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Exploitation film
An exploitation film is a film that seeks commercial success by capitalizing on current trends, niche genres, or sensational content. Exploitation films often feature themes such as suggestive or explicit sex, sensational violence, drug use, nudity, gore, destruction, rebellion, mayhem, and the bizarre. While often associated with low-budget "B movies", some exploitation films have influenced popular culture, attracted critical attention, gained historical significance, and developed cult followings.
While their modern form first appeared in the early 1920s, the peak periods of exploitation films were mainly the 1960s through the early 1980s, with a few earlier and later outliers. Early exploitation of the 1930s and the 1940s were often disguised as "educational" but were really sensationalist. These were shown in traveling roadshows, skirting censorship under the guise of moral instruction. One of the film industry's early and most successful producers of exploitation films was Kroger Babb. Babb produced the 1945 film Mom and Dad, a sex hygiene film telling the story of a young girl's accidental pregnancy. According to a 1977 Washington Post article,Time claimed in 1949 that one in ten people had seen the film, and Babb used promotional tactics to "overwhelm a town with exploitation material, even pioneering the use of direct mail advertising, sending four-color heralds to every mailbox in town." The film was the third-highest grossing film of the 1940s in dollar value. The 1950s saw low-budget sci-fi, monster movies, and teen rebellion films. They were still tame by later standards, but laid the groundwork. The 1960s, with the collapse of the Production Code and the rise of grindhouses, became fertile ground for exploitation films, which introduced sex, gore, and shock value. The 1970s are widely considered the golden age of exploitation films, with independent producers thriving in grindhouse cinemas and drive-ins. In the early 1980s, the home video explosion gave exploitation filmmakers a new playground, with VHS allowing for direct-to-video content. The MPAA crackdown and increasing mainstream competition began to dull the edge mid-decade. Starting with the late 1980s, exploitation films started to fade or become self-aware.
The Motion Picture Association (MPA), founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) and known as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) from 1945 until September 2019, was established to protect the interests and image of the American film industry. In 1930, it introduced the Motion Picture Production Code – commonly known as the Hays Code – which imposed strict guidelines on film content. This code remained in effect until 1968, when it was replaced by a voluntary film rating system, administered by the Classification and Rating Administration (CARA). While the MPA collaborated with censorship boards and grassroots organizations to promote a "clean" image of Hollywood, exploitation filmmakers often operated outside this system. They embraced controversy, using it as free publicity, and relied on sensational content to attract audiences lost to television.
The definition of "exploitation" is flexible and often shaped by the viewer's perception as much as the film's actual content. Titillating and artistic elements frequently coexist; many art films rejected by the Hays Code were screened in the same grindhouses as exploitation films. Exploitation films share a willingness to explore "disreputable" material, much like the transgressive works of European auteurs. Numerous films now regarded as classics contain levels of sex, violence, and shock once relegated to the realm of exploitation. Both art house and exploitation audiences are often united by their rejection of mainstream Hollywood conventions.
Since the 1990s, exploitation cinema has garnered increasing academic interest and is sometimes referred to as paracinema.
"Grindhouse", or "action house", is an American term for a theater that primarily showcased low-budget exploitation films aimed at adult audiences. These theaters gained peak popularity in the 1970s and early 1980s, particularly in New York City and other urban centers across North America. Historian David Church notes that the term "grindhouse" originates from the "grind policy" – a film programming strategy from the 1920s involving continuous showings at discounted prices that increased throughout the day. This approach contrasted sharply with the era's more traditional exhibition model, which featured fewer daily screenings and tiered ticket pricing based on seating, typically in large, studio-owned theaters. Grindhouses began to decline in the mid-1980s with the rise of home video.
A drive-in theater is an outdoor movie venue featuring a large screen, a projection booth, a concession stand, and a parking area where patrons can watch films from the comfort of their cars. These theaters evolved over time in both structure and technology. Initially, audio was delivered through speakers on the screen or individual wired speakers hooked to car windows, but this system was eventually replaced by microbroadcasting the film's soundtrack to car radios, offering better sound quality and eliminating the risk of damaging windows or cords. As drive-ins began to decline in popularity during the 1960s and 1970s, theater owners sought to attract audiences by screening low-cost exploitation films, dubbed "drive-in" films. Some producers even made films specifically for this market, and the constant demand for new content led to the theory that they would "grind out" films – an idea that may have influenced the term "grindhouse".
Exploitation films may adopt the subject matter and styling of regular film genres, particularly horror films and documentary films, and their themes are sometimes influenced by other so-called exploitative media, such as pulp magazines. They often blur the distinctions between genres by containing elements of two or more genres at a time. Their subgenres are identifiable by the characteristics they use.
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Exploitation film
An exploitation film is a film that seeks commercial success by capitalizing on current trends, niche genres, or sensational content. Exploitation films often feature themes such as suggestive or explicit sex, sensational violence, drug use, nudity, gore, destruction, rebellion, mayhem, and the bizarre. While often associated with low-budget "B movies", some exploitation films have influenced popular culture, attracted critical attention, gained historical significance, and developed cult followings.
While their modern form first appeared in the early 1920s, the peak periods of exploitation films were mainly the 1960s through the early 1980s, with a few earlier and later outliers. Early exploitation of the 1930s and the 1940s were often disguised as "educational" but were really sensationalist. These were shown in traveling roadshows, skirting censorship under the guise of moral instruction. One of the film industry's early and most successful producers of exploitation films was Kroger Babb. Babb produced the 1945 film Mom and Dad, a sex hygiene film telling the story of a young girl's accidental pregnancy. According to a 1977 Washington Post article,Time claimed in 1949 that one in ten people had seen the film, and Babb used promotional tactics to "overwhelm a town with exploitation material, even pioneering the use of direct mail advertising, sending four-color heralds to every mailbox in town." The film was the third-highest grossing film of the 1940s in dollar value. The 1950s saw low-budget sci-fi, monster movies, and teen rebellion films. They were still tame by later standards, but laid the groundwork. The 1960s, with the collapse of the Production Code and the rise of grindhouses, became fertile ground for exploitation films, which introduced sex, gore, and shock value. The 1970s are widely considered the golden age of exploitation films, with independent producers thriving in grindhouse cinemas and drive-ins. In the early 1980s, the home video explosion gave exploitation filmmakers a new playground, with VHS allowing for direct-to-video content. The MPAA crackdown and increasing mainstream competition began to dull the edge mid-decade. Starting with the late 1980s, exploitation films started to fade or become self-aware.
The Motion Picture Association (MPA), founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) and known as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) from 1945 until September 2019, was established to protect the interests and image of the American film industry. In 1930, it introduced the Motion Picture Production Code – commonly known as the Hays Code – which imposed strict guidelines on film content. This code remained in effect until 1968, when it was replaced by a voluntary film rating system, administered by the Classification and Rating Administration (CARA). While the MPA collaborated with censorship boards and grassroots organizations to promote a "clean" image of Hollywood, exploitation filmmakers often operated outside this system. They embraced controversy, using it as free publicity, and relied on sensational content to attract audiences lost to television.
The definition of "exploitation" is flexible and often shaped by the viewer's perception as much as the film's actual content. Titillating and artistic elements frequently coexist; many art films rejected by the Hays Code were screened in the same grindhouses as exploitation films. Exploitation films share a willingness to explore "disreputable" material, much like the transgressive works of European auteurs. Numerous films now regarded as classics contain levels of sex, violence, and shock once relegated to the realm of exploitation. Both art house and exploitation audiences are often united by their rejection of mainstream Hollywood conventions.
Since the 1990s, exploitation cinema has garnered increasing academic interest and is sometimes referred to as paracinema.
"Grindhouse", or "action house", is an American term for a theater that primarily showcased low-budget exploitation films aimed at adult audiences. These theaters gained peak popularity in the 1970s and early 1980s, particularly in New York City and other urban centers across North America. Historian David Church notes that the term "grindhouse" originates from the "grind policy" – a film programming strategy from the 1920s involving continuous showings at discounted prices that increased throughout the day. This approach contrasted sharply with the era's more traditional exhibition model, which featured fewer daily screenings and tiered ticket pricing based on seating, typically in large, studio-owned theaters. Grindhouses began to decline in the mid-1980s with the rise of home video.
A drive-in theater is an outdoor movie venue featuring a large screen, a projection booth, a concession stand, and a parking area where patrons can watch films from the comfort of their cars. These theaters evolved over time in both structure and technology. Initially, audio was delivered through speakers on the screen or individual wired speakers hooked to car windows, but this system was eventually replaced by microbroadcasting the film's soundtrack to car radios, offering better sound quality and eliminating the risk of damaging windows or cords. As drive-ins began to decline in popularity during the 1960s and 1970s, theater owners sought to attract audiences by screening low-cost exploitation films, dubbed "drive-in" films. Some producers even made films specifically for this market, and the constant demand for new content led to the theory that they would "grind out" films – an idea that may have influenced the term "grindhouse".
Exploitation films may adopt the subject matter and styling of regular film genres, particularly horror films and documentary films, and their themes are sometimes influenced by other so-called exploitative media, such as pulp magazines. They often blur the distinctions between genres by containing elements of two or more genres at a time. Their subgenres are identifiable by the characteristics they use.