Pam Grier is one of those actresses whose honed her craft with such perfection that her characters are forever cemented in pop culture. Director Quintin Tarantino says "She was the first female action hero." From Foxy Brown, to Coffy, to Charlotte and Jackie Brown, Grier's characters always leave an everlasting imprint on our minds. She captured a moment in America that is hard to replicate. The 1970's film era was a moment of pride, independence, outing social injustices and elevating consciousness on a higher level. It was a rejuvenation through self- love for Black America even if America herself didn't necessarily reciprocate the love. America has a habit of loving the culture and the trends but not necessarily the people. Still, it was an era that liberated women to own their sexuality without apologies or without having to dim their intelligence, power or fearlessness. Pam Grier is back and her classic films are now available via Brown Sugar.
"It's like Netflix but Blacker," says Pam Grier as she introduces me to Brown Sugar, the recently launched streaming service which features the largest collection of African-American films. "I l just love the title don't you?" she asks. "It's the biggest, baddest films of all time!"
I did love the title. It was empowering to know that a collection of films like this existed on one platform. I hadn't downloaded the app yet but I planned on it before the weekend. I was still sort of processing the fact that I was actually talking to inter-generational Golden Globe and Emmy nominated, screen star, Pam Grier. She's kind of like our Marilyn Monroe but absolutely fearless. She epitomizes all the things so many women aspire to be. Rapper, Foxy Brown got her name from Grier's iconic role and pays homage to her as does Nicki Minaj, Taraji P. Henson and countless of other women who persevere because Grier showed us we could through her historic films.
The movies in this post Civil Rights decade added a new dimension to Black representation in Hollywood. Today, a new generation is recapturing that moment through Brown Sugar, which features an extensive library of iconic Black movies, un-edited and commercial-free as they were originally seen in theaters. Owned by Bounce TV, Brown Sugar Launched on Thursday (Nov. 18), The massive collection includes Foxy Brown, Coffy, The Mack, Shaft, Super Fly, Cotton Comes to Harlem, Uptown Saturday Night, Cooley High, and more.Grier along with Fred Williamson and Rapper, Rick Ross are the Ambassadors of Brown Sugar.
"I can't wait to see a lot of the movies that I haven't seen in a long time," said Grier. "There are so many people who really loved this era. The clothes, the style, the music. It's such a beautiful thing to revisit the pop culture and see where our community as Americans were at at the time---in terms of our humor and our drama. I don't have enough room in my house to put all those movies. So this is great for me," Grier shared.
Director, Quentin Tarantino is inspired by Grier's films and many from this era. Tarantino specifically wrote the classic, "Jackie Brown" for Grier who at the time had fallen in love with theater and its discipline. "I'm glad that I did that time in theater because Quentin may not have written Jackie Brown for me. It was wonderful doing the film but I may not have been competent to work with Samuel L. Jackson, Bobby De Niro, Michael Keaton. There is a level of discipline required to work with someone like Quentin. I take my craft seriously and I see myself as an Actor not a celebrity. Representation has always been important to me. It was my dream to see something like the creation of Bounce where our stories represent who we are-- and we get get to have so many choices. Now to be able to see all of my work on Brown Sugar is really wonderful," said Grier.
Dianna Williams, a Business Executive in Saint Louis, Missouri who rocks a nicely coiffed afro and grew up in the 70's is also looking forward to catching up on her classic films. "Back in the day my friends and I used to go catch these movies at the Common and the place was always so packed because we didn't have other options in terms of watching films where our people were portrayed in such a positive and truthful way. I loved to see the beautiful black skin of the women and the people in the films. Black skin! It just felt good to see people like us playing roles we could identify with. I loved Pam Grier films because they made us proud to be Black, to be women and be strong, that was the thing to be," Williams recollected with a smile.
Two days later I downloaded the App and I was instantly addicted. Until then I had forgotten how empowering it was to see Grier as a hero who didn't need any saving from a man in order to prevail. She defined femininity all while being an obvious feminist. Ironically Grier's films likes many others in the collection were coined as "Blaxploitation" Webster dictionary defines Blaxploitation as "the exploitation of Black people especially in regards to stereotyped roles in movies." I'm guessing each person has their own opinion about the term. I don't know why people accepted the term really. Personally I don't like the negative connotation because it assumes that these films exploited Black people. I've never heard anyone connect exploitation with "Charlie's Angels," Sophia Loren or Marilyn Monroe films. Nor Jesse James, or even De Niro and Pacino. Its strange to me that after years of Hollywood misrepresenting Black people as inferior or secondary and restricting Black women to play only monolithic roles such as "Mammies," servants, fools,slaves and angry Jezebels, they waited to say films like Shaft, Foxy Brown, and Cotton Comes to Harlem were exploiting Black people? Maybe there was an agenda in making people feel as if these movies were exploitative. Truthfully, Grier's films were the polar opposite.
As Coffy, Grier aggressively and single-handily took on the war on drugs years before Reagan and his wife, Nancy's campaign. She intelligently identified how young innocent girls could get hooked on drugs early on--- and how vulnerable young Black boys get swallowed into the street life because sometimes poverty narrows your options and sometimes its harder to rise without the presence of fathers who are disproportionately sentenced via the country's extensively profitable mass incarceration initiative. For Foxy or Coffy, being a drug dealer/pusher meant that you were a cancer to your community. This is pre-Hip Hop. Dope dealing was not glamorized in Grier's films. You weren't praised for being a "baller" pushing keys and bricks. You were seen as an agitator participating in a "new slavery" because it destroyed your people. As the consummate protagonist in her films, Grier was more than just a gorgeous sex symbol exuding exotic beauty and intrigue she was no nonsense, nobody's fool and community oriented. In real life, Grier is a woman who had survived being sexually abused at six years old and found strength in her family, horse and artistry. She chronicled her experience in her auto-biography, Foxy which she hopes will also be on Brown Sugar too and so do I.
"Certain roles I had to pass on. There are three traumatic experiences in my life that could have destroyed me but I refuse to swallow the victim pill," she said to me. Instead Grier took on life with an unbeatable resilience to never give up. Just like her characters. "She was strong" as Williams noted. Grier's varied characters had brains, wit, and courage. She was a badass who protected her friend from being trafficked and took care of her "junkie" brother and a sister hospitalized by drugs. She could take on the most vicious gangsters and outsmart the smartest of men. There was always a message to learn in these films. "It was about overcoming and rising," Grier said. "Even now we're gonna rise above every situation presented to us and we're gonna survive it, no matter what other people do," she assured. Grier was and is our hero, something that America desperately needed and could use today at a time when it feels like we're entrenched in divisive rhetoric and memories of a painful past that could become experiences of today.
Abesi Manyando is a Writer and Yogi whose currently finishing up her first children's book. You can keep up with her on twitter and her blog, 7thandLotus.