Dolemite is His Name and (EXPLETIVE DELETED) is His Game!

By Christopher Dier-Scalise, Movie Committee Member

Despite what the brusque but ultimately clueless honky prison warden says, the name of the game in Dolemite (1975) is not “to stay alive.” Not for Dolemite. Not for Rudy Ray Moore. If that were the objective, Dolemite would be a much different, much less ambitious and much more forgettable film than what we’ll be showing Feb. 8 at the Senate. 

Luckily, Mr. Moore wastes no time in setting us all straight. His name is Dolemite, and f**king up motherf**kers is his game.

After his release from prison, (to clear his name? to bring the corrupt white establishment to justice? to avenge little Jimmy?) Dolemite and his gang of “classy young girls that knows a lot about Karate,” proceed to pummel, kick and ventilate a cast of baddies, Black and white, who are almost as evil as they are pathetic. Peppered in between these wanton acts of vengeance and bloodletting are tidbits of Mr. Moore’s renowned poetry (fables? rhyming verse? locker room jokes?) that earned him the reputation as the Godfather of Rap. 

More notably, the film is largely composed of non-sequiturs and blind alleys that defy whatever attempts at a cohesive plot either Mr. Moore or the audience may attempt. Karate fight scenes with scantily clad women give way to sex scenes that are about as erotic as a bank transaction only to lead to a dialogue-heavy scene with a pan-african, revolutionary, sex-crazed preacher whose motives are left entirely unexplained. Outside of the scenes in which Dolemite punches someone, very little is actually accomplished in the film’s tight 90 minute run-time.

Still, each scene has something enjoyable to it. The movie is a blast, and everything does seem to be pointing to a larger meaning outside the trite moralizing of other Blacksploitation films of the time. Underneath the clunky fight choreography, the leaden silence that follows one-liners, the slightly glazed look on the actors’ faces, there’s a glimpse of a deeper truth, of a world that is sinister, mercenary and, most importantly, absurd. 

Like, what the hell does the line, “if I ever went to prison, it would be for something big,” even mean? And why at age 15?

The true genius of Dolemite, even 50 years on, is that it shows us a reality like our own, America through a fun house mirror, one that is vulgar, ugly and amoral. Unlike the glitzy schlock of cinema’s “Golden Age,” the literary pretensions of what was at the time called “New Hollywood” or even the current mass market garbage at the few remaining cineplexes, Dolemite’s bad guys are not masterminds, it's good guys are not in it for the common man, and everyone in the film is fatter, duller and more self-absorbed than anything the bright boys at the big studios could possibly cook up. 

And it's a world we rediscover all around us with every passing day. There are no heroes to save us, justice is at the disposal of the wealthy and it is always the stupidest, ugliest and most hateful among us who are able to forfeit enough of their humanity to climb to positions of power and influence. Being clever and knowing karate can earn some room at the bottom –  trafficking women, pushing dope, running guns – but at the end of the day, you only have what the scum at the top let you keep. Until and unless the world changes in some pretty fundamental ways, good or bad, we all still have to fight to get ours. You can laugh about it, you can cry about it, you can roundhouse kick someone in the domepiece about it.

I suppose that’s the reason Dolemite is such an important film. Although it's not easy, the first option has the most to speak for it, and it leaves less of a body count. 

But sometimes, motherf**kers just need to get f**ked up.