... of civil rights movements in the 1940s. Black representation in film was focused on black protest and the integrated Negro. One of the first integrated Negroes in Hollywood was Sidney Poitier who starred in films such as 'Guess who's coming to dinner' which represented black males as intelligent, handsome, well spoken and respectful. Next came 'The Blaxploitation Years' from 1969 to 1975 when many films focused around black characters and narratives were released and media saturation of black culture occurred. This era saw the establishment of 'ghetto masculinity' and 'black cool', as seen in the first big-budget Hollywood blaxploitation film, 'Shaft', by MGM Studios. The character of John Shaft is represented as a streetwise, confident anti-hero cop and paved the way for many other films with similar characters. By the 1970s clear mythic representations of black males had been established and were defined by Stuart Hall as three stereotypes; the ...

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