Dyer (2012), "Music and Presence in Blaxploitation Cinema"

Soundtrack music is inseparably linked to character and setting through their simultaneously visual and auditory presentation, musical choices can impact the racial tones of a message.

1. Theme songs for Black characters like Shaft align closely to the character's movements. The music seems to come from the setting, which ties the character to the setting.

Examining the interaction of soundtrack and visual imagery in 1970s blaxpoiltation films, Dyer (2012) argues that black characters like Shaft are proverbially married to their Harlem settings through an implication that the funk soundtrack radiates from the space itself. By closely aligning the black star’s movements with the soundtrack, the films indicate that Shaft and other black characters are inextricably tied to the dangerous and economically collapsing settings.

2. White characters do not use movements that align to the music. They therefore are not linked as closely to the space in which they work.

On the other hand, Shaft’s white counterparts move out of time with their soundtracks, emphasizing difference between the music and the character.

3. Music in Blaxploitation cinema implicitly argues who does and does not belong in certain settings. These settings are generally indicative of certain economic positions.

In this way, Dyer (2012) argues, the integration of music and image functions politically to segregate America, defining the appropriate spaces for black Americans through the covert rhetoric of soundtrack.