Prior to the late 1960s, African Americans rarely had a voice in how they were represented in Hollywood films. With several years of declining box-office profits, along with the rise of the Black Power movement, Hollywood began to court black audiences with a series of inexpensive urban crime dramas, which “exploited” the audience’s desire to see black heroes and heroines with nearly superhuman physical powers. White men were depicted as sniveling weaklings or corrupt businessmen. Black directors Melvin Van Peebles, Gordon Parks and Ossie Davis made, respectively Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), Shaft (1971) and Gordon’s War (1973).