Exploitation films

For our discussion of genre-riffing in Freeway, I suggested that we look at the "exploitation film." However, this term is less defined than classic narrative genres like "horror," and also considerably less historically dense. The term "exploitation" comes from a tag originally attached to low budget projects which attempted to turn a profit by exploiting super-sensationalistic treatments of sex and/or violence. The useful summary found in Wikipedia begins with this history: "Exploitation films feature uncut unrated material. They specialize in numerous sex and nudity scenes, bloody gore, violent nonsense, and taboos...[they] may feature suggestive or explicit sex, sensational violence, drug use, nudity, freaks, gore, the bizarre, destruction, rebellion, and mayhem." Clearly, however the term is now applied to a variety of cultural products, an over-the-top approach to plot elements and eccentric subject matter being one of the defining elements.

A good overview of the category's history can be found here, a discussion which emphasizes that the appreciation of the genre is based in the enjoyment of that which is usually excluded from mainstream film, including the ever subjective notion of "bad taste." Bright Lights Film Journal has a index of articles on various examples of exploitation films; just reading the titles should give you a good idea of the kind of thing the term embraces.

Of course, "exploitation" has itself recently become a highly layered, ironic, and self-referential genre: case in point is the film featured in the previous post, Machete. A self-consciously "mexploitation" film directed by Robert Rodriguez (and produced by irony-master Quentin Tarantino) Machete plays not only with the genre's eccentric stylistic conventions, it carries its knowing irony over into the casting of has-been stars (Don Johnson), genre jokes (Steven Segal), cult regulars (Danny Trejo), slumming serious actors (Robert De Niro) conventional sex kittens (Jessica Alba) and all-purpose celebrity train wrecks (Lindsay Lohan). This is not the kind of film the term "exploitation" originally denoted, instead the label now references a kind of over-the-top meta entertainment dependent on knowledge of mainstream and fringe film, campy genres, and pop culture in-jokes.

It is in this more recent sense that we can talk of Freeway as an "exploitation" film. It self-consciously plays with genre elements without giving in to them entirely. A case in point is the sexuality of the main character, Vanessa Lutz, who could like one of the heroines of the sub-category of women's rape/revenge films mentioned in the Wikipedia article and represented by the poster above. While Vanessa revenges herself on serial killer Bob Wolverton, her real quest is to escape an unbelieving, judgmental and victim-blaming "system" for a version of normal life: living with and caring for her grandmother. And while Vanessa is sexual and violent, her sexuality is defined by its exclusivity (she and Chopper were a caring and monogamous couple contrary to the expectation of the "authorities") and her violence is mostly motivated by survival and always owned. It is not merely violence-for-violence's sake. She truly is the film's ethical center, sharply contrasting with those in charge of policing society's morals who she constantly calls out, ""You act like you're on some kind of mission, Bob. But all you wanna do is get off in a sex-type way!"