reibureibu’s review published on Letterboxd:
Nurse by day and vigilante by night, Coffy was one of the first films to come out featuring a black woman in a revenge role and would clearly come to establish a template for future films. But in addition to being an action heroine, she's also a strong community leader and a self-reliant woman, someone who is part of the regular working-class and seeks to get rid of the drug epidemic in her city.
"This is the end of your rotten life, you motherfuckin' dope pusher!"
Like all the other blaxploitation movies there's violence, nudity, drugs, and sex, but in here these tropes are viewed with a more incisive lens, how uncomfortable these things can be when shown from the perspective of a woman. Coffy, like Shaft and Dolemite, uses her sex appeal throughout the movie, but unlike her male counterparts she must use it as a tool to further her cause than as an enjoyable recreational activity.
Which is scary, because sex used this way has imbalanced power-dynamics. You can certainly cheer Coffy on while she seduces a pimp before plotting to kill him, but it's difficult to deny that even when she's supposed to have the upper-hand there's an uncertainty and danger that she's always exposed to. So unlike those other male-led films where we rarely feel our hero is in any sexual danger, here this dynamic is flipped around to show us what the female perspective of this genre is like.
But it's also an action-packed romp where Pam Grier as Coffy takes names and kicks ass, and seeing her badassery and brash charisma it's easy to see how Coffy made her the icon she is.
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