‘Black Panther’: Glorious diversity can’t mask the colourless Marvel formula
I saw Black Panther in a room full of white people, with one black mother and son sitting at the very back. All I could think when the film started was of that child’s response to witnessing the exceptional representation this film offers for a criminally underrepresented ethnic group who rarely feature in significant roles in movies this expensive (recent Star Wars and Fast & Furious efforts have begun to change things — and don’t forget Hancock from 2008). I’m certain that kid loved Black Panther, as it’s a film aimed at kids his age; I only wish it was as original, prescient and true to the courage of its convictions as the older, harder-to-please members of its incredibly broad audience deserve. For what it is — a movie about a man who dresses in a cat costume that was probably never going to fix ‘post racial America’ — it does a decent job, but it can’t change the fact that it’s a Marvel movie. And Marvel movies are, by default, incredibly daft and dull.
Marvel output is to the best blockbusters (so, Blade Runner 2049 and Logan and stuff) what network television is to HBO. These movies, of which Panther is particularly guilty of making zero effort, hand us pre-established characters without any attempt to tell us why we should root for one soulless but physically-fit man over another, then offer a narrative suspiciously close to five previous ones. Now don’t get me wrong, there was a time in my life when I loved network television. And then I turned 17 and discovered True Detective and The Leftovers and realised that maybe Person of Interest wasn’t the most compelling drama there was. Marvel can keep this charade of #BreakingNewGround going for a few more years — here we have the impressively racially-diverse movie, then we’ll have a movie about a female superhero, then a gay superhero — but they’ll have to eventually start making movies that feel a little more sophisticated and a little less same-y. Because for all everyone’s saying, if you stuffed Black Panther with white Australians instead of black actors and dialled the terrible comedy up 30%, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between this and the last 5 MCU releases. The visual palette of this film, in spite of DOP Rachel Morrison — nominated for an Oscar right now for Mudbound — is hideous; they can make a man fly, but they can’t stick a realistic blue sky behind Forrest Whitaker while he’s performing a waterfall ritual.
It doesn’t help that the African nation of Wakanda, otherwise terrifically-realised by the art department, was digitally supplanted to the Atlanta soundstage where they shoot all these movies. A young boy two rows behind me yelled “Ugh FAKE” at one crucial moment of the film, and I almost clapped in agreement. If Logan can bring genuine realism to the comic-book canon (and if we’re honest, The Dark Knight did this in 2008), why in god’s name (answer: Disney be cheap) can’t Marvel improve their stylistic closet? Especially when the visual elements of Wakandan culture are so essential to the spirit of Black Panther, which draws links between modern black culture in America (see the Kendrick Lamar-produced soundtrack) and continental African heritage that most black children haven’t even considered.
In this sense, Black Panther is certainly an important work; many of us forget that Marvel movies and Star Wars movies are the only live=action cinema the majority of western 8-to-14 year olds see, and are an invaluable medium by which to communicate culture messages. Black Panther is one of Marvel’s more woke endeavours — there’s some stuff about refugees and whatnot — but it’s all in the name of the on-brand Disney message of “the more people who like Disney, the more shit we can sell”. Nobody will be alienated by Black Panther’s message that wasn’t already put off by a movie full of strong black characters, so ultimately it’s barely radical. Breitbart said the film’s villain was Black Lives Matter, and it’s easy to see how they came to that conclusion: Michael B. Jordan’s antagonist Kilmonger is ostracised for being “too angry” at the white people who fucked his country over. If this was Three Billboards, he’d be lauded for setting stuff on fire; here, he’s a pest to the community. The Black Panther character, played by the superbly dignified Chadwick Boseman, is a King who likes peace and is a bit too complacent for my liking — yet his character is politically-compromised enough in this film that it really is absurd to imagine he’ll be fighting a purple alien in Infinity War just 2 months from now (when Panther, a movie that’s arguably all about slave reparations and harsh culture war, will still be showing in some cinemas). Boseman’s thunder is stolen by Jordan, on top form as a villain who’s almost too sympathetic — I saw no major reasons to support Black Panther/King T’Challa in maintaining his rule over this country that should really be declared a democratic republic by now. The cast are uniformly solid despite the mostly terrible script: Lupita Nyong’o in the first proper role I’ve seen her in since 12 Years a Slave, Letitia Wright, an underused Sterling K. Brown. Oscar nominee Daniel Kaluuya is weirdly terrible, but his role seems crudely stapled-on to begin with.
Ryan Coogler ‘directed’ this movie (I’m sceptical that any director has actually set foot in Marvel’s offices since Shane Black fucked up Iron Man 3), and it does have a similar feel to his Creed: Creed was a fine boxing movie, it wasn’t a particularly strong race movie, and I’d rather an Ava duVernay or a Barry Jenkins have sunk their teeth into making The Most Important Movie About Black America That Mass Audiences Will Actually See. Moonlight was the closest I’ve ever felt to understanding the African-American experience in a film, Black Panther feels like a Disneyfied, simplified version of Afrofuturist ideals that’s being aimed as much at me as it is at the one black child in my screening. This movie shouldn’t be aimed at me; for fuck’s sake, I have about 90 hours of Robert Downey Jr. shouting about weapons laws to keep me entertained. I’ll be grand. Another point: Marvel might seem woke af, making their big expensive movie set in Africa, but it was recently leaked that a small lesbian romance was cut from the movie, so they’re still prioritising the social values of the conservative international audiences above really significant small moments of representation, and that sucks.
Speaking of ridiculous white people, Black Panther very cleverly gives dialogue to only 2 of them: Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis. Remember when I praised the fact that Wonder Woman’s token male characters were all really interesting character actors, an inverse of — y’know — sticking Frances McDormand or Laura Linney in your Transformers movie? Well, Black Panther does that for white people: Martin Freeman is a delight in this movie, being treated with no respect by one of the Wakadan hill people (rightly so) and looking terrified when spears are jabbed in his face. His character is made deeply uncomfortable when he lands in this isolated all-black country, but he learns quickly to roll with it. That’s how I wanted to feel watching Black Panther — like I was being exposed to cultural rituals I know nothing about— but what I got was just another Marvel movie full of mumbo-jumbo magic orbs that white people, black people and everyone yet to be included in a Marvel movie will all enjoy just enough to come back for the next one.
