Black Panther Reflection Ryan Coogler

Although this wasn’t the first time I went out to watch a superhero flick, the Ryan Coogler directed hit “Black Panther” was definitely the movie I had been waiting for and wasn’t going to miss it. I had already watched this movie before on the its release day but had the opportunity to watch it again hosted at the university. It was a little different this time to watch with an disproportionate order of people of different race which brings me to the point of why I have been waiting for this movie for so long.

Black Panther wasn’t just an average movie with action sequences and loud nerve crackling music, but rather a movie which signified far more than what seemed to be superficial and dived quickly in depth into Afro-Futurism, cultural colonization and gender equality. The plot significance that made me most relatable to the course content we saw in class was depicted in the movie as Afro-Futurism with intersectionality. Intersectionality in a Wikipedia definition is described as an analytic framework that attempts to identify how interlocking systems of power impact those who are most marginalized in society. This was something that was highly related to Black Panther as the film was an emblem to preserving black patriotism and culture which seems to be lacking in a world of colonization.

The roles played by T’challa as the king of Wakanda challenges you to think about the black culture/traditions, its identities and nuisances in a rational world. The small city of Wakanda and its technological advancements and capabilities with still the traces of ancestral traditions traverses us through the theme of Afro-Futurism that instead of avoiding like we do in our irrational world, we should embrace the intersectionality of different gender/sexual orientations. A place where women are given the highest order and identity of strength and power as the soldiers and protectors of the Wakanda people. It highly depicts how gender associated roles, duties, stereotypes and expectations don’t exist in Wakanda and where women are allowed to be strong and beautiful without any permission. This directly also relates to what I learnt in the class, the statistics and changes that were observed in the recent decades where families are equally run by women as equally as men nowadays, where women not only take care of the family and house but also work fulltime and have equal wages and power to take decisions be it as a minister or president in a government, as chief executive in technological companies or in social structures as the highest and most respected voice. I was also able to connect several parts of the movie with the concept of social structures.

As in black panther where the there are social structures laid down for ages and are to followed by everyone in which for example to become a king you have to fight all the contenders who are also given an equal opportunity to have an earned right on the throne thanks to a mix of authoritarian and democratic nature of governance. Overall, I felt that this was a movie which showed how exactly our current conditions are in the real world. It showed the ideal way black culture should be treated, accepted and embraced in our mentality. It showed a universe with place of equal importance and respect be in any race, gender or position in a social structure where black people fight, cry, and embrace each other with empathy and compassion.

Works Cited

• “Intersectionality.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Nov. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality
• Owens, Ernest. “A ‘Black Panther’ Reflection through the Lens of a Queer Guy Who Hates Superhero Flicks.” TheGrio, TheGrio, 18 Feb. 2018
• thegrio.com/2018/02/16/black-panther-queer-reflection/

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