Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Trick Baby, Its Story And Relevance As Blaxploitation Film

By Sandra Mitchell


Some of the more explicit Blaxploitation films do not make the most common themes of these kinds of movies central to the plot. The best of them nod at the traditional issues that abound in black exploitation movies, mostly those that are made making use of things that surround the culture and society of African Americans. Unlike the general exploitation genre, however, this is does not have derogatory underpinnings.

There was a film released in 1972 that might have been so good as to have really defined the genre. This film was entitled Trick Baby, from the novel of the same name, written by a former African American pimp named Iceberg Slim. It is a novel that was intensely written, but the movie failed to be interesting enough in this way, watered down.

The movie is about the relationship between two black male con men who are planning their biggest con. These are Blue Howard and White Folks, hustlers working in Philadelphia, the latter being half white and therefore could pass for a white man. This is central to all their cons, and also their ace in the con that they are planning.

The racial tensions obviously propel this plot, but then it can be expected from the work of an author with very intense experiences in the African underworld, and his books were even bestsellers in his genre. Delineation of character was present in a watered down sense, and Folks was especially cited for having a ho hum and forgettable performance. There was no focus on being black and male, and that was something that could have really made the difference.

White Folks is the product of a black woman who had a baby from a white customer, thus the title. The accident of birth becomes the locus through which both film and book moves, although in the movie the intensity was seen as lacking. Production went ahead to complete a feature that works with subjects easily told through the visual medium.

With this item, it can be seen how the film may explain its ignoring the most relevant issues related to a biracial criminal. Because of this, all that the film became was one more cliched item in the litany of themes on black crimes. The relationship between both protagonists became a buddy thing, making this movie a feel good one with nothing to say about realities on the ground but everything to gain in box office.

Movies always tend to dehumanize a story so that the visual language becomes the moving element for any moviegoer. This defect is still present in modern entertainment industry, no matter the many new, great films that have supposedly transcended this lack. Mostly, the industry helps create movies that in the end only have that undercurrent of a hustle, a con that exploits the public.

The con being hatched by the two friends is nearly stopped on its tracks by the Mafia and a crooked cop. This twist is so cliched that most film goers can predict the ending, but even with critics howling, it is a thing beloved by producers. As with many features, the main point was overtaken by concerns about box office success in the end.

Thus, director Larry Yust thought it best to soften blows made by the story itself to be more acceptable to the general public. This is one organism that has an oh so sensitive stomach while allowing blasphemy to be its constant companion. And black experience is too much of a punch in the gut that it needs watering down.




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