Perhaps you've heard all the excitement about Marvel's "Black Panther" (2018)?
Well I'm here to exuberantly and unambiguously pile on with 2018's first Snap Judgment!
Let's roll!
- It is visually stunning, and it is thrilling.
"Black Panther" is a visual feast. The set and costume design, makeup and hair are exquisite. Gorgeous African landscapes break into the triumphant futuristic skyscrapers of Wakanda. The costuming is vibrant and at times highly architectural. The hair styling is a beautiful celebration of Black women's hair. It is an absolute joy seeing this movie on a big screen.
While action doesn't over-dominate the narrative of "Black Panther," this is an absolute strength of the film. It makes room for the rich and thoughtful substance of the movie while still allocating time for excellent action. The action and fight sequences alternate between nail-biting death matches with stakes that feel very real and exhilarating demonstrations of Wakandans' innovative and formidable prowess in combat.
- Superheroes have finally figured out equitable power between the sexes
One of the very many bracingly enjoyable things about "Black Panther" is that it is a movie that lives fully in the recognition that men and women can be equally powerful without having to compromise on their power. Women don't apologize for their power. Men don't resent women for their power.
In one fight sequence, Danai Gurira's Okoye mirrors Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther stance mounted atop speeding cars as they race in pursuit of their shared enemy, each vehicle being driven by their women compatriots: Lupita Nyong'o's Nakia is barefoot, having lost her shoes when she used them as weapons in an earlier grappling match, and Letitia Wright's Shuri, who commandeers the Panther's vehicular escort remotely using technology she has perfected. Incredible action ensues!
Power manifests not just in ability to fight with equal skillfulness, but also through other skills. During an interlude in Busan, Nakia slides seamlessly into Korean, with Boseman's T'Challa and Okoye clearly following along, demonstrating that everyone in Wakanda is at minimum trilingual. Later, Martin Freeman's Agent Ross obnoxiously inquires of T'Challa, "Does she speak English?", referring to the standing-right-there Okoye. Rather than answering for her T'Challa lets Okoye intervene on her own behalf, responding assertively in the affirmative by clarifying in the third person and in English, "When she wants to."
- DANAI GURIRA ALL DAY EVERY DAY
This brings me to the fact that DANAI GURIRA IS MY FAVORITE. I have loved her since my days watching "The Walking Dead," in which she is the katana-wielding stoic queen of badassery Michonne.
She is no less show-stopping in "Black Panther" as she wields a spear imbued with the power and technology of Wakanda's precious natural resource, vibranium. In one of my favorite fight sequences, she is a vision of lethal beauty as she relentlessly pursues her adversary, leaping from a balcony to the floor below her, the train of her vivid red dress flowing like flame behind her. She is glorious power.
I am so thrilled to see Gurira in an excellent role as General Okoye, the head of King T'Challa's royal guard. She imbues fearsome strength and skillfulness with compelling affect, as Okoye is torn between her dedication to her duties as a defender of the Wakandan king and, for example, her love for her partner, Daniel Kaluuya's W'Kabi. She weaves warmth and humor into what could be a two-dimensional character in less competent hands.
- It is inspiring, and it is needed.
The desperate need for this and other movies like it is written on the faces of Black children watching "Black Panther" and in the enthusiasm of fans that preceded its release. As a white person and for my white readers, it might not be possible to fully appreciate how deeply uplifting and corrective this movie is for our Black neighbors.
Angela Bassett, who plays Ramonda with gravitas, strength, and dignity, expands on the history behind and necessity for films like "Black Panther":
- It is thought-provoking, and it is correct.
Warning: Spoilers ahoy!
The main threat to Wakanda arrives in the form of T'Challa's long-lost cousin Erik. The parallel lives of T'Challa and Erik, later known by his villainous moniker "Killmonger," assert an important truth: when you raise children in an environment that uplifts them, in a healthy environment with resources and support, in a joyful environment that celebrates them and their heritage, they are capable of greatness--even of being a king.
By comparison, when you raise children not only in a toxic environment in which they are "over-policed and incarcerated," as Sterling K. Brown's N'Jobu asserts, but also in a society that fears and reviles them, in communities that are under-supported in combatting poverty, crime, and illness and in which schools are under-funded, where as citizens they are preyed on by exploitive banks, kept in housing that is literally toxic as a result of generations of redlining, and kept from jobs due to internalized racism, where connection to their heritage was violently denied them because of this nation's participation in slavery, and their culture is either stigmatized or appropriated and profited from by an at best fickle, blissfully ignorant, and indifferent dominant culture, is it any wonder that potential greatness contorts into desperation and rage? Is it any wonder that there might be a wish to inflict that desperate rage on the world in order to upend the status quo of oppression?
Inflicted with a grievous but potentially recoverable wound, Erik chooses to die, asking of T'Challa, "Bury me in the ocean with my ancestors who jumped from the ships because they knew death is better than bondage." He gutwrenchingly summarizes the impossible choices we have reserved for many citizens in communities of color. There is no other way to interpret Erik's transformation into Killmonger as anything other than the direct byproduct of the havoc America's racist history and present has wrought on Black communities.
But this brings me to an important thing about "Black Panther": it isn't first and foremost about or for white people. It is substantive, exhilarating, beautiful, and SO MUCH FUN for anyone lucky enough to see it, but it's not primarily for white people. This is why it, like so many incredibly exciting movies recently reaching a broader audience while firmly centering people of color, it is so happily welcome.
The central cause of the conflict between T'Challa and Erik is Wakanda's inaction in the face of the suffering of people of African heritage in many parts of the world. Wakanda has immense resources and knowledge to offer, but remains in self-imposed isolation to protect itself from possible degradation of its arguably near-utopian way of life and attempts to pilfer its riches.
As the film comes to a close, King T'Challa speaks to an audience at the United Nations. Moved by the conflict with his cousin, T'Challa announces that Wakanda will end its policy of isolation and will now share its resources with the world. A UN delegate attempts to smugly dismiss the offer, asking, "What does a nation of farmers have to offer the world?" The film closes on T'Challa's confident and knowing smile, because he knows what we now know.
Needless to say, I gave "Black Panther" a 5. Go see it!!
{Heart}
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