Staring At The World Through The Rear View
A short analysis of Marvel’s recent breakthrough blockbuster hit, Black Panther
It seems like the subscribers over on Reddit’s r/boxoffice can talk about nothing else. Marvel’s Black Panther has repeatedly exceeded expectations while on its warpath towards the top of nearly every box office chart that exists. (The movie now has its claws firmly in the opening day, weekend, 3-day weekend, pre-sale record books, and with its projected legs, many more to come) I did my part in boosting those opening weekend numbers by watching a matinee showing of Black Panther at the Arclight Hollywood last Friday, and was thoroughly impressed. The movie was an entertaining blast from start to finish, and it felt great to be part of the collective happy buzz while leaving the theater/be inspired by the hard work an entire culture put forth to finally set the record straight; it was even light out when I got into my car.
There were several standout parts of the movie for me, most notably the animated text/credits that blended African aesthetic with Roman letters, and the special care Shuri takes when she garlands the necklace of the Black Panther back on her brother at their nation’s most fragile moment. Chilly stuff. But to me, the most striking and the most important detail of the movie was the theme of African versus Black pride, represented by the two main characters, T’Challa and Killmonger.
In times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers — T’Challa, the Black Panther and King of Wakanda
As a person of color myself, albeit Yellow, the matter of feeling pride in one’s own native culture whilst living in another lovely one is a difficulty I’ve had to face since the day I was born. And because of this circumstance, I have an outsider’s perspective while watching this undeniably racially-charged movie. To me, I saw the battle for dominance in Wakanda between T’Challa and Killmonger as a message from the filmmakers and producers that African culture supersedes and is greater than Black culture. And that Black Panther represents the first in what would be many steps to bring back to prominence African culture, arguably the richest, and certainly the oldest, culture known to man.
I define Black culture as the culture that developed in the United States as a result of and backlash to the 1500’s European slave trade. Mired by centuries of extreme negative influence, stories of lynchings, hate crimes, and general inhumane acts are dotted all across the timeline of African-American history in the United States. As a result, the true beauty and culture of Africa has long been forgotten here in the US, forced to take a backseat to the aggressive base of Black culture. And this was not without reason, indeed this trend towards hostility was necessary in order to properly respond to the hate and disrespect given to people of color by the European colonialists.
While T’Challa wears cloth sown with millennia’s old tradition, Killmonger wears brands representing aggression. While Chadwick Boseman proudly speaks with a mild-mannered but sometimes hard-to-understand generic African accent of English, Killmonger’s African-American accent sounds almost foreign in the movie and is ostracized. Although Killmonger is clearly the more physically fit between the two, he is defeated by T’Challa in the end because T’Challa is fighting with the strength of a nation, and is fueled by duty and pride instead of hatred and revenge. He is the one with the stronger sense of place, and contentedness in a history that no one man can ever take down. It seemed like the happy ending was always going to happen. You can see below in this great still from the movie that T’Challla symbolically holds a shield, and is postured defensively as the incumbent champion, using the defender’s advantage, while Killmonger wields two naked weapons and is postured forward as the aggressor, the challenger.
Yay, another white boy to fix. -Shuri, Royal Princess of Wakanda
Although the overall message of African pride was strong and positive, there were select points where the message was muddled by unneeded stabs at white guilt. Many of these instances could be avoided with the overarching moral of “turn the other cheek”. In fact, I think the best message Black Panther can give to the those that identify with it, whatever color they may be, is: “We’re OK with what we have, in fact, we love it and we wouldn’t trade it for anything else.” In other words having the (great) strength to ignore, and not needing to respond to, the poking and prodding of the misinformed and stubborn.
The title of this article comes from a Tupac song called “Staring Through My Rear View”. I think it perfectly represents what the place post-modern African culture has on the world stage. Often I read stories on the internet such as how first-world organizations like the UN need to provide water for villages in Africa where their women need to walk 5 miles both ways to get one pail of water from a clean well. From our perspective of faucets and complex aqueduct systems, merely walking to fetch water may seem primitive, but what are we missing? The closeness a 5 mile walk everyday with your neighbor can bring. (While we live in a world where neighbors are reluctant to even greet each other) The feeling of bare earth beneath our feet and free air in our lungs. A destination in mind. (No nails or needles or broken glass to worry about) And who is to say what is better? The sheer happiness I’ve seen on the smiles of some African children still surprises me. Culturally, the United States is fed that people in Africa are unhappy, they are unlucky people who just wish to be saved, but perhaps the opposite is true. They are just staring at the rest of the world through the rear view.
