TITLE:
The Politics of Shaft: Positioning a Popular Cultural Icon in 1971, 2000 and 2019
AUTHORS:
Magnus Dahlstedt, Peter Ehrström
KEYWORDS:
Shaft, Politics of Representation, Popular Culture, Positioning, Neoliberalism, Race
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Political Science,
Vol.11 No.3,
July
7,
2021
ABSTRACT: This article focuses on how popular culture relates to both society and politics, as a
barometer of the present. In a sense, popular culture both mirrors and
articulates specific ways of understanding society, the present. In this
article, we will investigate one specific expression of popular culture, the
African American action movie hero Shaft, and how this character appears in
different shapes, in different times and contexts. The aim of the article is to
examine how the character Shaft appears in three movies, from 1971, 2000 and
2019. This examination draws attention to how three different shapes of Shaft
materialise, with different values attributed to the character of Shaft.
Specific focus is put on the socio-political expressions of the day and the
localities where the movies unfold. The analysis highlights three different
versions of Shaft, each formed in accordance with the socio-political
expressions of the day and manifesting different specific historical contexts.
The first version actively portrays the political struggles carried out in the
civil rights era, not least concerning race inequalities. On the contrary, the
second version is significantly less actively engaged in the political
struggles of the day. However, the movie still reflects class-based injustices
in an individualised neoliberal era. The third version, in turn, clearly
neglects the current social struggles. By celebrating family values, by
neglecting existing inequalities as well as the possibilities of collective
actions targeting these inequalities, the movie makes a post-political
statement, echoing a long-established myth of the “American dream”, with hopes
of intergenerational social mobility.