Coffy, Vengeance, and the Voices Behind Los Angeles' Drug Trade
About the Series: Blaxploitation and the Cities That Make Us is a 6-week analytical series exploring the relationship between Blaxploitation protagonists and the communities that shape them. Whether Los Angeles, Harlem, Oakland, or Detroit, these cities are living organisms that influence each protagonist’s identity. Through historical, cultural, and film analyses, this series examines how each project reflects the neighborhoods, struggles, and communities that gave rise to some of Black cinema’s most adored heroes.
Coffy (1973)
Los Angeles. 1973. Flower Child “Coffy” Coffin, portrayed by the illustrious Pam Grier, is on a mission to seek revenge on the Los Angeles streets and bring justice to her sister, LuBelle, a victim of heroin by the tender age of 11. Audiences are transported to a gritty Los Angeles as Grier shapeshifts from sex worker to nurse to vigilante and back. In Coffy, Grier is tasked with portraying vengeance and violence through the lens of a scorned sister, while Los Angeles becomes an exposé of the dark side of power. The further she ventures into the city, the greater the distance grows between Coffy and the communities she seeks to protect, while she inches closer to the wealthy figures puppeteering the drug trade she seeks to destroy.