Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song (1971)

In actor/director/writer Melvin Van Peebles' X-rated, confrontational cult film - it was the first true blaxploitation film, specifically designed to upset white audiences, with Peebles himself playing the part of the sex-hungry, violent anti-hero. The documentary-style, cheaply-made independent film (budgeted at $150,000), aimed at urban black audiences, was released by independent distributor Cinemation, and was shot on location in about three weeks. It was an anti-White, anti-authority diatribe.

This unconventional, revolutionary, and seminal blaxploitation film (released just before the Hollywood-financed Shaft (1971)) from the early 70s with an all-black cast was directed, co-produced, edited, scored, and written by African-American independent film-maker Melvin Van Peebles (his film debut) - he also starred as the macho black hustler title character. Peebles reportedly received VD during the making of this film.

After he refused to submit the film to the ratings board (the MPAA), he rated his own film with an X-rating - and Peebles used this to his marketing advantage in its tagline advertising on posters: "Rated X By An All-White Jury!" However, only two theaters in the entire United States would screen the film at first - until it became a big hit and highly profitable. The radical Black Panthers praised the film, while the mainstream black-oriented Ebony Magazine denounced it - Hollywood studios were ultimately forced to acknowledge the monetary potential of the untapped, urban African-American market (similar to the effect Easy Rider (1969) had on its countercultural audiences) as a result of this influential film.

The film was supplemented with jump-cuts, experimental lighting, split-screens, freeze-frames, zoom-ins, tinted and overlapping images and montages as it chronicled the successful (uncharacteristically) flight of the black fugitive (with a large-sized manhood and insatiable sexual prowess) through Los Angeles - and toward and across the Mexican border.

[Note: A semi-documentary account of the behind-the-scenes struggle to make the explosive, landmark independent film - with a porn industry film crew - was featured in director Mario Van Peebles' own Baadasssss! (2003). He revealed the upset caused by the explicit scene he was forced to engage in.with additional nudity from Kate Krystowiak (as Moonbeam) and Karimah Westbrook (as Ginnie), who both joined Mario (as his own father Melvin) in bed, and sported psychedelic body-paint.]

The Hollywood establishment refused to financially back this gritty, low-budget, sex-filled, realistic film with never-before-seen images, soft-core sex and inflammatory racial politics, so Peebles self-financed it (with $70,000 of his own money) and sought monetary backing from Bill Cosby ($50,000). It was the first highly profitable independent film made by a black filmmaker.

This controversial film caused tremendous concern for its militancy, under-age sex, anti-white sentiment, revenge-themes, and violence, although it was one of the most important black American films of the decade. It was exceptional that a vengeful black man (after witnessing corrupt police violence and almost beating two officers to death) could survive as a fugitive, as happened in the film.

• in the film's opening flashbacked scene set in an all-black brothel (the film's most controversial scene), an underaged, orphaned Sweet Sweetback as a 13 year-old minor (played by Melvin Van Peebles' own 13 year-old son Mario) was being fed by an older maternal black prostitute
• [Note: The opening scene was cross-cut with a quick image of the same character as an adult on the run underneath a city bridge - accompanied with the film's opening title: "This film is dedicated to all the Brothers and Sisters who had enough of the Man."]

Scene of Initiation of Young Sweetback (Mario Van Peebles)

• the young virginal Sweetback was coerced by one of the older black prostitutes to enter her room and have sex with her - explaining the derivation of his name when she said: "You've ... gotta ... sweet ... back!"
• the sex scene concluded and then opening credits rolled, stating that the film was "Starring THE BLACK COMMUNITY."
• one of the most explicit sex scenes was of well-endowed older Sweetback having unsimulated sex on stage in a brothel (with poorly-lit full-frontal nudity)
• the film ended with a shot of a hillside landscape with the superimposed text: "Watch out -- A Baad Asssss Nigger is Coming Back To Collect Some Dues..."