This Tuesday, legendary actor Richard Roundtree died. His passing was notable because he played the character John Shaft in the massively important 1971 film Shaft. If you want to know why the movie was so important, you can read about that here. If you want to know why the film was important to me, I’ll tell you.
It was because a Black man walked.
Nah. He strutted.
Shaft’s opening scene was a breathtaking cultural gauntlet throw. Why? Because, when Roundtree emerged from the subway and proceeded to strut in New York, America saw a Black guy moving with a purpose. He wasn’t running away from anyone or anything. He was moving toward something. A task, a duty. He was a grown man taking care of business. If you aren’t a student of history or a pop culture nerd, you can’t realize how seismic seeing Roundtree/John Shaft move with urgency and…confidence.
There was another cultural bombshell from the Strut Heard Round the World. A secret was revealed. Visually and sonically, the cat was let out of the bag.
The entire world got to see that Black people and their culture were sexy.
Even in ‘71, Black (or any American) people weren’t used to seeing images of self assured, sexy people of color. The two African American celebrities who got close were Muhammad Ali and Sidney Poitier, and the former infuriated most of the country, while the latter’s image was super dignified. Safe.
There wasn’t anything safe about John Shaft. He was a walking sexual revolution. His handsome face. His dark skin. His impossibly sculpted afro. The turtleneck. His leather coat. In four minutes and 55 seconds (the length of time the intro runs), Roundtree obliterated many of the crappy images of Black men that were fed to and by America’s media. Hell, even Issac Hayes told us with arguably the best theme song in American film history. After Shaft exploded on the scene, Brothas and Sistas (and Black culture) were viewed as hot.
So, I’d like to send a heavenly shout-out to a true cultural pioneer and a bad mother…who shifted the world on its axis with a stroll that led us all into a new world where men of color never looked (or were seen) the same since, and that’s outta sight.
