Foxy and Jackie, From Body to Brains: The Restructuring of Pam Grier's Star Text

The following is an adaptation of an essay I wrote in 2009 as an undergraduate at UC Irvine. 

Abstract: In the opening title sequences of Foxy Brown (Jack Hill, 1974) and Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997), Pam Grier’s body is foregrounded, the subject of the camera’s gaze. However, the focus of the camera, the pace of the titles, and the mood set by each are diametric opposites which signal a shift in the treatment of Pam Grier as an action star. Whereas Foxy Brown’s titles are frenetic, beset with multilayered, Day-Glo silhouettes of Grier’s hyper-sexualized Foxy, Tarantino’s credits are calm and subdued. The opening of Foxy Brown fetishizes Grier’s body piecemeal, prefiguring the physical nature of Foxy’s struggles and triumphs later in the film; Jackie Brown, by contrast, focuses on Grier as a whole, utilizing long takes to solidify her presence as a strong and put-together woman. Each title sequence’s audio track provides further clues to the treatment of Grier’s character. Whereas the lyrics in Willie Hutch’s theme explicitly narrate the storyline and characteristics of Foxy Brown, “Across 110^th Street” by Bobby Womack paints a more ambiguous character, one whose goals and methods are not a clear-cut and triumphs not as celebratory as Foxy’s. 

In her essay “Wham! Bam! Pam! Pam Grier as Hot Action Bade and Cool Action Mama,” Chris Holmlund pinpoints the tension inherent in the representation of Grier’s body displayed in the titles. She characterizes Grier’s ‘70s star persona as “kick ass and in control, [however] she is nevertheless frequently positioned as beautiful spectacle” (Holmlund, 98). This is certainly the case in the titles, where the narrative is postponed in favor of an erotic display, Foxy dancing to her own theme song. Grier’s Foxy is both alluring and threatening, drawing the viewer in closer with seductive dance moves, and signaling her power by pulling out a pistol and shooting it straight at the camera.

The concept of "spectacle" is important in understanding how Grier is portrayed in Foxy Brown, especially in relation to her later role in Jackie Brown, which Holmlund groups in a category of film roles which are “rarely ‘spectacles’” (Holmlund, 104). As stated above, the title sequence is a fast-paced visual display, choreographed to music, and situated outside the space of the narrative, in the position of a spectacle. Jennifer Bean’s conception of “nervous bodies” is applicable in this sequence, where the spectator becomes involved in the frenzy of bodies, in this case Foxy’s. Grier’s bodily display is not dissimilar from Bean’s displacement of the cinema of attractions to that of the performance (Bean, 17). Bean argues that the dissemination of information regarding early cinema female perilous stars and serial queens helped establish and codify the conception of stardom (Bean, 30 and Steimer, 4/2/09). 

I would add that this basic mechanism is at play in Grier’s stardom as well, her body being the center of the discourse on her star persona. Her role in Foxy Brown is one element of this discourse, which led to Quentin Tarantino casting Grier in Jackie Brown, which in turn added another layer of information to her star text. In analyzing the two films and their title sequences, I want to avoid a false dichotomy of straightforward comparison and contrast. Instead, by looking at a few of each films' semantic elements, we can see that the attitude towards Grier’s star persona undergoes a shift from focusing on her body ("spectacular" physicality) to her intellect and interior strength.

The expression of moral complexity and maturity reflected in the shift from Foxy to Jackie is at the heart of Tarantino’s restructuring of Pam Grier’s star persona. We can see an example of this by looking at the treatment of social issues and Foxy’s/Jackie’s narrative drive in both films. In Foxy Brown, Grier is “an action heroine with a social conscious,” a woman whose pragmatic social ideals grant her passage into the “boy’s club” of the community Black Power movement (Holmlund, 100). Holmlund also notes that Hill’s film actively criticizes the drug trade in Black communities, characterized by the dominant Katharine (Katharine Loder), who is coded as lesbian, and Steve (Peter Brown), the morally weak and eventually castrated White man. Jackie Brown is not concerned with the social consciousness displayed by her namesake.

Again, the film’s credit sequence provides clues to the character’s position on social activism. Bobby Womack’s “Across 110^th Street” plays twice in Jackie Brown, once over the opening credits, and again during the closing credits. Providing a bookend to Jackie’s narrative, one’s attitude towards the lyrics undergo a chance having seen the film unfold. The song tells the story of a young Black man’s struggle to survive on the street amidst the hazards of prostitution and drugs. 

Over the opening titles, Womack’s song seems like a characteristic Tarantino homage to the ‘70s blaxploitation films, including Foxy Brown. However, the lyrics hint at a moral complexity and ambiguity that Foxy’s straightforward revenge structure does not support. Womack justifies his dubious lifestyle, “I’m not saying what I did was alright,/Trying to break out of the ghetto was a day to day fight.” This sentiment is echoed in Jackie Brown’s defense of stealing the money. The ATF agent (Michael Keaton) and policeman (Michael Bowen) interviewing her play upon Jackie’s status as Black woman in her forties, stuck in a dead-end job at a worthless airline. She is explicit in her motivations: she wants to get away from her life as it is, and stealing Ordell’s (Samuel L. Jackson) money gives her that chance. Jackie’s entire plan does not become clear until the conclusion of the film, wherein the viewer realizes she has been conning everyone involved, manipulating even her partner and romantic interest, Max Cherry (Robert Forster). That she accomplishes this feat without using violence, especially in contrast to the bumbling and murderous criminal played by Robert de Niro, and the supposed mastermind Ordell, is a testament to her strategic skill, patience, and courage.  Foxy Brown is also able to outwit the White power structure, but without employing physical violence like Ordell, whose weapons trade victimizes his own Black community.

The shift towards maturity is also communicated in Grier’s evolving wardrobe, as expressed by her occupation. Foxy Brown a non-professional whose “job,” as defined by the film, is sister to her deadbeat brother (Antonio Fargas) and girlfriend to her murdered beau (Terry Carter). During the credit sequence, the spectacle of Foxy’s body is emphasized through multiple costume changes. 

In the two-minute sequence, she wears: 1) a sequined top and slacks, 2) a bikini, 3) a form-fitting dress, 4) a fashionable man’s hat and skirt combo, 5) a one-piece halter top jumpsuit, 6) a tank top and slacks, and finally 7) a leather jacket and pants accented with an Afro hairdo to emphasize her kick-ass karate moves. 

The sheer multitude of costume changes underscores the conflicting identities of Grier’s star text during her blaxploitation period. She is at once sexualized and empowered, juggling the concepts of Grier’s material function (she dances, she does karate) and Foxy’s narrative function (she’s sexy, but dangerous).

At the other end of the spectrum, Jackie Brown is portrayed physically through costuming as a flight attendant. Her uniform is one of only two outfits she wears in the entire film, the other being a very smart black and white business suit, a sign of the success she will enjoy after she has acquired the money. Costuming in Jackie Brown is a non-issue for the title character, the blandness of her outfits, neither mannish nor overly feminine, allow for her cunning and intellect to take center stage. Even when Jackie is shopping for the suit, the scene is not typical of a consumer indulgence. She is able to negotiate her desire for new clothes with her scamming operation, seamlessly integrating a stereotypically feminine activity with stereotypically masculine behavior.

The film's title sequence establishes the tone of the film and sets up many important aspects of the character, specifically through the costuming and the positioning of Grier’s body in the frame. For the film’s first minute and a half, Grier’s figure, in profile, is sustained in a long take/medium long shot on the right hand side of the frame. She is being carried along on an airport’s moveable sidewalk as the actor’s credits are inscribed to her left. Grier’s face is placid, a slight Mona Lisa smile on her lips. This sustained shot functions as an invitation to expound on Jackie Brown’s thoughts. Instead of quick cuts of her lips, eyes, or breasts, as in the Foxy Brown credits, the viewer is drawn to Grier’s face. 

As noted, “Across 110^th Street” is not the literal narration that “Foxy Brown” is to its titles. Jackie is not crossing a street, and we are soon to learn the film does not take place in a 1970s ghetto. Grier’s immobility is not a sign of weakness, as it might be for a less physically imposing actress, but an expression of her “smarts, poise, and panache” (Holmlund, 105). When Jackie speeds up to avoid being late for work, the camera does not participate in her hurriedness, keeping space with her in a long, tracking shot. Even when events are out of control, Jackie Brown is able to manage them with a sense of style and dignity. In contrast to her earlier iteration, Grier’s Jackie does not end the credits with a gunshot, but a self-assured smile.

Intertextuality and The Body: The Titles of Vertigo, Foxy Brown, and Superbad

This article is an adaptation of a paper I wrote in 2007 as an undergraduate at UC Irvine. Screencaptures are my own. Critical analysis is original. 

Abstract: The titles for Vertigo (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, titles by Saul Bass, 1958), Foxy Brown (dir. Jack Hill, titles by Imagic Inc., 1974), and Superbad (dir. Greg Mottola, titles by Scott M. Davids of Yard VFX, 2006) when viewed in chronological order present a timeline of sorts, offering an interesting view into the intertextuality of film titles and the ways in which the body, especially the partitioned and dissected body, and the body in motion, are represented in a similar visual fashion even though the stories of the three films are vastly different. Each title works within its specific decade of release and says something about its time period. Foxy and Superbad draw more consciously on the concept of cultural citation of the filmic tradition, whereas Vertigo evokes psychological depth and originality in its approach; the latter films rely more on the stylistic quotation of popular culture.    

Vertigo: This title sequence moves from a shot of a live woman’s face to many-colored fractal shapes, spiraling into and out of impenetrable and infinite black space, the space of the disturbed mind, and then returns back to the impassive woman’s face. Each subtle color change and the choice of the hollow, white outline typeface reflects on the thematics of the film. Central to this discussion of the titles is their relation to the representation of the body. One important aspect of that is the inscription of text onto image and how that relates to authorship. The font, as already noted, is a hollow outline, which allows for the maximum exposure of skin. This creates the illusion of branding, of stamping onto a woman’s flesh the names of men who claim to own her. The model in the titles is a stand-in for Kim Novak’s character, Madeleine/Judy. Her dual identity speaks to the difficulty Jimmy Stewart’s Scottie has pinning her down, pinpointing her, gaining control of her actions. When Stewart’s title zooms in from off-screen and stamps itself above the unnamed woman, the character of Scottie is declaring his ownership of Madeleine/Judy, and giving the anonymous model an identity solely in relation to his name and identity. Importantly, Bass uses a freeze frame technique on this image, stopping the motion of the model’s lips, lingering on them, and emphasizing the importance of Stewart’s credit.

The next credit is for Kim Novak, the object of obsessive desire in the film. The camera pans up to the woman’s eyes that, instead of being immobilized by a freeze frame, dart back and forth, imparting uncertainty and the theme of searching which is central to Madeleine’s character. The camera then pans left and zooms into a singular eye and the credit ‘IN ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S’ appears. This is an obvious example of the branding and ownership of the dismembered woman’s body. Hitchcock is ostensibly taking claim of his film, but subtextually, declaring dominion over her eyes, which are later revealed to be the entrance to the interior space of the mind, the area of madness and abstract obsession. The camera zooms in more slowly to the eye, the frame is tinted red, the eye widens in reaction to this dangerous color, and the title ‘VERTIGO’ charges from the depths of the woman’s dark iris, toward the camera and up out of frame. The arena of the mind that was branded as belonging to Hitchcock has now produced the title of the work of art. The façade of the mask-like woman is revealed to be as hollow as the typographic outline, a mere vessel for the artistic expression of film auteur Hitchcock, and by implication, title auteur Bass. After an interlude of spiraling geometric shapes of varying colors, the camera zooms back again out of the woman’s iris, with the credit ‘DIRECTED BY ALFRED HITCHCOCK.’ This is another inscription of authorship, and an exertion of control over the uncontrollable interior madness of the montage of fractal shapes. After a recess into the ether, we emerge again, back where we started, with the commanding name of the director reified.

 

The inscription of text on image: Typography and its placement over the image belies a struggle for dominance that is amplified when the type is placed over the human form. In Vertigo, authorship is etched into the skin of female, owning and controlling it. The credit for Kim Novak is unsure of itself, and the woman’s eyes break their mask-like gaze.

Although Vertigo deals with sexuality, fetishism, sexual obsession and perversions, it is moored in the spatial temporality of 1950s America. According to the Hollywood codes at the time, these themes are repressed throughout the film and their representation becomes sublimated to the level of subtle visual markers. The title sequence sets up these sublimated sensibilities. The title opens and closes on a female body as a way into the psychological and physical space of the film. Physical representation is important as a threshold metaphor, as a method to draw the viewer into the immersive space of the film. The physical, and importantly female, body that is utilized as a metaphor in this instance is carefully spliced by the camera, into disparate body parts: lips, eyes, chins, and cheeks. The slow camera movement, coupled with Bernard Herrmann’s perfectly lilting orchestrations, entices the viewer into the body, and into the obsession that is shared by Scottie, Bass, and Hitchcock.

Foxy Brown: The cinematic tradition upon which the Foxy titles draw is varied, but a clear antecedent is Bass’ work on Vertigo. Though the films are thematically and stylistically worlds apart, the first images of each title sequence is a dislocated female body part, in Foxy, first a pair of lips, and then two blinking eyes. The theme of eyes continues with Foxy’s/Pam’s wink to the audience as the green-tinted images transition to a photo-real filmic representation. The sequence also features several freeze frames of Foxy as she poses, dancing, each freeze frame bringing her figure closer to the audience. Unlike the Vertigo titles, however, Foxy Brown has somewhat of a schizophrenic title sequence because auteurship is not foregrounded, rather favoring the strong Black, female protagonist. Her identity is clearly marked, signaled in text “PAM GRIER IS…‘FOXY BROWN,’” and image, the close up of Foxy/Pam’s face winking to the viewer. The strong centrality of the title character before the film proper begins distances this title from its ‘50s forbearer whose title woman was an empty vessel and a physical surface on which to ascribe masculine authorship. Foxy is a character of the 1970s, foregrounded socially in the women’s rights movement and cinematically in the tradition of blaxploitation and sexploitation pictures.

 

Freeze frame: In Vertigo and Foxy Brown, freeze frame pauses and focuses the gaze on the female protagonists to fetishize the lips and eyes.

The different representations of Foxy Brown within the title sequence, both on the visual and auditory plane speak to the conflicts of bodily representation. On the one hand, Foxy is a modern, liberated woman who is the center of her film. On the other, her physicality is sexualized and fetishized in lingering close-ups of her breasts, crotch, lips, and eyes. Switching back between film and tinted and colorized images also reflects the multiplicity of representation. Foxy is dressed in many ways throughout the title: in a bikini, as a cowgirl, in a one-piece bell bottom suit, as a ghetto or “Afrotastic” version of herself, and as a leather-clad, karate-chopping action heroine. Conflicting images of physical representation are layered and diverse. The title seems at odd with itself, unable to reconcile the profit AIP needed to generate by playing on Pam Grier’s sex appeal, with its vengeful and ass-kicking female protagonist.

 

In Foxy Brown, the text does not assert its control over Foxy’s body, like the type in Vertigo, but acts as an introduction to her character, which is defined by the coupling of the visual and the auditory, more than the typographic.

This tension between Foxy's status as sexualized object and in-control heroine is brought to bear in the tension between sound and image. Willie Hutch’s funky sound, upbeat and celebratory, provides the viewer with positive associations and a general happy feeling towards Foxy. This sets the tone for the film, where the viewer really comes to root for and identify with Foxy’s path of revenge. As much as the objectifying images are at odds with this groovy soundtrack, so do the lyrics occasionally contradict themselves and the music. One of the lyrics’ main descriptors of Foxy: “You’re cute and sweet, but you don’t play around!” Foxy embodies the duality of the newly liberated woman, still an object of desire but one who does not tolerate the masculine control exercised over the unnamed model in Vertigo’s titles. Another lyric warns of Foxy’s physical dominance: “Please don’t make Foxy mad/Or you’ll find out that the lady is Superbad/Superbad!” In Foxy Brown, the lyrics are mostly empowering to women, and the images mostly objectifying, though the sequence treads a fine line between the exploitation and celebration of the physical body in motion. 

 

Foxy Brown uses close-ups of Foxy’s anatomy to convey her obvious sex appeal. This image is layered, in the foreground with Foxy’s realistic body and in the background, her colorized body.

 

Superbad's homoerotic friendship. 

 

Sexuality in bodily titles: Bodies captured on film, and especially bodies in motion, are subject to a sexualizing filmic gaze, so it is fitting that three films each dealing with sexuality include in their opening credits the sexualized or fetishized body. The role of sexuality in Vertigo's titles because of the time period is more subdued, though there are subtle clues that link sex with obsession and madness, much as the story centers on this paradigm.

 

Freeze frame: In Foxy Brown, freeze frame draws Foxy closer to the viewer. 

Superbad: The title theme song for Foxy Brown provides the title for the next film, Superbad. This sequence is a direct descendent of Vertigo and Foxy Brown, yet its subject matter is the most radically different. This film also provides us with the clearest example of intertextuality because the theme of filmic citation and self-reflexivity is central to the titles, and the film at large. The main stylistic difference is tied to this film’s postmodernity. Superbad comes thirty years after Foxy, and fifty years after Vertigo. To bridge that gap, the film employs the currently popular strategy of a retro title sequence. The retro appeal of its titles comes from its reference to blaxploitation films like Foxy Brown and the era they represent. This is purposefully one of the most ironic cultural citations Superbad, a buddy film about two white, suburban teenagers, could make. 

Within the text, there are no overt references to the ‘70s, neither Foxy Brown nor blaxploitation are mentioned in the film, and the phrase ‘superbad’ is never uttered by any of the characters. The title sequence establishes a groovy mood that is never explicitly evoked again, yet the celebration of retro nerdiness is maintained throughout the film. The film is relying on the cool factor of its title tune, “Too Hot To Stop” by The Bar-Keys, and the aura of the 1970s, to support the plot, which is essentially about nerdy white high school kids trying to score alcohol and get laid. The plot of Foxy Brown and Superbad could not be more far apart, and yet the titles of the later film draw on the cinematic history of films like Vertigo and Foxy Brown in setting the tone for their modern teen comedy.

 

The visual quotation of Foxy Brown in Superbad: The multiplication of bodies in motion, with shadowed and layered images of dancing figures.

The juxtaposition of funky ‘70s flavor and the 21st century green screen and computer technology utilized presupposes the theme of cultural citation prevalent in the film. The first conversation in the film is Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) talking over cell phones, immediately signifying that the story does take place in the present, and not the 1970s. But, references to the ‘70s are commonplace: Seth and Fogel (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) wear t-shirts with pictures of Sherman Hemsley of The Jeffersons, Bruce Lee and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Jones & Terry Gilliam, 1975). This kind of intertextuality is merely quotation, and does not have a deeper significance to the plot or meaning of the film. Much like the opening titles, these in-text references are stylistic choices pulled from pop culture.

Unlike the female bodies at the center of Vertigo and Foxy Brown, the male body takes center stage in the Superbad title sequence. And although it is not a photo-real physique, it is a new representation and commodification of male friendship that is not usually seen in mainstream cinema. Like the music of Foxy Brown, Superbad also presents an tension between the visual and the audio because while the lyrics are explicitly heterosexual (“Girl, I’m out to get your love and I’m too hot to stop now”), whereas the images convey a homosocial bond between the two characters that is much stronger than either character’s pursuit of the opposite sex. The characters in Superbad are obsessed with the female form and its anatomy is immediately the center of conversation in the opening seconds of the film. Seth’s quest for the “Vagtastic Voyage” porn site and the emphasis on breasts and penises and individual body parts recalls the fetishism present in both Vertigo and Foxy Brown, albeit in a more obvious and less mature manner.

 

Freeze frame: In Superbad, freeze frame lingers on a backwards glance and a separation, emphasizing the male "bromance" at the center of the film.

    

Fifty years of cross-genre thematic titles: Focus on the eyes in the Vertigo titles is key to understanding the psychological complexity of the plot and main character. Foxy Brown's titles convey the inner strength of the title character by quoting Vertigo's design while simultaneously updating it for the newly liberated '70s. The "iris out" visual effect in the Superbad titles completes the ocular thematic continuity between the three sequences. Superbad suggests a shift from the isolated and fetishized female body to the coupling of two male bodies in constant tension between heterosexual and homosocial desires.