Big Pimpin' No More

The Seventies represents a very interesting, rich, and yet deleterious period in African-American cinema. With the success of movies like Shaft, Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song, and Cotton Comes to Harlem, Hollywood studios recognized that black directed, black cast, black themed movies could be highly profitable vehicles. These movies ushered in the period aptly labeled Blaxsploitation. One cannot deny the cinematic importance of this time, nor can one outright criticize the strides made in black cinema when compared against the almost colorless eighties film landscape when most black actors not named Eddie Murphy could not get a major role. What also cannot be denied is the tremendous influence those movies filmed in the seventies has had over black culture directly and indirectly through the translation of its themes and iconography by Hip Hop. But there was and has not been a selectivity in terms of what was appropriated and what was not. The good has come along with the bad.

Taking the good first, Blaxsploitation films tended to feature strong black main characters that exhibited control and agency over their fate and destiny. These men (mostly) and women (especially in the case of one Ms. Pam Grier) seemed to be driven by the black power energy of the late Sixties, rebelling against the establishment and sticking it the ubiquitous Man. Because police were viewed as outsiders to black urban communities and as adversaries of black liberation, many films depicted characters who did not cooperate with the law. Shaft of course comes to mind as the black P.I., but then there was Sweetback, Superfly, and Dolemite. This anti-establishment theme led to a glorification of illegality and those who rose to the heights of it. Superfly was the cocaine dealer who needed to make one last deal to get out of the game. Dolemite was the pimp.

While these characters were progressive to the extent that the previous entire history of Hollywood had rarely if ever presented black protagonists that as their motto were not going to cooperate with white supremacy and by there very image were threatening to white America in a way that stirred some pride in a people who had been historically the victims of domestic terrorism at the hands of white Americans from the moment they first reached this continent. However, black characters were heavily stereotyped and these protagonists who were anti-law became glorified criminals. Not only were they portrayed as cool but also as liberators. Presently, this has had terrible effects on the black community when one conjoins idealized criminal icons with a historic distrust for the law. This dialectical relationship has in part contributed to a celebration of gang culture and incarceration.

Dolemite individually probably has had the widest influence, rivaled possibly only by Shaft. Cinematically speaking, it is one of the higher quality films to be produced from the genre. However, the film glorified the character of the pimp. It is not difficult to see the lasting influence such glorification has had. From Jay-Z's coined phrase, "big pimpin'", to Nelly's Pimp Juice, to 50 Cent's P.I.M.P. the image is well alive and celebrated in our society that seems to believe it can easily disconnect the imagined new idea of what a pimp is and what an actual pimp is. One can even find Snoop Dogg bringing girls to awards shows wearing leashes and collars in very pimpesque fashion. Indeed, Snoop has claimed to "clock hoes like his name was Dolemite" (I paraphrase). And how can we not be shocked by the celebration of Bishop Magic Don Juan, the pimp of the the 20th century?

All through my high school and college years, I too deceived myself into thinking that it was cool and okay to call myself a pimp because I did not mean an actual pimp. I thought that there was no consequence for my language. However, through engaging in many conversations, reading many articles and books, and thinking critically about the issue I have come the conclusion our widespread use of the term pimp and the glorification and celebration of the image does not mollify the term but assuages our conscious disgust of actual pimps and the exploitation of women through prostitution. This argument is not meant to enter into a debate on prostitution. Rather I look at the reality of American prostitution and the pimps associated with much of it. The majority of prostitutes in this country do not actively choose their profession but are economically or chemically (by the need to support drug addiction) forced into it. In addition, many prostitutes in this country are themselves survivors of sexually and/or physically abusive upbringing. Many prostitutes are also not even legal adults. Given these realities, it is easy to conclude that prostitution's current state, at least, in this country is a negative one. Pimps prey on hopeless women. They exploit and abuse them. Physically, sexually, and especially psychologically they dominate and control girls. Demeaning women who are not given enough options or support or help is terrible and so it's important not to outright judge and label working women. However, pimps are a different breed. They should be ridiculed and scorned and never celebrated. By changing pimp from a pejorative image to sought-after label, we necessarily downplay the destructiveness of actual pimps. In this way, we are complicit in the sugar-coating of the realities of most prostitution in the same vein as Pretty Woman, the prostitution Cinderella story. I used to celebrate the term and refer to myself as a P.I.M.P., but I am now committed to extricating the positive use of the word from my lexicon. I am big pimpin' no more.