Against red, blue, purple, a piercing neon green, she wears: a gold and black panelled top, ballooned sleeves and flowing trousers; a bikini; a red jumpsuit; a feathered top; and, a black leather trouser suit, punctuated with a kick and a gunshot. ‘She’s super bad,’ repeats the sweet, climbing tenor of Willie Hutch. The opening credits of Jack Hill’s Foxy Brown (1974) announces Foxy (Pam Grier) as a true force within the numerous, shifting spaces she occupies, while declaring her impeccable style as inseparable from this power.
Following the murder of her boyfriend, Foxy Brown seeks revenge on a Los Angeles crime ring by infiltrating from within. A blaxploitation film, Foxy Brown isn’t an easy but a truly radical watch. Retribution is realised – and defiantly realised by an independent Black woman in unwavering heels and perfectly tailored flares.
Distinctly feminine clothing secures Foxy’s power upon her introduction. Late at night, her brother calls, pleading for help. Disgruntled and a little apathetic, she pulls herself out of bed and, neatly tucks a gun into her bra. It’s effortless, a well-practised act in which underwear physically holds her power. Hill lets us into Foxy’s secret – what’s really underneath – and so, we’re already in the palm of her hand.
Her boyfriend, Michael (Terry Carter), is similarly awed by her. White upon greying white, Michael’s hospital room is a sterile and cold place until Foxy enters – yellow billowing shirt, yellow blooming flowers. She kisses him, lies with him, until the nurse enters with a yellow bowl, to bathe him. Utilising colour to link the yellow-clad Foxy with symbols of care – the flowers, the bathing bowl – Hill signals her capability to tend to Michael, just like the nurse. Despite the easy punches and cold one-liners, Foxy’s a nurturer and her clothing proclaims this to each room she enters, visibly shifting the tonal balance of the space. Following Michael’s murder, the care demanded to match her headscarf with her shirt while confronting her brother for his betrayal is implicit and bitter sweetly so. Although grieving and angered, Foxy acts with her head and heart as one, tied together in a spilling silk of blues, pinks, and purples.
But Foxy’s active resistance relies upon others’ wardrobes, also. On first entering ring-leader Katherine’s (Kathryn Loder) layer as one of her sex workers, Foxy is draped in a long red jumpsuit - notably, Katherine’s signature colour. A dislodging of power follows, with Foxy teasing the dress off while under the eyes of Steve (Peter Brown), Katherine’s lover. She’s all charm and he’s entirely mesmerised, even when she strips down to her light blue underwear, polar to Katherine’s deep red.
Dressing, undressing: Hill is keen to highlight the importance of the latter, also. Foxy’s removal of a corrupt judge’s suit trousers and love-hearted pants see him utterly - and comedically - degraded in a hotel corridor. It’s site specific, his humiliation reliant upon a public entrapment. However, later sent to Katherine’s ranch as punishment for this rebellion, Foxy is drugged and raped by its inhabitants, a group of cruel men. Her clothes are torn and dirtied, her skin exposed. On freeing herself, she tears the ranch men’s blue and white striped shirts from clothes hangers, undressing them one by one. Twisted into something sharp and unforgiving, Foxy uses the hangers to stab one of the ranch men in the eyes. An undressing is returned and used against them; they are killed and her freedom is reclaimed.
“I want justice for all of them,” says Foxy, softly. In taking on the ruling drug lords, she reclaims the city for herself and her community. Style is utilised, and radically so, confirming her agency and its impact on the spaces around her. Her clothes are a reminder that through it all - the violence, the grief - she’s still here, she’s still Foxy, against all odds.
Eilidh Akilade
Film journalist
