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Soopa Starr’s Blaxploitation Friday: Get Christie Love

blame it on Meka November 7, 2008

Alongside movies, blaxploitation also hit the television as well. Here is one such breakthrough. And as always, if you’re digging this, hit up Gangstarr Girl for a fresh take on hip-hop, politics, fashion and other worldly and wordy things through the eyes of a New York-helmed around-the-way girl. Without further adeiu…

TV Series (1974-1975)

Get Christie Love was a groundbreaking TV series starring Teresa Graves as a fearless police woman, airing on ABC. It was groundbreaking for obvious reasons. This was the first time an African American woman was the sole star of a TV series and it was the only successful TV series spawned by the blaxploitation genre. Teresa Graves was originally a part of the cast of the comedy sketch series, Laugh-In (pre-SNL) but amid skepticism, made a wonderful transition from comedy to drama. The widely popular, 60 minute show ran for a year. Graves was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best TV Actress in a Drama (1975) and won a TP de Oro (Spain 1977) award for Best Foreign Actress.

I couldn’t find a trailer, but here’s an opening scene from an episode (she makes her intro at 0:42):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM4TyueXENQ]

Graves was just as influential to the image of the Blaxploitation heroine as Pam Grier. I used one of her outfits for inspiration for my own Halloween costume (but I’m just too lazy to post it right now).