The blaxploitation genre is something I somehow managed to miss, so 1973’s Cleopatra Jones is really the first movie of this type that I‘ve seen. Cleopatra Jones is a government agent who becomes embroiled in a gang war involving a sinister criminal mastermind, Mommy (an amazingly camp but highly entertaining performance by Shelley Winters). Cleopatra Jones is clearly aimed at a multi-racial audience, so we have some sympathetic white cops and the kind of institutionalised racism that must have been commonplace in police forces at the time is severely down-played. If you’re looking for a movie that genuinely challenges racial stereotypes this isn’t it. Tamara Dobson is fun in the title role, and the whole thing is harmless and amusing fun.
Sunday 15 July 2007
Cleopatra Jones (1973)
The blaxploitation genre is something I somehow managed to miss, so 1973’s Cleopatra Jones is really the first movie of this type that I‘ve seen. Cleopatra Jones is a government agent who becomes embroiled in a gang war involving a sinister criminal mastermind, Mommy (an amazingly camp but highly entertaining performance by Shelley Winters). Cleopatra Jones is clearly aimed at a multi-racial audience, so we have some sympathetic white cops and the kind of institutionalised racism that must have been commonplace in police forces at the time is severely down-played. If you’re looking for a movie that genuinely challenges racial stereotypes this isn’t it. Tamara Dobson is fun in the title role, and the whole thing is harmless and amusing fun.
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