With the hip hop gangsta wanna-be counter culture we have today, which obviously isn't a counter culture at all because its sucked in so many, well, suckas, a movie like Shaft (and I can dig it) really stands the test of time. This is really the birth of the bad ass black man who plays by his own rules and hates whitey. He's got his women, and his old homies are still gang bangers. Shaft is indeed a bad motherfu' (shut your mouth).
I bet Tony Dungy doesn't like Shaft. I bet Tony Dungy thinks Shaft is a bad role model because he portrays a stereotype of African Americans. Sure Dungy would be right, but I'm talking about Shaft (and I can dig it). At the same time, I bet Barack Obama loves Shaft. I'm not here to talk about Obama's Health Care Initiative because the Deuce is politickin' free (for the most part), but something inside me says you could sit down and watch Shaft with our President and he laughs just as loud as you do when Shaft says, "I'm going to get laid, where are you going?"
Shaft is the king of the blaxploitation flick. Without him, there's no Dolemite, there's no Superfly or Count Blackula. This is the beginning of jive. This is the beginning of white kids finding a black role model that's Rated R and probably not a good role model. Years from now, we'd go on to discover Run DMC and NWA. Our whole lives we'd be taught to never say the "N" word, there'd be Easy E exploiting the fuck out of it. Talk about taking it back.
Sure, years later we'd grow up and get frustrated with all the wanna-be gangstas with way too baggy jeans, showing their underwear and the whole "attitude." Then we'd see that every single rap video was exactly the same, and suddenly we realized we turned into our parents, who hated when we watched MTV as children. But ya know what? That man Shaft is a bad motherfu' (shut your mouth), but I'm talking about Shaft! (and I can dig it). Hey, he's a complicated man, and no one understands him but his woman.
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