i like my liberation just like i like my sex...raw!

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song has some of the rawest and unfiltered visuals and messaging I’ve ever seen in a film. I should’ve known it would be extra with all those s’s in the film's title. An analysis of sexuality, gender, and economic oppression and how they all relate to social liberation for Black people is prevalent.

 It’s one of the most raw and explicit films I have ever seen outside of pornography. Not that I have watched pornographic films; I’ve just heard so much about them. I’m sure the person reading this has watched porn, though, but not an angel shining so bright like me.

 Anyway, the main takeaway message(s) are not very clear, so I’m not sure how younger people and people who aren’t trained to analyze film will be able to process this film on a deeper level. Melvin Van Peebles wanted the film to be rated lower so that younger audiences could also watch the film. I wonder why he just didn’t adjust the film so that younger people can see it. How can the film be revolutionary if it isn’t accessible? There’s a way to illustrate sex and other taboo actions without actually showing it.

 Sweetback, the film’s main protagonist, continuously runs from the police. This could be a possible analysis of the fate of Black men or Black people and the way they’re over-policed. Something cool happened with the police, too. You see a bunch of young people in the film help Sweetback escape the police by sabotaging the police vehicle and making it explode. This is the type of community unity that could help revolutionize Black people around the world, especially in America.

 I admire Huey P. Newton, but I don’t agree with all his praise and analysis of the film. I think the intention of the film is worthy of praise but not the execution. Newton mentions how the Black women in the film are tired but happy because they are feeding the young Black boy. Newton labels the Black boy as the “liberator and the future of the women.” This just reinforces the idea that women are subservient to men, and they need a big strong man with an erect penis to save them. This also could be harmful to young Black boys and putting such a responsibility on them at such a young age.

 Then, regarding the sexual relationship between the boy and the women, Newton explains that these much older women are simply showing the boy what real love looks and feels like and helping the boy grow into a man. You get it, right? Because Black men are useless unless they’ve buried their ever-so-cherished penis deep inside a vagina that is so essential to the experience of a man. Our liberation is going to come from a Black man who is well acquainted with a vagina and knows how to lead a Black woman to freedom if she uses her wondrous Black girl magic to feed Black men and only speaks when spoken to!

 There is a general theme that I loved about Newton’s analysis, and he acknowledges that living situations that Black people (and other economically oppressed people) have been coerced into can be highly determinative of their inability to navigate society in a way that may or may not be more dignified. No one is born thinking about living a life of robbery or selling their body. It’s all a response to trying to escape poverty. You can’t create a capitalist world that rewards the wealthy and shames people for how they achieve that wealth. No one is wealthy in any pure way that doesn’t cause some kind of harm or is dependent on the destruction of another.

 I also have my own takeaways from the film. The Black body is desired by the colonizer only in two extremes: to enforce violence upon it or to extract pleasure from it. It’s useless outside of those scenarios. The personality, imagination, and political aspirations of Black people, as it relates to social well-being, are unimportant.