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Traditions in American Cinema
The Style of Sleaze: The American Exploitation Film, 1959 - 1977
What is an exploitation film? The Style of Sleaze reasons that the aesthetic and thematic approach of the key texts within three distinct exploitation demarcations - blaxploitation, horror and sexploitation - indicate a concurrent evolution of filmmaking that could be seen as an identifiable cinematic movement. Offering a fresh perspective on studies of marginal cinema, The Style of Sleaze maintains that defining exploitation cinema as a vaguely attributed 'excess' is unhelpful, and instead concludes that this period in American film history produced a number of the most transgressive, and yet morally complex, motion pictures ever made.
216 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2018
38 people want to read
About the author
Calum Waddell
17 booksCalum Waddell gained his PhD at the University of Aberdeen and teaches at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China.
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September 6, 2022
When Sconce wrote his now famous essay, "Trashing’ the academy: taste, excess, and an emerging politics of cinematic style", I never got the impression he was trying to narrow down a wide spread definition for the films he discusses. The term paracinema seemed intentionally inclusive. He was trying to link all these different genres and styles of filmmaking under one collective term.
So I don't get why in this book Wadell seems to be attacking Sconce's approach for being too broad. The thing is Wadell is not wrong here about a lot of what he writes and the conclusions he arrives at are good but the way he comments on other people is a bit bizarre. Comes off rather forced. Like fella just say this is the model I want to use to talk about these kinds of films and its one bound in exclusivity. Such an approach is actually great and it captures the essential texts and succeeds in depicting a movement.
Wadell's exploitation is one which separates itself from the b movie rip offs, the fangoria special effects spectacles and the Hollywood imitations and cinematic style. A strong part is that unlike Wood, he distinguishes the difference of the context of the production. For example, how Shaft and Sweetback get lumped together as blaxploitation but only one is truly revolutionary and can be regarded as part of exploitation on the basis of being a movement. One was low budget and commented on its own blackness and the entrapment of blacks under capitalism. The other made by a big studio and just a fun routine cop film where a character of any colour or nation could be slipped in to the title role. Comically, he points out that the right wing Dirty Harry is more radical than Shaft in that Clints character does represent an alternative to the Liberal bureaucracy.
Coincidentally, as well a lot of the limitations of Wood's Marxist readings seeing these films from a progressive perspective is challenged. This can be sometimes interesting and sometimes off. That's the complexity of coming at any exploitation from a moral, political or ethical stance I guess. These films arguably both critique and wallow in their own depravity. By that I mean both in that there's a large Canon of these films with different aims and even within the same film they can do both. Usually, the more known ones tend to be more challenging and harder to pin down. Personally, I tend to appreciate the fact they reference their own embracing of it all and ability to laugh at it at times.
Much of the stuff about Vietnam, manson, faux documentary styles, taboos and otherness to Hollywood has been discussed many times and is nothing new. Not to take away from the sold writing. Plus Wadell includes the hardcore in there. A lot of writers generally forget sexploitation but this chief has gone one better and put in the hardcore. It still seems like we need a lot more writing on these. I'd love at some a more contemporary study of hardcore. Tbh I don't even think the words used so much any more and neithers porn in the same way. You just seem to have unsimulated, simulated and then porn is viewed as the garbage on the Internet with other intentions. This book even stops at American exploitation. All for some Spanish as is mentioned. Clearly there's the incredible Jess Franco but what about the amazing Cardona father and son team! Plus moving away from Spain Jean Rollin deserves more attention than he does. Wadell correctly refers to this side of cinema being often lazily lumped under just eurosleaze and needing more time to be devoted to in another book.
Towards the end it brings in the blaxploitation and really has something decent to say here. Wadell talks about the need to examine these films as black sexploitation. What's funny is that he begins to mention that the sex and blaxploitation have become separated things nowadays and he was under the impression critics used to include them together. I did in fact manage to prove this in my dissertation a few years back using Google ngrams. Through that tool you can literally see how popular certain words are and how commonly they have been used in relation to each other over time as it scans through all the articles available online. It is true that the words "black and sexploitation" and "blaxploitation sex film" are a lot less used in connection with each other these days. Its striking because it was such an integral part to the main ones. Are you going to tell me sex isn't a vital part of Sweetback and Coffy? In Sweetbacks he's literally a sex worker and Van Peebles is using that as a critique of capitalism in a similar vein to Russ Meyers Vixen. The similarities between Van Peebles film and the French new wave don't just end with the experimental editing and outlaw aspects being like Godard's Breathless or weekend. There's that famous Godard article about third world cinema needing to develop beyond typical Hollywood imagery and find new ways to express individual cinematic identity. I think that's what Van Peebles film is doing. Some of it is very in your face but it works. He's definitely challenging the typical imagery of Hollywood sex by putting this black man right in to and giving something people weren't used to. That's my whole interest in exploitation in general I think. I'm so sick and tried of Hollywood telling me what something looks like and how to feel about a situation. The exploitation films definitely represent a great case for creating a new cinematic language outside of the studio. On a dodger note, there's all the controversial unsimulated sex scenes Van Peebles got gonorrhoea from and that one at the start featuring his own son. There's no way sex isn't a large part of that movie.
As for Coffy, you can't say it isn't driven by sex either. From the marketing focusing on Grier as this new breed of action here. Tough as any man. Sexy as any woman. The shogun blast right near the start is undeniably phallic. Wadell rightly addresses the difficulty of a film like Coffy. On the one hand, its revolutionary for women in its presentation of the woman. Possibly even better than Sweetback in its evolution of female Characters. However, its also directed by a white guy and a lot more cartoony. That white guy Jack Hill may be one of my favourite directors literally ever put it does stray away from Van Peebles rewriting the manual of how a black could make a movie and get paid away from the studio involvement. The violence as well is very over the top and cartoonish losing Sweetbacks documentary aesthetic and realistic tone. Goes back to Wadell's great point that a lot of these true exploitation films are linked by the documentary aesthetic. Its literally a great way of linking last house on the left, night of the Living dead and Sweetback all together. Regardless of whether Coffy is truly radical, it seems a lot clearer on what it's going for with its black is beautiful thing. Nowadays, I honestly don't have a clue where black culture is. Sticking it to the man has been replaced by standing round in stupid futuristic outfits and being obsessed with lion king. I have no idea what that's about. As a white man I'm not sure you can dictate another communities culture but I dunno its definitely lost its revolutionary touch. Bring back the van peebles of the world with films Revolutionary from top to bottom.
So I don't get why in this book Wadell seems to be attacking Sconce's approach for being too broad. The thing is Wadell is not wrong here about a lot of what he writes and the conclusions he arrives at are good but the way he comments on other people is a bit bizarre. Comes off rather forced. Like fella just say this is the model I want to use to talk about these kinds of films and its one bound in exclusivity. Such an approach is actually great and it captures the essential texts and succeeds in depicting a movement.
Wadell's exploitation is one which separates itself from the b movie rip offs, the fangoria special effects spectacles and the Hollywood imitations and cinematic style. A strong part is that unlike Wood, he distinguishes the difference of the context of the production. For example, how Shaft and Sweetback get lumped together as blaxploitation but only one is truly revolutionary and can be regarded as part of exploitation on the basis of being a movement. One was low budget and commented on its own blackness and the entrapment of blacks under capitalism. The other made by a big studio and just a fun routine cop film where a character of any colour or nation could be slipped in to the title role. Comically, he points out that the right wing Dirty Harry is more radical than Shaft in that Clints character does represent an alternative to the Liberal bureaucracy.
Coincidentally, as well a lot of the limitations of Wood's Marxist readings seeing these films from a progressive perspective is challenged. This can be sometimes interesting and sometimes off. That's the complexity of coming at any exploitation from a moral, political or ethical stance I guess. These films arguably both critique and wallow in their own depravity. By that I mean both in that there's a large Canon of these films with different aims and even within the same film they can do both. Usually, the more known ones tend to be more challenging and harder to pin down. Personally, I tend to appreciate the fact they reference their own embracing of it all and ability to laugh at it at times.
Much of the stuff about Vietnam, manson, faux documentary styles, taboos and otherness to Hollywood has been discussed many times and is nothing new. Not to take away from the sold writing. Plus Wadell includes the hardcore in there. A lot of writers generally forget sexploitation but this chief has gone one better and put in the hardcore. It still seems like we need a lot more writing on these. I'd love at some a more contemporary study of hardcore. Tbh I don't even think the words used so much any more and neithers porn in the same way. You just seem to have unsimulated, simulated and then porn is viewed as the garbage on the Internet with other intentions. This book even stops at American exploitation. All for some Spanish as is mentioned. Clearly there's the incredible Jess Franco but what about the amazing Cardona father and son team! Plus moving away from Spain Jean Rollin deserves more attention than he does. Wadell correctly refers to this side of cinema being often lazily lumped under just eurosleaze and needing more time to be devoted to in another book.
Towards the end it brings in the blaxploitation and really has something decent to say here. Wadell talks about the need to examine these films as black sexploitation. What's funny is that he begins to mention that the sex and blaxploitation have become separated things nowadays and he was under the impression critics used to include them together. I did in fact manage to prove this in my dissertation a few years back using Google ngrams. Through that tool you can literally see how popular certain words are and how commonly they have been used in relation to each other over time as it scans through all the articles available online. It is true that the words "black and sexploitation" and "blaxploitation sex film" are a lot less used in connection with each other these days. Its striking because it was such an integral part to the main ones. Are you going to tell me sex isn't a vital part of Sweetback and Coffy? In Sweetbacks he's literally a sex worker and Van Peebles is using that as a critique of capitalism in a similar vein to Russ Meyers Vixen. The similarities between Van Peebles film and the French new wave don't just end with the experimental editing and outlaw aspects being like Godard's Breathless or weekend. There's that famous Godard article about third world cinema needing to develop beyond typical Hollywood imagery and find new ways to express individual cinematic identity. I think that's what Van Peebles film is doing. Some of it is very in your face but it works. He's definitely challenging the typical imagery of Hollywood sex by putting this black man right in to and giving something people weren't used to. That's my whole interest in exploitation in general I think. I'm so sick and tried of Hollywood telling me what something looks like and how to feel about a situation. The exploitation films definitely represent a great case for creating a new cinematic language outside of the studio. On a dodger note, there's all the controversial unsimulated sex scenes Van Peebles got gonorrhoea from and that one at the start featuring his own son. There's no way sex isn't a large part of that movie.
As for Coffy, you can't say it isn't driven by sex either. From the marketing focusing on Grier as this new breed of action here. Tough as any man. Sexy as any woman. The shogun blast right near the start is undeniably phallic. Wadell rightly addresses the difficulty of a film like Coffy. On the one hand, its revolutionary for women in its presentation of the woman. Possibly even better than Sweetback in its evolution of female Characters. However, its also directed by a white guy and a lot more cartoony. That white guy Jack Hill may be one of my favourite directors literally ever put it does stray away from Van Peebles rewriting the manual of how a black could make a movie and get paid away from the studio involvement. The violence as well is very over the top and cartoonish losing Sweetbacks documentary aesthetic and realistic tone. Goes back to Wadell's great point that a lot of these true exploitation films are linked by the documentary aesthetic. Its literally a great way of linking last house on the left, night of the Living dead and Sweetback all together. Regardless of whether Coffy is truly radical, it seems a lot clearer on what it's going for with its black is beautiful thing. Nowadays, I honestly don't have a clue where black culture is. Sticking it to the man has been replaced by standing round in stupid futuristic outfits and being obsessed with lion king. I have no idea what that's about. As a white man I'm not sure you can dictate another communities culture but I dunno its definitely lost its revolutionary touch. Bring back the van peebles of the world with films Revolutionary from top to bottom.
October 6, 2024
As I like that kind of movie genre I had to pick this one up. It was a very intriguing read, very scientific and to the point: what is an exploitation film, the b-movie, taboo breakers, different genres of exploitation, the narrative style, the key films, characters in adult cinema, sexploitation, horror, Romero's zombies and blood feast, slash and burn, blaxploitation, tropes and tales, the blaxploitation female (Pam Grier). You also get many black and white movie stills fit for each chapter. Highly recommended!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews