Carl Jones, who created the animated version of Black Dynamite and The Boondocks, not only defends the controversial Blaxploitation film genre of the 70s – but also humorously the role of the black pimp.

Carl Jones On Blaxploitation, Pimps

Jones is of the mindset that something is better than nothing; a pimp for a black male hero is better than no black hero at all. “There are so many great things that came out of [Blaxploitation] films and that era. It was maybe the first time that we saw black heroes on screen,” Jones told uInterview exclusively. “In a lot of ways if you look at it under the right scope, you’ll see pimps were probably the first iteration of black men in America. They were businessmen. They were entrepreneurs. You’ll see that they took a bad situation and turned it into good. Morally, you can argue or debate what’s right or wrong.”

Sitting to Jones’ right during the interview were Byron Minns and Michael Jai White. Upon hearing Jones share his philosophy on pimps, White, who voices the character of Black Dynamite joked, “You just glorified pimping right now!”

When Jones tried to clarify, Minns, who voices Bullhorn, chimed in and quipped, “And the drug dealer, is the other hero…”

Byron Minns, Michael Jai White Share Their Thoughts

After the trio regrouped, Minns took over to offer some insight on why pimps were the characters black men were playing, and how that paved the way for other parts for black men.

“The 70s was a rich period. It was the first opportunity for us to actually see ourselves in film,” said Binns. “It dealt with the characters that Carl was speaking of only because it was basically a lot of crime dramas and urban tales. For the most part, it was the first opportunity for us to see other characters. And it evolved into other stories aside from those types of stories.”

White observed that when they were growing up, they had posters of pimps like Superfly and The Mack on their walls. “I think… ‘Wait a minute, these guys were pimps,” White told uInterview. “That made me think about it. It’s like ‘Wow, how twisted of a childhood is that we [had these pimps as idols].’ But that was the only representation of an alpha male that we had.”

The Black Dynamite Season One DVD/BluRay will be released on July 15.

GET THE FREE uINTERVIEW iPHONE APP FOR LATEST NEWS UPDATES