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Exploitation films, also known as Grindhouse cinema or trash cinema, are a genre of films that typically sacrifice the traditional notions of artistic merit for a more sensationalistic display, often featuring excessive sex, violence, and gore. Such films have existed since the earliest days of moviemaking, but they were popularized in the 1970s with the general relaxing of moral standards in cinema in the U.S. and Europe.
The word "exploitation" itself is an old show business term for publicizing shows and motion pictures. "Exploitation films" are those whose success relied not on the quality of their content, but on the ability of audiences to be drawn in by the advertising of the film (for example, a common device used by the more notorious exploitation films is to advertise the banning of a film in a certain country).
The genre's influence on contemporary cinema can be found in such films as Kill Bill by director Quentin Tarantino (who is a self-declared lover of exploitation cinema). Since the 1990s, this genre has also received attention from academic circles, where it is sometimes called paracinema.