Black Panther is a good film, decent storyline, characters, action and humour. It’s great that a large company like Marvel should give a black director (Ryan Coogler) a chance. It’s good to see a majority black cast, black people in lead roles, and as role models. I had minor complaints about the CGI effects on Wakanda that looked blurred, some of the slightly classical sounding incidental music and the fight scene at the end which seemed an anti-climax, the film is by no means perfect or a classic, but it is a good film. The film has a special poignancy at a time when certain world leaders have a stance that undermines respect for black people, and there are far right movements getting more vocal across the world, making the past raise its ugly head again, aiming hatred at refugees, and anything that represents “the other” – people different from themselves in the majority. The film shines a positive light on black people, and it feels good to stand in that light for a while.
What has surprised me, following the film, is that people are seeing it as some kind of pivotal moment for black people. How can the representation of something so far removed from reality be a true triumph, unless we glory in what is not real, at the expense of what is real? Do we need to stop dreaming and “wakeupyall”? Wake up ya’ll!
How far removed is Wakanda, a stable, healthy, prosperous technically advanced nation shielding its vast wealth from the rest of the world; from the reality African countries face – unstable, disease stricken, poor, technically backward, wealth and resources being stripped away, corruption and that list could go on. How do we challenge the way things are by creating fantasies? Or is this film perhaps reflective of society’s escapist tendency, we love to indulge in what is not real, loading up the catharsis, so in effect we are cheated, we don’t get what we really need, but only what we think we want, so rather than lasting change only indulgence in temporary pleasure.
Are we afraid to face the truth so fantasy becomes attractive?
Black Panther, great film that it is, is just a step in the right direction. But nothing can overcome or trivialize the real work and the cold reality of the situation we as black people find ourselves in. This situation can’t be fixed with dreams and fantasies, but only with faith, confrontation, justice, commitment and sacrifice.