Why Did These Black Films Suddenly Go Missing?

Blaxploitation films have had a major impact on the Black film industry since their entry into the cinema.

C’mon, they featured all Black casts and had Black directors, but that doesn’t dismiss the problematics of the films as well.

Powerful interest groups within the Black community were strongly against the production of blaxploitation films and launched a strong campaign for their downfall.

As a result of this, the blaxploitation films ceased production and were wiped from public spaces.

One blaxploitation film, The Spook Who Sat by the Door, was an outlier.

The movie was about a Black CIA agent using his spy training to lead the Black community towards liberation.

Originally published as a book, the writer couldn’t find publishing support in America, so it was published in the United Kingdom (UK).

Despite the film’s radical representation of Black people within institutions of power in the US, the film was taken out of theaters within three weeks of its release.

Why did all these films disappear? We may never know.