Shaft was by far not one of my favorite movies in the class so far however, there were still a lot of interesting things going on throughout the movie. I did feel like I was thrown right into the seventies though which was kind of cool.
I thought it was interesting how we talked in class about masculinity and how it has changed between the seventies and now. I thought Shaft was a sterotypical movie guy. He drank, thought he was the coolest thing ever, got laid (or at least talked about getting laid), and didn't let anyone intimidate him. The interaction he had with the other men in the movie was interesting. He never let anyone intimidate him at all. First, there were the "black panthers" gang where he basically walked in (more like kicked down the door) and just took over. After this scene Ben followed him around like a little puppy. Ben never showed up late or questioned Shafts authority. Second, the other guy who was associated with the mafia was pretty scary (except for when he would start crying). He was a bigger guy who you could tell had some power behind him. He had his own 'men' who would search people and do all of his work for him. None of these people however even came close to Shaft. Even with guns in his face and being threatened he never backs down or shows even a little bit that he may be scared.
I love the language in the movie too. It was funny hearing him call people a 'cat' and even funnier listening to him call his boss baby. One thing I found interesting was that there wasn't as much bad language as I would have expected in the movie. Now a days, it seems that if a person gets a paper cut in a movie they're dropping the f-bomb however, I dont remember many scenes when there was a ton of bad language.
I also thought it was interesting the comparison between male characters from the seventies to now. Shaft is pretty skinny and it seems he's pretty smart too. Now, I feel like the men can't possibly get any bigger, and any more stupid. It seems that in all the action movies now it's a lot more violent with a lot more swearing. Its like a person could drop the f-bomb a hundred times, and blow up a car, all because they got that stupid paper cut.
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Your blog made me laugh because it is so true about people in action movies constantly dropping the f-bomb over...really any little thing that happens to or around them. They make the characters in present day action films seen so on edge about everything. The movie "Training Day" is a perfect example of this f-bomb over load.
ReplyDeleteIt's true how much languaage use has changed from then. I guess nowadays to be tough, you have to make your language as crewd and rough as possible. Maybe that's why there's so much more violence than love. Noone wants to listen to them for long!
ReplyDeleteThere's something I didn't realize until I read this. You talked about how Shaft kicked in the door of the Black Panthers and at first that really didn't seem important, but in the seventies that was not a group you messed with. It seems like a much bigger deal that Shaft essentially took over so easily.
ReplyDeleteThe Black Panthers were definitely not a group you messed with. But it's important to know about them that they weren't a gang, the way we think about it. They were definitely not gangsters. They were largely militant and considered themselves an army, but their goal was full civil rights for black people, and to help poor people in the ghettos have access to the same quality of life middle class Americans enjoyed. The mistrust between them and Shaft had to do with the fact that Shaft was a police detective, and radical factions at that time saw police as part of a corrupt (white) system that deliberately kept them oppressed. But as we saw in the movie, the Black Panthers despised actual gangsters like Bumpy as being part of what kept black people oppressed within their own neighborhoods, with drugs and prostitution. This is why the alliance between those factions in this movie was interesting and important.
ReplyDeleteHaving said all that, this blog made me giggle, Julie, especially the papercut part.