Marihuana, Motherhood & Madness

Marihuana, Motherhood & Madness

Three Screenplays from the Exploitation Cinema of Dwain Esper. A topic of growing interest among cinema aficionados and scholars, the lowbrow exploitation genre was the means by which small-scale entrepreneurs could compete with the major studios. Exploitation films addressed such controversial topics as drug use, prostitution, abortion, child marriage, and even bestiality—topics the major studios were forbidden to address by the Production Code Administration—salaciously exploiting the profitability of such taboo issues, while justifying their prurience by posing as educational tracts.