Word: onscreen
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...genre is that it owed its world view to their antipodes--militant groups like the Black Panthers. Blaxploitation didn't have a dream; it had a shotgun. And if many of its heroes were pimps and pushers, at least they could do the pushing without getting punished for it onscreen. Melvin van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's BaadAsssss Song (1971)--"Rated X by an all-white jury," bragged the poster--stunned audiences simply by showing a strong black man who fought, had explicit sex and tangled with white cops, yet didn't get killed...
...genre is that it owed its world view to their antipodes - militant groups like the Black Panthers. Blaxploitation didn't have a dream; it had a shotgun. And if many of its heroes were pimps and pushers, at least they could do the pushing without getting punished for it onscreen. Melvin van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's BaadAsssss Song (1971) - "Rated X by an all-white jury," bragged the poster - stunned audiences simply by showing a strong black man who fought, had explicit sex and tangled with white cops, yet didn't get killed...
...name plus the name of the first street you lived on), how a boss can intimidate an employee (by telling him to stand on one leg on a chair while listing African countries) and whether a black man will ever be able to kiss a white woman onscreen (we won't say). All this local intelligence supports the view that people make a mess of their lives, then try to clean up by sweeping that mess under a rug of propriety, hostility or banter...
Things are exciting onscreen too--though in these three-hour extravaganzas there's not much violence, no nudity, hardly even any kissing. Forced to sublimate, Bollywood taught itself to revel in full-blooded, full-throated drama. "The formula is essentially a family epic," says Mehta. "A family that breaks apart and then comes together. It's also the story of Partition." The partition of India and Pakistan, that is--but with vagrant, fragrant hope of union within diversity. A father denounces, then tearfully embraces his son (Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham). A group of 19th century peasants battle their Brit overlords...
...Dozens of chorus boys in leather and houris in saris frolic while the stars risk dislocating their shoulders and display '60s-style legwork not seen in the West since the Peppermint Lounge closed. The stars dance, but they don't sing. That's the job of "playback singers," unseen onscreen but famous on CDs. One playback diva, Lata Mangeshkar, has recorded some 50,000 songs in a 60-year career. (Sinatra, you slouch...