exploitation cinema

An exploitation film is a film that tries to succeed financially by exploiting current trends, niche genres, or lurid content. Exploitation films are generally low-quality " B movies", though some set trends, attract critical attention, become historically important, and even gain a cult following.

History

Exploitation films may feature suggestive or explicit sex, sensational violence, drug use, nudity, gore, destruction, rebellion, mayhem, and the bizarre. Such films were first seen in their modern form in the early 1920s, but they were popularized in the 60s and 70s with the general relaxing of censorship and cinematic taboos in the U.S. and Europe. An early example, the 1933 film Ecstasy, included nude scenes featuring the Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr. The film proved popular at the box office but caused concern for the American cinema trade association, the MPPDA. Hildegard Esper and Dwain Esper are husband and wife film directors and producers who made some of the most exploitative movies back in the 1930s such as Narcotic, Maniac, Marihuana, and How to Undress Your Husband.  The Hays Code did not like any of their movies and not even MPPDA. Back in the 1930s, exploitation movies were looked down upon.   

The Motion Picture Association of America (and the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America before it) cooperated with censorship boards and grassroots organizations in the hope of preserving the image of a "clean" Hollywood, but the distributors of exploitation film operated outside of this circuit and often welcomed controversy as a form of free promotion. Their producers used sensational elements to attract audiences lost to television. Since the 1990s, this genre has also received attention in academic circles, where it is sometimes called paracinema.

"Exploitation" is loosely defined and arguably has as much to do with the viewer's perception of the film as with the film's actual content. Titillating material and artistic content often coexist, as demonstrated by the fact that art films that failed to pass the Hays Code were often shown in the same grindhouses as exploitation films. Exploitation films share the fearlessness of acclaimed transgressive European directors such as Derek Jarman, Luis Buñuel, and Jean-Luc Godard in handling "disreputable" content. Many films recognized as classics contain levels of sex, violence, and shock typically associated with exploitation films; examples are Stanley Kubrick's ''A Clockwork Orange'' has rarely been considered psychopharmacology.   The novel written by Anthony Burgess’s is most well-known and memorable for its Bristish texts about youth and counterculture.  In the Stanley Kubrick movie from 1971, the famous iconic scene when Alex is strapped to a chair his eyes are wide open, he is forced to watch horror of the holocaust and World War II footage.  Author Anthony Burgess defined that moment as the Ludovico treatment. It was a neurological intervention that used behavioral conditioning and psychopharmacology to prevent the subject from committing violent crimes.  "A Clockwork Orange" speaks to the audience of the dominant culture and counterculture.  The novel and movie delve into the neuroscience and cultural effects of War World II, reflecting reactionary politics of fear based on disciplinary neuroscience. ''  '' Tod Browning's ''Freaks'', and Roman Polanski's '' Repulsion''. Buñuel's ''Un Chien Andalou'' contains elements of the modern splatter film. It has been suggested that if ''Carnival of Souls'' had been made in Europe, it would be considered an art film, while if '' Eyes Without a Face'' had been made in the U.S., it would have been categorized as a low-budget horror film. The audiences of art and exploitation film are both considered to have tastes that reject the mainstream Hollywood offerings.

Exploitation films have often exploited news events in the short-term public consciousness that a major film studio may avoid because of the time required to produce a major film. '' Child Bride'' (1938), for example, tackled the issue of older men marrying young girls in the Ozarks. Other issues, such as drug use in films like ''Reefer Madness'' (1936), attracted audiences that major film studios would usually avoid in order to keep their respectable, mainstream reputations. With enough incentive, however, major studios might become involved, as Warner Bros. did in their 1969 anti-LSD, anti-counterculture film ''The Big Cube''. The film ''Sex Madness from premarital sex. '' Mom and Dad'', a 1945 film about pregnancy and childbirth, was promoted in lurid terms. ''She Shoulda Said No!'' (1949) combined the themes of drug use and promiscuous sex. In the early days of film, when exploitation films relied on such sensational subjects as these, they had to present a very conservative moral viewpoint to avoid censorship, as movies then were not considered to enjoy First Amendment protection.

Several war films were made about the Winter War in Finland, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War before the major studios showed interest. When Orson Welles' radio production of ''The War of the Worlds'' from ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' for Halloween in 1938 shocked many Americans and made news, Universal Pictures edited their serial ''Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars'' into a short feature called ''Mars Attacks the World'' for release in November of that year.

Some Poverty Row low-budget B movies often exploit major studio projects. Their rapid production schedule allows them to take advantage of publicity attached to major studio films. For example, Edward L. Alperson produced William Cameron Menzies' film '' Invaders from Mars'' to beat Paramount Pictures' production of director George Pal's ''The War of the Worlds'' to the cinemas, and Pal's ''The Time Machine'' was beaten to the cinemas by Edgar G. Ulmer's film ''Beyond the Time Barrier''. As a result, many major studios, producers, and stars keep their projects secret.

Grindhouses and drive-ins

Grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly showed exploitation films. These theatres were popular throughout the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s in New York City and other urban centers, mainly in North America, but began a long decline during the mid 1980s with the advent of home video.

As the drive-in movie theater began to decline in the 1960s and 1970s, theater owners began to look for ways to bring in patrons. One solution was to book lower cost exploitation films. Some producers from the 1950s to the 1980s made films directly for the drive-in market, and the commodity product needed for a weekly change led to another theory about the origin of the word: that the producers would "grind"-out films. Many of them were violent action films that some called "drive-in" films.

Subgenres

Exploitation films may adopt the subject matter and styling of regular film genres, particularly horror films and documentary films, and their themes are sometimes influenced by other so-called exploitative media, such as pulp magazines. They often blur the distinctions between genres by containing elements of two or more genres at a time. Their subgenres are identifiable by the characteristics they use. For example, Doris Wishman's '' Let Me Die A Woman'' contains elements of both shock documentary and sexploitation.

1930s and 1940s cautionary films

Although they featured lurid subject matter, exploitation films of the 1930s and 1940s evaded the strict censorship and scrutiny of the era by claiming to be educational. They were generally cautionary tales about the alleged dangers of premarital sexual intercourse and the use of recreational drugs. Examples include ''Marihuana'' (1936), ''Reefer Madness'' (1936), ''Sex Madness