movie sub-genres • blaxploitation
the blaxploitation genre is a subset of exploitation cinema, which is fundamentally comprised of independently produced, low-budget B-movies or grindhouse films. these films typically revolve around lewd, violent or taboo subject matter, and are engineered specifically to attract an audience through sensation and controversy. however, the genre does rank among the first after the race films in the 1940s and 1960s in which black characters and communities are the heroes and subjects of film and television, rather than sidekicks, villains, or victims of brutality.