History YMMV / Shaft

* JustHereForGodzilla: The film is one of the best Blaxploitation flicks, and was a huge hit that saved its studio from bankruptcy and led to two sequels and a TV series, as well as two modern revivals. But that theme song all by itself is what people remember.

** ''Imitation of Life'' comic, by David F. Walker, Dietrich Smith, et al.: Lou Peraino, or "Lollipop Lou", is a vile mobster running a pornography operation, happily dealing in the most extreme territories people can think of--even [[SnuffFilm snuff]]--so long as he's paid. Lou has no issue addicting young men and women to drugs to force them to become "stars" for his films, and when he's tracked down by Shaft, Lou is about to use a {{Blaxploitation}} actor gang-raped by a bunch of men dressed in Klansmen suits.

** "A bad mother--" [[BigShutUp "Shut your mouth!"]]''

** ''Imitation of Life'' comic, by David F. Walker, Dietrich Smith, et al.: Lou Peraino, or "Lollipop Lou", is a vile mobster running a pornography operation, happily dealing in the most extreme territories people can think of--even [[SnuffFilm snuff]]--so long as he's paid. Lou has no issue addicting young men and women to drugs to force them to become "stars" for his films, and when he's tracked down by Shaft, Lou is about to use a {{Blaxpoitation}} actor gang-raped by a bunch of men dressed in Klansmen suits.

* CompleteMonster: [[BigBad Vincent Amafi]] from ''Shaft in Africa'' [[EstablishingCharacterMoment opens the film]] executing a diplomat's son who got too close to the truth that Amafi is running a modern-day slave trade. Amafi offers young men from Africa new lives, only to sell them into labor-intensive jobs for literal pennies where they work 7 days a week for 16 hours per day with no way to speak up lest they face deportation or murder. Using slave labor on his own estates, Amafi has an apartment full of enslaved workers burned down and the workers killed in an attempt to murder the hero John Shaft. It is revealed he is keeping a group of prisoners in his own estate's dungeons, even rigging the cells with explosives to kill them all should Shaft not surrender.

* EarWorm: The theme song.

* JustHereForGodzilla: The film is one of the best Blaxploitation flicks, and was a huge hit that saved its studio from bankruptcy and led to two sequels and a TV series. But that theme song all by itself is what people remember.
* MemeticBadass: Shaft.
* MemeticMutation: ''Daaaaamn right.''
** ''A bad mother-- [[BigShutUp shut your mouth!]]''
** We can dig it!

* AwesomeMusic: The theme is so funkalicious it can [[Series/FatherTed make suicidal priests recover from their depression]].

* CompleteMonster: [[BigBad Vincent Amafi]] from ''Shaft in Africa'' [[EstablishingCharacterMoment opens the film]] executing a diplomat's son who got too close to the truth that Amafi is running a modern day slave trade. Amafi offers young men from Africa new lives, only to sell them into labor-intensive jobs for literal pennies where they work 7 days a week for 16 hours per day with no way to speak up lest they face deportation or murder. Using slave labor on his own estates, Amafi has an apartment full of enslaved workers burned down and the workers killed in an attempt to murder the hero John Shaft. It is revealed he is keeping a group of prisoners in his own estate's dungeons, even rigging the cells with explosives to kill them all should Shaft not surrender.

* AwesomeMusic: The theme is so funkalicious it can [[FatherTed make suicidal priests recover from their depression]].

* AwesomeMusic: The theme is so funkalicious it can [[ FatherTed make suicidal priests recover from their depression]].

* JustHereForGodzilla: The film is one of the best Blaxploitation flicks. But that theme song all by itself makes it a classic.

* FairForItsDay: Sure, the TV movies [[Badbutt stripped out much of what made John Shaft cool]], but it still made Roundtree/Shaft the first black lead of a primetime procedural show.

* JustHereForGodzilla: The film is a pretty standard '70s cop flick. But that theme song all by itself makes it a classic.

* AdaptationDisplacement: While the film has been overshadowed by its own theme song, the novel has faded into complete obscurity.

** ''bad mother-- [[BigShutUp shut your mouth!]]''

* UnfortunateImplications: While Shaft himself is a smart hero, the other black characters in the film are all...considerably less so.

** Shut yo mouth!

* EarWorm: The theme song. The film probably wouldn't be nearly as well-remembered without it.

* EarWorm: The theme song.