Қара ана, Ақ ана: Шекерлердегі әйелдер

1972 film by Eddie Romero

Black Mama White Mama, also known as Women in Chains (US reissue title), Hot, Hard and Mean (original 1974 UK title) and Chained Women (1977 UK reissue title), is a 1973 women in prison film directed by Eddie Romero and starring Pam Grier and Margaret Markov. The film has elements of blaxploitation. The movie was reportedly inspired by the 1958 film The Defiant Ones in which Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis are shackled together similarly to Grier and Markov. Set in an unspecified Latin American country (referred to only as "the island"), the movie was shot in the Philippines for budgetary purposes. In December 1972, it was acquired by American International Pictures. The movie takes its inspiration from the story concept of shackling a black character and a white one together introduced by The Defiant Ones (1958). John Ashley says the movie was originally called Chains of Hate and he bought the treatment from Jonathan Demme for $500. Margaret Markov, who plays Karen Brent, had appeared in The Hot Box (1972), which was also a Latin American prison film. All of these movie were shot in the Philippines in accordance with their low budgets. Pam Grier and Sid Haig also appear together in another tropical prison film The Big Doll House (1971) and Grier, Haig, Vic Díaz, and Andrés Centenera appear together in its non sequel follow up The Big Bird Cage (1972), which were also both filmed in the Philippines. Grier and Margaret Markov also starred opposite each other in the 1974 movie The Arena (a. k. a. Naked Warriors). The movie was made at the same time as The Twilight People. Several Volkswagen Country Buggies are used in the movie; these were based on the VW Beetle chassis originally for the Australian market. The Country Buggy was produced locally in the Philippines as the Sakbayan, using VW power plants sourced from either Brazil or Mexico. Eddie Romero says that Sam Arkoff of AIP called him during the shoot, saying he was unhappy with the lack of coverage. Romero asked Arkoff to have a look at the dailies and see if there was any coverage that he thought was needed. He never heard from Arkoff again after that. Grier became seriously ill during the making of the movie. "It was a tropical disease you get from ingestion, either from food or from the virus going through your skin in water", she said. "We were in a lot of rivers, rice paddies, where there are leeches and bacteria. So it was just a matter of time before it went through a cut and into your brain – and it could kill you." She was in bed for a month with a temperature of 105 degrees. "I lost my hair, I couldn't see, I couldn't walk. I was dying. The doctor kind of froze me to kill the cell in my brain." Lynn Borden says she, too, fell ill during filming as well.

Black Mama White Mama, despite its exploitative nature, passes the Bechdel test and contains themes of female empowerment. Both of the movies' leads are strong women. Karen Brent is a guerrilla fighter and Lee Daniels masterminds a scheme to screw over the misogynistic pimp, Vic Cheng. Although Karen is the only female present in the guerrilla force, she is essential to their cause, as she is the only one that has the connections to the weapons dealers, and the only one that those dealers trust (Ernesto says "Her contacts would never turn them over to us."). She also is seen firing a gun right alongside Ernesto, the guerrilla leader. James Robert Parish and George H. Hill state that Pam Grier is "an intriguing mixture of pugnacity and femininity, with a heavy dose of world weary cynicism" and the strength of both women outshine most of the male characters. Yvonne Sims states that "it became evident very quickly that Grier's screen presence overshadowed the one dimensional roles that focused on her physical attributes and the weak storylines in AIP [American International Pictures] productions." Pam Grier's character Lee also escapes from her former pimp with $40,000 of his money, while the pimp and his henchmen are all killed. Not only that, but when the pair is sexually assaulted by Luis in his work shed midway through the movie, Lee stabs him to death. Cultural critic Nelson George notes, "Pam Grier was a cult figure who was even embraced by many feminists for her ball breaking action movies. She remains one of the few women of any color in American film history who had vehicles developed for her that not only emphasized her physical beauty but also her ability to take retribution on men who challenged her." Therefore, "Grier brought a new character to the screen that was instrumental in reshaping gender roles, particularly those involving action centered storylines." (Simms) and a major plot point of this movie is that the guerrillas need guns in order to succeed and Karen's American weapons contacts are deemed essential for their cause.

One advertisement for the movie included the tagline "Chicks in chains and nothing in common but the hunger of 1,000 nights without a man!"

Ashley recalls being unhappy when AIP wanted to change the title to Black Mama White Mama. "[It was] really left field. I didn't care for it. As it turned out, that was the most successful theatrical movie I have ever done, in terms of hard dollars in my pocket." Variety magazine said that "Performances ranged from bad to mediocre." Josiah Howard writes in Blaxploitation Cinema: The Essential Reference Guide that the movie was "a lively and well done women's prison yarn", but that it "somehow never really hits its mark", largely because "the filmmakers do little to distance themselves from the tired trick of having key characters shackled together for almost the entire length of the picture." However, the pairing of Pam Grier and Margaret Markov was "a hit with audiences", as they played off each other well. Variety praised Eddie Garcia, saying that he "rises above the material by studious underplaying".

The soundtrack received praise. Howard comments, "Harry Bett's superior ambient music soundtrack (available on CD) is much more sophisticated than the movie that it was created for."

The movie is screened in the John Sayles film Lone Star (1996). Sayles said "Even that [movie] is about people of different races being chained together whether they want to or not."