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Boss Nigger is a 1975 blaxploitation
Blaxploitation

Blaxploitation is a film genre that emerged in the United States in the early 1970s when many exploitation films were made that targeted the urban black audience; the word itself is a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation." Blaxploitation films starred primarily black actors, and were the first to feature soundtracks of funk an...
 film directed by Jack Arnold. It stars former football player Fred Williamson
Fred Williamson

Fred ?The Hammer? Williamson is an American actor, architect, and former professional American football player, a star defensive back in the American Football League during the 1960s....
, who both wrote
Screenwriting

Screenwriting is the art and craft of writing Screenplay for film, television or video games.Writing for film is potentially one of the most high-profile and best-paying careers available to a writer and, as such, is also perhaps the most sought after....
 and co-produced
Film producer

A film producer is someone who creates the conditions for making film. The producer initiates, co-ordinates, supervises and controls matters such as fund-raising, hiring key personnel and arranging for distributors....
 the film. Boss Nigger is the first film for which Williamson was credited as screenwriter or producer.

Boss Nigger was released in some areas under the title The Boss or The Black Bounty Killer. A DVD release of Boss Nigger, simply titled "Boss", was released in 2008.

Black
African American

African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the Black people populations of Africa....
 bounty hunter
Bounty hunter

A bounty hunter captures fugitives for a money . Other names, mainly used in the United States, include, bail enforcement agent, fugitive recovery agent, and bail fugitive investigator....
s, "Boss Nigger" and Amos (Williamson
Fred Williamson

Fred ?The Hammer? Williamson is an American actor, architect, and former professional American football player, a star defensive back in the American Football League during the 1960s....
 and D'Urville Martin
D'Urville Martin

D'Urville Martin was an American actor and director. He was known for playing Willie Green in the Rudy Ray Moore 1975 blaxploitation classic Dolemite, a film which he also directed....
), ride into a small Western
American Old West

For cultural influences and their development, see Western .The American Old West or Wild West comprises the history, geography, peoples, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States , most often referring to the period of the latter half of the 19th century, between the American Civil War and the end of th...
 town in pursuit of fugitive
Fugitive

A fugitive is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from private slavery, a government arrest, government or non-government interrogation, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals....
 Jed Clayton (William Smith
William Smith (actor)

Not to be confused with Will SmithWilliam Smith is an United States actor.BiographySmith began his acting career in his childhood....
).






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Encyclopedia


Boss Nigger is a 1975 blaxploitation
Blaxploitation

Blaxploitation is a film genre that emerged in the United States in the early 1970s when many exploitation films were made that targeted the urban black audience; the word itself is a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation." Blaxploitation films starred primarily black actors, and were the first to feature soundtracks of funk an...
 film directed by Jack Arnold. It stars former football player Fred Williamson
Fred Williamson

Fred ?The Hammer? Williamson is an American actor, architect, and former professional American football player, a star defensive back in the American Football League during the 1960s....
, who both wrote
Screenwriting

Screenwriting is the art and craft of writing Screenplay for film, television or video games.Writing for film is potentially one of the most high-profile and best-paying careers available to a writer and, as such, is also perhaps the most sought after....
 and co-produced
Film producer

A film producer is someone who creates the conditions for making film. The producer initiates, co-ordinates, supervises and controls matters such as fund-raising, hiring key personnel and arranging for distributors....
 the film. Boss Nigger is the first film for which Williamson was credited as screenwriter or producer.

Boss Nigger was released in some areas under the title The Boss or The Black Bounty Killer. A DVD release of Boss Nigger, simply titled "Boss", was released in 2008.

Plot summary

Two Black
African American

African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the Black people populations of Africa....
 bounty hunter
Bounty hunter

A bounty hunter captures fugitives for a money . Other names, mainly used in the United States, include, bail enforcement agent, fugitive recovery agent, and bail fugitive investigator....
s, "Boss Nigger" and Amos (Williamson
Fred Williamson

Fred ?The Hammer? Williamson is an American actor, architect, and former professional American football player, a star defensive back in the American Football League during the 1960s....
 and D'Urville Martin
D'Urville Martin

D'Urville Martin was an American actor and director. He was known for playing Willie Green in the Rudy Ray Moore 1975 blaxploitation classic Dolemite, a film which he also directed....
), ride into a small Western
American Old West

For cultural influences and their development, see Western .The American Old West or Wild West comprises the history, geography, peoples, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States , most often referring to the period of the latter half of the 19th century, between the American Civil War and the end of th...
 town in pursuit of fugitive
Fugitive

A fugitive is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from private slavery, a government arrest, government or non-government interrogation, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals....
 Jed Clayton (William Smith
William Smith (actor)

Not to be confused with Will SmithWilliam Smith is an United States actor.BiographySmith began his acting career in his childhood....
). When they discover that the town has no sheriff
Sheriff

A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....
, "Boss Nigger" takes that position for himself after outsmarting the cowardly white mayor (R.G. Armstrong).

Critical analysis


Initial release

On its initial release, Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby

Vincent Canby was an United States Film criticism.Canby was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Katharine Anne and Lloyd Canby. He became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there....
 of The New York Times
The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"?named for its staid appearance and style?is regarded as a national newspaper of record....
 described Boss Nigger as "a pleasant surprise if you stumble upon it without warning." Canby characterized Williamson's acting as "an immensely self-assured parody
Parody

A parody , in contemporary usage, is a work created to mock, comment on, or poke fun at an original work, its subject, or author, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation....
 of the Man With No Name
Man with No Name

The Man with No Name is a stock character in American Old West films, but the term usually applies specifically to the character played by United States actor Clint Eastwood in what is often called Dollars Trilogy directed by Sergio Leone....
 played by Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood

Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American actor, film director, film producer and composer. He is known for his tough guy, anti-hero acting roles in Action films and western films, particularly in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s....
 in Sergio Leone's
Sergio Leone

Sergio Leone was an Italy film director, Film producer and screenwriter most famous for his spaghetti westerns....
 films
Spaghetti Western

Spaghetti Western, also known in some countries in mainland Europe as the Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad Genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most were produced and directed by Cinema of Italy, usually in coproduction with a Cinema of Spain....
."

Canby concluded his review by highlighting what made Boss Nigger notable among Black Westerns
Western (genre)

The Western is a fiction genre seen in film, television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in what became the Western United States , but also in Western Canada, Mexico , Alaska and even Australia ....
:

Most black Westerns either ignore race or make it the fundamental point of the movie. Boss Nigger somehow manages to do both quite successfully.


Later critics

In its review of Boss Nigger, written in the early 21st century, Time Out
Time out

The word time out, time-out, timeout may refer to:* Time-out , a break in a sport play that may be called by a side* Timeout , the costumed mascot of California State University, Fresno...
 suggested that Williamson was parodying
Self-parody

A self-parody is a parody of oneself or one's own work. As an artist accomplishes it by imitating his or her own characteristics, a self-parody is potentially difficult to distinguish from especially characteristic productions ....
 the violent roles he had played in other blaxploitation films. The review noted that Boss Nigger was notable for its "old-fashioned bloodless violence." The film, however, does contain blood as a result of violence.

Writing in 2006, film critic Ryan Diduck described the marketing of Boss Nigger and other blaxploitation films to Black audiences as an example of "empowerment
Empowerment

Empowerment refers to increasing the Spirituality, Politics, social or Economics strength of individuals and communities. It often involves the empowered developing confidence in their own capacities....
 through an overturned representation of long-established agency limitations for black men." Diduck specifically cited the trailer
Trailer (film)

Trailers or previews are film advertisements for feature films that will be exhibited in the future at a Movie theater, on whose screen they are shown....
 for Boss Nigger for the manner in which it elicits feelings of Black superiority and white hysteria and encourages the audience to identify with the outsider hero
Romantic hero

The Romantic hero is a literary archetype referring to a character that rejects established norms and conventions, has been rejected by society, and has the self as the center of his or her own existence....
 who finds himself at odds with the rules of white America.

William Smith on Boss Nigger

In a 1998 interview, Smith spoke of his experience filming
Principal photography

Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is actually shot, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
 Boss Nigger. Smith, who is white, said that he never felt any racial tension, despite the fact that production took place during the height of the Black Power movement
Black Power

Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among black people throughout the world, primarily those in the United States....
. He went on to describe the making of the film:

I was killed in ... Boss Nigger by Fred Williamson. We had a great time with our fights
Stage combat

Stage combat is a specialized technique in theatre designed to create the illusion of physical combat without causing harm to the performers. It is employed in live stage plays as well as operatic and ballet productions....
. We went down to Arizona
Arizona

The State of Arizona is a U.S. state located in the Southwestern United States of the United States. The capital and largest city is Phoenix, Arizona....
 to film Boss with R.G. Armstrong. He had a lot of urban, black kids on the set. They were falling off their horses like Neville Brand
Neville Brand

Neville Brand , was an United States television and film actor....
 did in Laredo
Laredo (TV series)

Laredo is an NBC western television series starring Neville Brand, William Smith , Peter Brown , and Philip Carey as Texas Ranger Division....
 — only they weren't drunk, of course. Fred and I had a great fight scene in that, more than one.


External links