Bushido and Blaxploitation
A black lead character is unusual in the world of Japanese animation, but Afro Samurai is not your average anime. Laura Aylett explores the legacy of 70s American cinema on this bloody and brutal cartoon starring Samuel L. Jackson.
Blaxploitation – the low-budget genre of cinema filled with pimps, pushers and karate showgirls – has had a bit of a renaissance in the last dozen or so years. Although derided by the NAACP during its mid-1970s heyday for its reliance on negative stereotypes of black people, in retrospect the title characters in films like Shaft, Coffy and Dolemite with their take-no-prisoners attitude are considered by some academics to be a turning point in cultural history. The films’ kitsch cool aesthetic, replete with funk soundtracks, have inspired numerous homages and satires, not least Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown. Now anime, the usually racially-homogeneous world of Japanese animation, has got in on the act with Afro Samurai.
A co-production between Japanese companies and the American cable channel Spike (which, interestingly, Spike Lee tried to sue for the use of his name), this five-part series and its feature-length sequel Afro Samurai: Resurrection are set in a futuristic yet feudal Japan that has mobile phones, hip hop and robots. In this world there are some important and magic headbands. As a child, Afro saw his father murdered for the Number One headband, which gives the wearer god-like powers. Now a trained samurai warrior and the holder of the Number Two headband, the story follows his attempts to avenge his father’s death.
On a superficial level, Afro is a typical Blaxploitation character. A lone figure fighting for justice was the common hero or anti-hero of the films (although they would usually be sticking it to the Man, instead of facing teddy bear-headed mechanoids). His hair is oh so Cleopatra Jones, and the sex, swearing and ultraviolence would only have been allowed in the crummiest of cinemas in the 70s, just like the films. This is certainly not a cartoon for children. Here, all blood is arterial, spraying out of sliced flesh at every opportunity.
Originally a self-published manga by Takashi Okazaki, this is not a work that comes directly from the black experience or says anything about race and its role in society, positive or negative. Even though Samuel L. Jackson voices the lead character and is an executive producer, and RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan has written the excellent score, you cannot escape the fact that this is first and foremost a Japanese creation set in Japan; the lead character is black and has an afro because that makes him different and cool rather than for any political or artistic reason.
Many would say that Blaxploitation films, almost by definition, were exploiting the hipness of black culture to make a fast buck out of a white audience, and this new incarnation is no different. However, the revisionist view is that these movies, though crude, mark an important time in black history. Divorced from this background, the big hair and big lapels of the genre are signifiers of nothing.
Perhaps a five part series (shockingly short in the anime world, by the way, where one battle can last longer) cannot stand up to this much examination. And anyway, it’s not like Blaxploitation never borrowed anything from the Orient; the 70s obsession for martial arts showed itself particularly in these films, in which most problems of the ghetto could be sorted out by a swift karate chop to the neck. Afro Samurai has combined the coolest things from many places to create a dull story surrounded by elegant swordplay and spewing blood. If that’s your bag, then you’ll certainly dig it. Blaxploitation’s legacy of cool lives on.
Hello CJ,
Thanks for your comment. I suppose I mean that Blaxploitation films at least somewhat reflect what was happening in America at the time, with the rise of the Black Panthers and the ‘Black is Beautiful’ movement. The first Blaxploitation film, Sweet Sweetback’s Badassss Song, was written and directed by an African American, and set the theme of ‘revenge against the Man’ which was recycled by white-run movie studios when they realised there was an audience for it.
Of course these films aren’t an accurate portrayal of anyone’s lives or experiences, but these sort of films never are (ever seen a 60s film about hippies?). It takes a bit of distance before a period in history can be accurately put on film, but that doesn’t mean what was made contemporaneously has no value. These films have cultural significance simply because they were dealing with issues of race at a time when these were top of the national agenda.
Laura
Hi Laura,
“the revisionist view is that these movies, though crude, mark an important time in black history.”
Would you like to qualify this statement.
How did they mark an important time in Black History.
Almost all the films were made with White money directed by White Directors for white owned studios. The only Black involvement was the acting talent.
They were & are expoloitative in that they sought Black patrons at a time when the white audience had stop going to cinema. Especially inner city cinemas as part of the White flight of late 60s early 70s.