hall to attack the attendant.

In the end, Dracula dies willingly and suicidally giving him a kind of nobility sometimes lacking in vampire films.