‘Black Panther’ movie has arrived in the movie theaters at
last. Let us talk about it, and if there are people who are still concerned
about spoilers – and there probably still are – let them be warned: we will
proceed.
Where do we stand with ‘Black Panther’? In Africa, and many
people are already discussing the Afrocentrism, the Afrofuturism, and the
similar aspects of the movie, and how they are making the ‘Black Panther’ film
great. A dissonance is the voice of those critics who’re unhappy that the film was
never filmed in Africa proper, but that is understandable – real life imposes
its’ own restrictions even on the movie magics, and-
And here is the crux about the African issue: when the
Europeans began to conquer Africa and, well, enslave its people, one of the
other, less advertised, effects of this action was the eventual erosion of the
initial ethnical African cultures and their subsequent replacements with the
European ones, especially Protestant – just read the novels of, say, Chinua
Achebe, to see how it went down in real life. Thus, whatever else can, or
should be, said about the relations between Europeans, Africans,
Anglo-Americans and Afro-Americans, the fact was that the African cultures were
affected much more so than their European/USA Protestant counterparts, period,
and this includes the current ‘Black Panther’ film – yes, it involves much more
people of color as part of its cast (and crew?), but it is still an American
movie, not an African one; its’ approach is a part of the ‘restitution’, of a
karmic debt, of sorts, that USA still feels towards Africa and its’ native
people – and that issue is a very thorny one back in the American society. Some
people still claim that the pilgrims and the other European pioneers were the
ones who made America great in the first place, and everyone else – i.e.,
P.O.Cs – are secondary…at best. And there others who claim everything in the
previous statement…in reverse. Both groups – as well as others – have enough
members who are very adroit at grabbing (and/or possessing) firearms, then
gunning down everyone else who disagrees with them…, and that is not an exclusively American problem,
but…
But we are talking about the ‘Black Panther’ movie
specifically. It is an American movie, done about a fictional African country,
(back in 2016, one of Wakanda’s neighbouring countries was Canaan, which isn’t
even in Africa, more like in Middle East, just look over your Old Testament
geography, here). As such, anything Africa-related to it, isn’t ‘genuine’
African, more like yet another attempt of USA to ‘restitute’ its’ historical
(etc.) debt to ‘the Black Continent’, and all that follows. Thus, claiming that
the ‘Black Panther’ has Afrocentrism, or Afrofuturism, or anything Afro-related
is…posery, and isn’t very honest; this isn’t exactly Africa-anything, more like
good old Uncle Sam congratulating himself on his virtues…as if the Donald doing
exactly that in the presidential seat wasn’t enough of that.
Beyond the African (and/or Africa-related) elements, what
else is there? …A typical Marvel movie, that’s what – high-quality CGI,
high-quality acting, high-quality plot…but the same as usual: all heroes
prevail, all villains die, and Disney’s ‘Lion King’ looming in the shadows. As if
the CIA agent Bilbo Baggins was not bad enough. …Okay, agent Ross – he’s the
replacement of Coulson, now that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been taken out of the
equation again, and agent Coulson was probably still in the future at that
point of time in MCU, (re: AoS S5).
AoS here is mentioned because of villains. Klaue is dead
now, the end. This version of MCU Man-Ape got PC-edited the most, and has been
downplayed because of racial stereotypes which is just what the world doesn’t
need more of, especially in this day and age. And Killmonger is dead, as he’d
been repeatedly in the comics, (for example in 2016), which is a rule of thumb
of villains in MCU; the only notable exception, (Thanos doesn’t count – he
stayed largely behind the scenes until the upcoming ‘Infinity War’ movies, and
Red Skull is down for the count for all purposes too), is Loki.
Let us take an aside for ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ as well. It was a
reset of Thor’s corner of MCU, as everyone that we have met in the first two
‘Thor’ movies are gone; either they are dead, or are simply gone, as Jane Foster
and Sif are. Aside from Thor and Loki, there’s no one left, everyone else –
like the Valkyrie – are brand new. This makes Loki’s standing in Thor’s life
somewhat unusual: he is a blackguard, but a predictable one. Thor knows by now
how far he can trust his brother, and when he cannot, and he treats Loki
accordingly. Thus, the only variable left in the Loki-Thor relationship,
(sibling relationship, you perverts!) is what will Loki do about it, especially
now that Thanos has come for the Infinity Stones personally, and as we know, he
has bossed Loki once, and he can do it again. Where does it leave the Trickster
God?
…He can stand with Thanos and fall with him, however
eventually. Or he can stand with the Avengers and get a share of their triumph
and be redeemed, at least in part, (just as how Bucky Barnes seems to be going
– the entire White Wolf cameo at the credits’ end, remember?). Or he can decide
to screw all of this and just escape and go and live his own life, be his own
person at last. He can do anything; he just has to survive the Infinity War…and
to admit, especially to himself, that now and here, (and maybe forever), Thor
is the bigger, better man, even if Loki does not want to be a hero. Asgard is
gone, (thanks to Hela and Surtr), but its’ people remain, and they are
following Thor, not Loki. Does Loki care about that? Does Loki care about
anyone else other than himself? The first ‘Thor’ movie showed that he does not,
but he has convinced himself of it being otherwise, so now he has to decide if he
abandons the lie or makes it into a truth? Loki will not be king in the Marvel
movies, most likely, but it does not mean that he has to be a villain either.
…And this brings us to Killmonger and the rest of Marvel’s
villains; the only thing that is really separating Killmonger from the rest of
them, (aside from Loki), is that Killmonger had actually had a chance to repent
and redeem himself…which he discarded, so the end result is all the same. One
dead villain. Back in the 90s, the Herc (H: TLJ) and Xena (X: WP) TV series had
this sort of thing: on occasion the titular characters would battle someone who
was less outright evil and more misguided or misdirected or something. Then
they would be offered, usually in the last part of the episode, to stop and think
about their actions, to repent and turn around. If they didn’t…Hercules and
Xena would still kill them, but at least they were offered a chance to stop
being villains and maybe even become good guys, (at least to a point). MCU…does
not do that. The bad people do not get a chance to repent, (Loki just was not
cornered and gunned down yet)…only in AoS, they did.
In the second part of S2 it seemed quite likely, that Ward
and Kara will redeem themselves with the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. and either rejoin
them or leave the show via T.A.H.I.T.I. Instead, canon happened and they both
died. AoS has played this out very badly; even now there are people who hate
Ward, (and to a lesser extent Kara), as well those who hate May, (and to a
lesser extent Coulson), and Hunter & Morse are not very popular too.
(Hunter’s return in AoS S5 so far was very perfunctory, and his interview on
the Marvel News website – ditto). This on top of both real life issues with AoS
& MCU, and all the other fan conflicts, (regarding Hydra, as well as Cap
vs. Tony CA: CW conflict)… AoS has suffered and has never recovered, not even
now, in S5, but we are talking about the ‘Black Panther’ movie now, and Eric
Killmonger.
…A lot of people are talking about how Killmonger has broken
the villain mould. He has not. His final battle with T’Challa the titular Black
Panther was two men dressed in almost identical clothes with almost identical
weapons – if this wasn’t a ‘dark mirror’, then what is?
…But wait! Killmonger was confronting T’Challa in regards to
how people of color are being treated outside Wakanda! How – American of him.
Oh wait, he actually grew up in the West and is socially aware! …Remind us, why
is he the villain, again?
...In real life, there'd been plenty of times when USA has tried to intervene in African countries directly as
well as via UN. None of those attempts succeeded. One of them was Liberia, a
real-life African country that was created by Anglo-Americans for the freed
ex-slaves – they were to go back to their homeland and build their own country
there. It’s unknown if it is was supposed to be a utopia, but initially it was
anything but democratic: the former Afro-Americans set themselves up as the new
country’s elite, and the Native Africans as their
serfs/slaves/servants/whatever. Native Africans and Afro-Americans are two very
different people, (people such as Jules Verne have recognized it way back in
the past), so to claim that an American/Afro-American movie is African-anything
is wrong.
Okay, it is actually yet another American/Afro-American perception
of what an African utopia is supposed to be - that's the 'African' part here, probably. In reality Wakanda would probably
be not very different from Liberia or any other country; yes, it had a wall to
keep everyone else out…let us ask the Donald and his cabinet as well as his
critics just how effective this sort of a contraption is. It’s about as
effective as the American attempts to build an interracial utopia within itself
since the 1970s – it has failed, odds are that it will continue to fail here
and now, and if in 2020 Oprah will decide to run for the presidency of the US
the resulting fall-out will make the fall-out from Clinton’s defeat look mild
because the interracial relations of USA both within and without are far from
idyllic or utopic. ‘Black Panther’ is yet another attempt to do something about
it, this time utilizing MCU’s excellent, (but apparently limited), movies. The
result – a standard USA MCU movie, (i.e. very excellent, much better than DCEU’s
counterparts), about an Afrofuturistic, (or whatever the right term is), utopia
that got everyone, (or at least 'the right people') in the US singing accolades about it so much that since the
beginning of this week ‘Black Panther’ became a ‘trigger-happy’, or ‘hot
trigger’, or whatever: people are already beginning to be pissed-off by the
monolith of praise and are doing something about it without even judging the
movie for themselves… This is not good or conductive; whatever people in
Disney, MCU and beyond wanted to achieve via this film, it just might backfire instead…
This is it for now; see you all soon!
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