Coonskin has been dragged into the darkest realms of cinematic obscurity. When it was released in 1975, people panicked. Not since the 1940's has such racially insensitive jokes been made on African Americans. CORE and the NAACP screamed for blood and demanded this film to never be released, or shown to anyone for that matter. Leading Paramount Pictures to drop this movie from its original distribution and was forced to be shown in Grindhouse theaters nationwide and distributed by a mafioso production company. How devastatingly ironic, because this film HATES the mafia. Perhaps it was due to its off putting title. But I think more importantly, it was its trailer. The film's theatrical trailer is one of the most surreal, unholy debaucheries of a motion picture you will ever see. Just a bunch of scenes (some of which are pivotal to the plot of the film) thrown aimlessly together without any explanation of what the movie could be about. Of course, people speculated the worst from this film. But it wasn't what anyone thought it was. Coonskin is an absolute trip. It' points out the sad, painful truth about racism as we know it and threw it in our faces whether we could handle it or not. If anything, it advocates for the good of African Americans and slanders everyone that took advantage of it. It's a tale about three brothers, losing their way in the slums of Manhattan, as they try to get back at the "man". It's classic blaxploitation fare with a tendency for screwing with the audience and shocking them with the cold hard truth. Ralph worked his hardest with this film and insisted on making this his masterpiece, and it shows with explosive results. I loved the characters. The three brothers are dangerously cool, especially Brother Rabbit. Miss America is without a doubt the sexiest animated woman ever drawn. Unfortunately, she represents everything bloated, superficial, perverted and wrong with America. Which makes her a wickedly evil villain. The main villain, the Godfather was a little hard to swallow being Italian and all. But the Mafia was just begging for a Hollywood beating, and Bakshi let them have it. If I was to sum up Coonskin in one sentence, I would call it the Pulp Fiction of animation. It has the same level of genius and wit as that movie did, and will grow on you for an awfully long time. It's too bad not many people will ever see it. Hopefully, a home video release will finally surface in the future, and we can all celebrate this controversial classic.
