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Movie review: 'Black Panther' brings the usual African stereotypes to a full stop

Marvel Studios

Movie review: 'Black Panther' brings the usual African stereotypes to a full stop

Hollywood rarely has anything interesting to say about Africa. It has always been a blank canvas upon which the colonial dreams of white directors are exercised — and exorcised.

In the Hollywood imagination, Africa is the ultimate flyover continent, a place where planes and boats occasionally land to take prehistoric cargo back to civilization — whether in the hold of slave ships or in barges big enough to transport King Kong.

'Black Panther'

Starring: Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o, Michael B. Jordan, Angela Bassett.

Rating: PG-13 for prolonged sequences of action violence, and a brief rude gesture.


Beautiful shots of savanna and rainforests aside, Africa isn’t portrayed as a place where wonder or aspiration goes beyond surviving the next civil war or Ebola outbreak.

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Last month, when President Donald Trump said that the countries that collectively constitute the continent of Africa were excrement, he was shoveling contempt on top of a longstanding cultural bias shared by many Americans.

Renowned costume designer Ruth Carter, who has designed for films including Selma, The Butler, Roots, Black Panther and many more, introduces a new retrospective fashion exhibition,
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With “Black Panther,” director Ryan Coogler’s expansive, open-hearted voyage into the world of Marvel/Disney big-budget superhero franchises, the stereotyping of Africa has finally come to a full stop.

The continent that gave birth to humanity won’t look the same on the big screen ever again thanks to the introduction of Wakanda, the fictional home of the most technologically advanced people on the planet.

“Black Panther” picks up shortly after the events of “Captain America: Civil War,” in which two factions of the Avengers squared off over the question of civil liberties for super-humans.

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T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) returns home to Wakanda to be crowned king after the assassination of his father, T’Chaka. Although awed by the responsibility that comes with ruling a technological wonderland that has galloped a century ahead of the West, T’Challa is unsure about whether Wakanda is on the right path.

As the movie’s opening creation myth sequence makes clear, a major part of his country’s exceptionalism is due to the fortuitous arrival of an asteroid made of vibranium that smashed into the area of East Africa eventually settled by the five tribes that founded Wakanda.

Vibranium, a powerful energy absorbing metal, gave Wakanda a crucial edge in technological development as the rest of the continent — and humanity — lagged.

For thousands of years, Wakanda’s tribes coalesced under a long succession of leaders who assumed the Black Panther mantle and kept their land safe from invaders and colonizers. They hid their nation from envious eyes by disguising it as a land of tradition-bound shepherds and goat-herders — a move that literally gave Wakanda a “secret identity.”

Chadwick Boseman in a scene from
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Prompted by Wakandan spy and former lover Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), T’Challa begins to wonder whether the ancient tradition of hiding Wakanda’s technological superiority instead of sharing it with the world is morally tenable, especially on a continent beset by so many problems rooted in underdevelopment and corrupt post-colonial leadership.

Twenty minutes into “Black Panther” the audience is acutely aware that what is on the screen is not typical Marvel/Disney movie fare. The film is unburdened by the weight of what is increasingly a cliched superhero origin story featuring a wise-cracking protagonist who relies on cunning and individuality to save the day and chart his destiny in the world.

While T’Challa has enhanced speed, agility and strength because of a rare plant cultivated by royal shamans, it is also true that every generation of Black Panthers is a collective enterprise requiring cooperation from a community of tribal stakeholders that goes far beyond the royal family.

Black Panthers ascend to the royal throne only after making themselves available to any challenge by representatives of the nation’s primary tribes. In doing so, Black Panthers must be temporarily stripped of their powers so that it is a fair battle. Wakanda may be technologically advanced, but it is not a democracy, so succession to the throne can be brutal, barbaric and bloody.

M’Baku (Winston Duke), the imposing and powerful leader of the tradition-bound mountain tribe, challenges T’Challa’s claim to the throne in a dramatic battle that sets the stage for an important plot development.

As the movie deftly illustrates when Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) arrives on the scene to also challenge T’Challa’s claim to Wakanda’s throne, there’s a thin line between enlightened monarchy and nationalistic despotism.

Killmonger’s backstory is one of the best things about “Black Panther” because it does a rare thing — it renders a Marvel villain sympathetic, complex and memorable. Mr. Jordan embodies both charisma and menace in every scene like some loud-talking American vacationing in the Motherland.

While Killmonger is an unapologetic murderer and highly trained American Special-Ops soldier-turned-mercenary, his arguments against Wakanda’s isolationism ring true even though his goal of supplying advanced weapons to “revolutionary” movements around the world would result in mass genocide.

Fortunately, “Black Panther” isn’t just about a bunch of guys challenging each other to Wakanda’s throne. It is also the story of the powerful women who make an orderly Wakanda possible.

General Okoye (Danai Guirira) is the leader of the fierce Dora Milaje, an elite squad of female warriors charged with protecting the Black Panther and the royal family.

Shuri (Letitia Wright) is T’Challa’s giddy young sister and the genius-level designer of many of Wakanda’s weapons and innovations. She is impatient with her nation’s traditions but observes them as long as they don’t interfere with her research.

Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) is T’Challa’s mother and the grieving widow who lost a husband to assassination and could very well lose her son in the battle for the throne.

The most powerful woman involved with “Black Panther” is the one who worked behind the scenes. Cinematographer Rachel Morrison managed to make every frame of the movie pop with the joy of discovery. Because of her sense of design, millions of moviegoers will see Africa through fresh eyes. The way she frames Wakanda from ordinary marketplaces to elevated bullet trains and skyscrapers constitute first-class world-building.

Ms. Morrison and Mr. Coogler successfully resisted the Marvel/Disney temptation of imposing an incoherent action sequence on the third act by making sure that every battle scene made both visual and narrative sense. Consequently, there is more of an emphasis on drama than superpower hijinks throughout the film.

Even so, the movie isn’t perfect. Tradition aside, it seems strange that leadership of the most technologically advanced country on Earth would be determined by a brutal fight on a waterfall. It is an absurd plot hole in an otherwise outstanding narrative that dares to ask thoughtful questions about whether a society blessed with an overabundance of technological and natural resources can afford to look the other way while the rest of the world suffers.

There are two post-credit sequences, so stay seated until the lights come on.

Tony Norman: tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631.

First Published: February 15, 2018, 5:00 a.m.
Updated: February 15, 2018, 2:11 p.m.

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Chadwick Boseman and Daniel Kaluuya in "Black Panther."  (Marvel Studios )
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