The summer issue of Ms., just hitting the newsstands, features a piece by Stephane Dunn, adapted from her new book “Baad Bitches” and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films.
“While Cleopatra Jones, Coffy, and Foxy Brown played up the feminist-era persona of a bold modern woman who refused to stay in her place, the characters’ Afro hairdos and funky outfits also referenced the Afrocentrism of the concurrent Black Power movement. Indeed, the villains were often ego-tripping white women.”