This work examines and analyzes how the cinematic image of African Americans became a fixed image with strict rules of depiction both written and unwritten. And, how those very limited and under-informed images would not and could not be challenged or transformed until the power relations in the American film industry began to change and afforded blacks the opportunity at the very least to tell stories from an informed position.

Contents:
Preface
1. Introduction
2. Race and Representation in the Classical Style
3. The Political Economy of Blaxploitation
4. Do the Right Thing Revisited
5. Check the Gate: Black Cinema at the Crossroads