SoulManX
The Inspector!
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This is thread to discuss such classics as Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song to Juice.
The film opens with the dedication, "Dedicated to all the Brothers and Sisters who had enough of the Man," followed by the credit, "Starring: The Black Community." Then, the story begins:
A young orphan boy (played by Melvin's son, Mario Van Peebles) is taken in by the proprietor of a Los Angeles ****ehouse in the 1940s. While working there as a towel boy, he loses his virginity (at a startlingly young age) to one of the ****es; the women name him "Sweet Sweetback" in honor of his sexual prowess and gigantic penis.
The movie flashes forward to the 1970s, where Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles), now an adult, works as a performer in the ****ehouse, entertaining customers by having sex on stage. One night, a pair of police officers come in to speak to Sweetback's boss, Beetle. A black man had been murdered, and there is pressure from blacks to bring in a suspect. The police ask permission to arrest Sweetback, blame him for the crime, and then release him a few days later for lack of evidence, in order to appease the black community. Beetle agrees, and the officers arrest Sweetback.
On the way to the police station, the officers arrest a young Black Panther. They handcuff him to Sweetback, but when the Panther mouths off to the officers, they un-handcuff him, take him out of the car, and beat him; in response, Sweetback gets out of the car and beats the officers into unconsciousness with the unlocked handcuff.
The remainder of the film chronicles Sweetback's flight through South Central L.A. (now South L.A.) towards the Mexican border. Highlights of his odyssey include:
The end of the film actually shocked black audiences as well, who had expected that Sweetback would, sooner or later, perish at the hands of the police. This was a common, even inevitable, fate of black men "on the run" in prior films and this is in large part the reason that film critics such as Roger Ebert state that this isn't an exploitation film.[1]
The film opens with the dedication, "Dedicated to all the Brothers and Sisters who had enough of the Man," followed by the credit, "Starring: The Black Community." Then, the story begins:
A young orphan boy (played by Melvin's son, Mario Van Peebles) is taken in by the proprietor of a Los Angeles ****ehouse in the 1940s. While working there as a towel boy, he loses his virginity (at a startlingly young age) to one of the ****es; the women name him "Sweet Sweetback" in honor of his sexual prowess and gigantic penis.
The movie flashes forward to the 1970s, where Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles), now an adult, works as a performer in the ****ehouse, entertaining customers by having sex on stage. One night, a pair of police officers come in to speak to Sweetback's boss, Beetle. A black man had been murdered, and there is pressure from blacks to bring in a suspect. The police ask permission to arrest Sweetback, blame him for the crime, and then release him a few days later for lack of evidence, in order to appease the black community. Beetle agrees, and the officers arrest Sweetback.
On the way to the police station, the officers arrest a young Black Panther. They handcuff him to Sweetback, but when the Panther mouths off to the officers, they un-handcuff him, take him out of the car, and beat him; in response, Sweetback gets out of the car and beats the officers into unconsciousness with the unlocked handcuff.
The remainder of the film chronicles Sweetback's flight through South Central L.A. (now South L.A.) towards the Mexican border. Highlights of his odyssey include:
- Sweetback is captured by the police for the murders of the cops, but escapes when a riot breaks out.
- A white man sympathetic to his cause agrees to switch clothes with him, allowing the usually velour clad Sweetback to blend in.
- The police find Sweetback's foster-father, a blind, illiterate old man who reveals that Sweetback's birth name is Leroy.
- Sweetback goes to a woman he knows who can cut his handcuffs off; she makes him pay her with sex. With his handcuffs off, Sweetback continues onward, only to be captured by an all-white chapter of the Hells Angels. The female members are impressed by the size of Sweetback's penis, and after he gives one of them multiple orgasms during sex, they help him get to the desert.
The end of the film actually shocked black audiences as well, who had expected that Sweetback would, sooner or later, perish at the hands of the police. This was a common, even inevitable, fate of black men "on the run" in prior films and this is in large part the reason that film critics such as Roger Ebert state that this isn't an exploitation film.[1]
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