"Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song" is truly an original. The film, which was released in 1971, at the closing end to the prime years of the civil rights movement, is a very cutting edge film that, just from the title, pushes the envelope of the time period. The civil rights movement brung along great change, but also a brutal rawness. This brutal rawness is captured in the character of Sweetback and in the awkward editing of the film.
In several scenes, superimposed shots and cuts on action allow the viewer to capture the unsteady pace of Sweetback's journey from sex show super-stardom and female moans to screaming police sirens and angry White officers chasing him as he savagely sprints through deserts.
Sweetback's journey can uniquely be seen as a stress reliever for the Black male community. Sweetback saves a fellow Black man as he's beaten by cops, he makes a white corrupt sheriff look pitiful to the press, he murders two White corrupt officers, has sex with many woman at their own eagerness, has sex with a white woman who serves as a leader of a white male motorcycle gang, and he gets away with it all making the white sheriff look pitiful to the press despite desperate attempts to capture Sweetback. Sweetback can be seen as the Black Batman for the community.
Despite the awkward editing and poor quality of some of the angles chosen by the cinematographers, "Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song" is a must see. It truly is a classic for the Black community which allows humor and anger to be uniquely intertwined.
