Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - The Politics of Black Panther

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Feb. 15, 2018 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

38:22

The Politics of Black Panther

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	It should be quite evident from the narrative driven by far-left political activists that there is no escaping the politicization of this film.
	So we should embrace it too.
	Given the high public profile of diversity initiatives, the fact that Black Panther is a black directed film with a majority black cast set in Africa with a budget of $200 million means that even if the film itself wasn't very good, there is enough cultural momentum to make up for the shortfall.
	What it might lack in quality, it will inevitably make up for with impetus.
	If you think Black Panther is not a politically or racially charged film, you are wrong.
	Black Panther was conceived, constructed, and presented to promote black identity politics in its most idealized form.
	Marvel set the social media embargo date for Black Panther 18 days before release, and the review embargo date at 10 days before release, indicating that the studio believes that the film will be a success with both professional critics and audience members on social media.
	And they weren't wrong, as even before its release, Black Panther was the most tweeted movie of 2018, with over 5 million tweets and the highest IMAX pre-sales of any Marvel movie, surpassing Deadpool at over $170 million.
	Naturally, Marvel are expecting a block-busting opening weekend, but as this analysis was written before the US release, I don't have those figures.
	For some reason, Black Panther opened in the UK on the 13th of February 2018, three days earlier than the US release, so I've actually seen the film.
	Once the embargo date was hit, the reviews came pouring in, and not only were they predictably vacuous, but they were predictably political.
	The New York Times review characterises the film as Afro-futurism and managed to name-drop Nelson Mandela, while The Washington Post characterized it as a generic action flick, but did manage to include the term legacy of colonialism.
	NME gave Black Panther an absolutely glowing review, praising the director and cast of the heavens and calling it the best Marvel movie yet.
	Not one negative word in the entire review, and they gave it, for some reason, a solid 4 out of 5 stars.
	The film left one extremely progressive journalist from the LA Times in tears by the end, because of all the wonderful representation contained within.
	And the review from the LA Times was not so much a review of the film, but the context surrounding the film, using the word black 24 times in the review itself, and ending with a quote from the Dean of Social Sciences at UCLA.
	The creation of Black Panther represents the turn from seeing black people as victims to them having agency.
	And who has more agency than a superhero?
	Well yeah, but who just sees black people as victims?
	But the award for most hysterical review goes to Variety Magazine, who really went all in by including Trump's shithole comments, White People Are Colonizers, Jim Crow, Birth of a Nation, and Black Exploitation.
	Black Panther graced the cover of Time magazine, who seem to have forgotten that they are reviewing a movie at all, entitling their article, The Revolutionary Power of Black Panther.
	The first three paragraphs aren't even talking about the movie, but the author of the piece themselves, explaining how they're black and you're not.
	By the fourth paragraph, the author actually mentions the movie, and this is what he says.
	This is one of the many reasons that Black Panther is significant.
	What seems like just another entry in an endless parade of superhero movies is actually something much bigger.
	It hasn't even hit theatres yet, and its cultural footprint is already enormous.
	Director Ryan Kugler told Time that Black Panther was a new genre of superhero films that deal with issues of being of African descent, which is apparently going to be its own genre now.
	After the Obama era, perhaps none of this should feel groundbreaking, but it does.
	In the midst of a regressive cultural and political moment, fueled in part by the white nativist movement, the very existence of Black Panther feels like resistance.
	Its themes challenge institutional bias.
	Its characters take unsubtle digs at oppressors.
	And its narrative includes prismatic perspectives on black life and tradition.
	The fact that Black Panther is excellent only help.
	Oh God, will it ever stop?
	And the answer is no.
	We haven't even got to the history of black power movements in Times Review of a superhero movie and how Black Panther is a more important black movie than Malcolm X. After the review embargo was lifted, Black Panther had accrued such cultural capital that it had a flawless 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes for critics, which should raise some questions in and of itself.
	When the left-wing lovies are all marching in lockstep regarding a superhero film that should ostensibly be for children, and pointing out in the same article that the film touches on deeper subjects regarding race and oppression, it is undeniable that this film is political first and entertainment second.
	Which is why the political activists masquerading as journalists at far-left clickbait sites like Mashable get their multicultural rainbow panties in a bunch when one critic leaves a quote-unquote bad review.
	Why was the review bad?
	Well, it wasn't.
	It just wasn't perfect.
	Because the reviewer felt that there could have been more action scenes since it was supposed to be a superhero movie and all.
	After 130 reviews were in, 127 were rated as fresh, with only three rated as rotten.
	So naturally a witch hunt had to be conducted by the far-left inquisitors of the journalistic class to figure out who had stepped out of line.
	It turns out that one of the not perfect reviews came from Ireland and the other two from Australia.
	There are doubtless agents of the multi-culti Inquisition flying out there now to apply the thumbscrews of tolerance as we speak.
	After reading dozens of reviews, I found that there was one common thread that united them all.
	There was one unifying aspect of Black Panther that they could ALL get behind.
	This wasn't just going to be a movie with a lot of black people in it, there was a This was going to be a movie all about black people.
	And naturally, that brung the black ethno-nationalists out of the woodwork to project their hot takes onto it.
	Aquabi y'all, it's me guys Akorzo, Secretary General of the African People's Socialist Party.
	This movie speaks to all African people, even those knuckleheads that don't call themselves African people.
	Like those Blatinos, Moors, Hebrew Israelites, Aboriginal black people, black people that say that they're native to the Americas, black people that call themselves Afro-Latino, Afro-bred, Afro-French, Afro-Sweden, Afro-American, African-American.
	But y'all all go take your African ass to the Black Panther movie.
	Ain't ya.
	Ain't ya.
	We want to see an Africa that would have been if Europe didn't attack Africa and turn Africa into the pedestal of capitalism, which it is today.
	And I don't want you to think that these are the only pre-release takes from black people, of course.
	There were definitely more sensible perspectives on the matter from folks who just don't hate white people.
	The main problem is proper criticism of the film.
	I think that's going to go by the wayside, because I feel that many, many people, many reporters, many critics, are going to just give this A plus just because it is Black Panther, just because they know that a vast majority of black people are behind this film and they're putting their hopes and dreams in this film.
	So they're going to be like, yo, this is a great film, the amazing best film of the year, in order to kind of, you know, sidestep the possible accusation of being labeled a white supremacist or a racist.
	And I don't think that's fair because we all hate not being treated equally.
	And there's two sides to that coin.
	There's the side where it's a negative, where you're treated negatively, and there's a side where there's a positive, where anything you do is just the best thing ever.
	And both of those, both of those serve a problem.
	And I hope that's not what we're going to be seeing from the reviews coming out in this film.
	But I know that you, the evil white devil Neanderthal cave beast colonizers, are thinking about watching Black Panther.
	Ain't ya.
	And the progressive thing to do is don't because you're white.
	You don't want to be sucking the black joy out of the cinema with your white presence, do you?
	Of course not.
	In fact, if you're white, you shouldn't even review the film, even if that's your job.
	According to these radical, and I noticed very light-skinned fruitcakes, you should probably just shut up about it.
	You should probably do what BuzzFeed do and praise the ancestors for finally seeing black people ruling their black country on their black continent, minding their black business, thriving with their black dollars and black resources.
	Which is so important.
	I'm not even going to point out the spelling mistakes that they made in their haste to promote ethno-nationalism.
	The cast themselves have not been shy about promoting the racial politics of the movie at all.
	It seems that there is not one single interview about the film that doesn't involve talking about the historical oppression of black people.
	This movie had so much intention.
	And when I saw that last night, that I think is what sat with me the most.
	Because I think I had a little bit of faux hype when I first got out of the red carpet.
	I was like, okay, am I ready?
	Am I ready?
	But when I saw the movie, I'm like, oh, okay.
	This is what it means to feel good about who you are and what you look like and celebrating blackness and oneness and family and culture and all of that.
	Do you agree, Michael?
	Because I had that same type of reaction, but man, this is what it feels like.
	There's like, there's nothing that I could have, I couldn't, I couldn't describe that feeling before actually sitting down and watching that film and seeing yourself on screen, not the person who think you don't look like you in power, you know, and you know what, you're on time, the cover of Time magazine.
	First black superhero in his own movie.
	This is history.
	And it was no different with this.
	Like I was really thinking a lot about my own African ancestry.
	Visiting the continent, you know, spending time there.
	I was thinking about the effects of colonization and studying worldwide to understand the effects of it.
	Now, I was thinking about all those things as I was finishing up, as I was finishing up Creed.
	And so when I got the call from Marvel to talk about this project, I realized that it would be a really great project for me to do at the time.
	Like, what are they going for?
	What are the themes they want to hash out?
	And are they connected to something really that they're deeply anchored in?
	And of course, Ryan would be.
	But, you know, when I heard the arguments he was trying to go into around the African and African-American experience and all these different things, I was like, this is no one, no one.
	And then the angle he was taking with women, my character being the general of the Wakandan forces, which isn't exactly the same as in the comic books.
	She's the head of the Dormalage.
	But in our version, she's the head of the Wakandan forces as well.
	And just that element of really empowering the female characters, of course, Lapita's astounding character, Nakia as well, and Shuri, amazing, Letitia Wright.
	You know, there was just such an amazing, and of course, the queen herself in every way, Ms. Angela Bashlet.
	So like, it was just such amazing angles he was taking with the women as well, which is very important to me.
	I don't know, the idea of a Wakanda is very, it just, it fills me with a lot of hope and a lot of passion because the idea of a nation that was, I don't think this is a spoiler, the idea of a nation like Wakanda that was never colonized and then advanced itself to becoming the most technologically advanced nation on the globe.
	And the idea that my job is to protect that and to retain the sovereignty and the security and the longevity of that that my foremothers and forefathers put forth.
	I mean, that just, that got me.
	So that just connected me so deeply to her.
	You can imagine how the two white British actors in the movie about black politics and the black ethnostate felt about all of this.
	Naturally, they had absolutely nothing contrary to say about it whatsoever.
	When you guys see the film, what message did this film portray, you know, say to everybody?
	Being at the premiere the other night was an extraordinary experience because it felt like this film had been made that was potentially causing a bit of a sea change in the way that stories can be told in the future with actors from all types of actors, all colours, all races.
	There is now a landmark movie of this scale, which isn't just going to have a majority white cast, actually, I suppose.
	And that's a big significant change and a very positive way of thinking about movies in the future.
	Martin Freeman, in particular, looked incredibly comfortable discussing modern black politics in regard to the film.
	What's a takeaway for you on this film?
	Well, that certainly.
	But again, the film isn't about that.
	Do you know what I mean?
	The story is not about that.
	And I had a few conversations with Ryan about that.
	Yes, it's great that this is a landmark film for those social and political reasons and possibly historic reasons.
	But unless at the end of the day, you've made a good film, it's meaningless.
	Because he's an artist.
	We are all artists and craftspeople.
	I have no interest in being in the first something if it's a terrible movie.
	So if it's and I do think it's a good movie and I think he and dare I say we have done a good job hopefully To everyone's credit, I had to watch a lot of interviews to prepare for this video, and I came away from the experience with the impression that the cast were all lovely and humble people who had a wonderful time making the movie.
	But of course, while Black Panther might be perfect, it's not quite perfect enough.
	For example, one black activist pointed out that they'd seen a screenshot with two black women together, and it turned out that they weren't lesbians, which is unacceptable.
	But we'll leave the snake to devour its own tail and return to the main point.
	This is a highly politicized movie for both white left-wing activists and large sections of the American black population, so we should engage with it as such.
	Black Panther's story is the reverse of Joseph Campbell's monomyth, told through the lens of The Lion King.
	Instead of a hero accepting a call to adventure, traveling to a strange land and collecting a prize with which to return home and complete the quest, instead the quest comes to the hero and he leaves a strange land to return home to deal with day-to-day political business.
	In the long distant past, a meteorite made of a magical metal called vibranium fell to Earth somewhere in East Africa.
	a tribal warrior named Bashenga found a glowing heart-shaped herb that had been created due to its proximity to the Vibranium meteorite.
	He ate it and became the first Black Panther.
	He used his newly acquired superpowers to conquer five local tribes and formed them into the kingdom of Wakanda.
	After an unknown period of time and through a highly unlikely process of historical development, Wakanda becomes an advanced society exclusively because of the existence of Vibranium.
	The Wakandans use their technology to hide their kingdom from the outside world, using some kind of cloaking field to make it appear as if Wakanda is just another backwards African nation when in fact they are the most advanced nation in the world.
	This is how Wakanda avoided falling to the European powers during the scramble for Africa.
	Why the Wakandans couldn't simply have defeated the colonial powers like the Ethiopians defeated the Italians is never addressed, but I guess nobody likes talking about black-on-black crime.
	Speaking of which, the scene shifts to Oakland, California in 1992.
	For some reason, Njobu, a prince of Wakanda, is on an undercover assignment to a poor black neighbourhood and decides that he wants to share Wakanda's Vibranium technology with the Black Diaspora and with the Diaspora alone, and so employs a South African arms dealer named Gollum to steal a cache of precious Vibranium weapons.
	Tachaka, Njobu's brother and king of Wakanda, learns of this, travels to Oakland, kills Njobu for his treachery, and abandons Njobu's son Eric to become yet another rootless gang member and future statistic in the ongoing war against fathers in the black community.
	Fast forward to 2018.
	Tachaka has died and his son Prince T'Challa, who appears to be another undercover agent, returns to Wakanda to assume the throne.
	He arrives via flying saucer and we are treated to a great view of Wakanda, which is like a futuristic version of Babylon, complete with its own Tower of Babel.
	But before he does this, he rescues his ex-girlfriend and inconsequential plot point Nakia from her own mysterious undercover mission because there appears to be some kind of international ethnic Wakandan conspiracy.
	T'Challa returns to Wakanda to reclaim the throne and finds Umbaku, the leader of one of Wakanda's tribes, and the two engage in ritual combat with spears and shields in front of a waterfall to decide who will be the king, like civilized men.
	T'Challa wins and is crowned king and ingests some of the heart-shaped herb to become Black Panther.
	This involves being buried in the earth and taking a trip to rescue his father from the underworld, well, communing with him at least, and returning with the new powers.
	His mother is the highly respected queen, and his 16-year-old sister is Wakanda's resident genius, who happens to be able to make anything she likes out of Vibranium.
	She's also insufferable, constantly sniping at him and ruining any moments of meaning that T'Challa has, while at the same time attempting to undermine his authority as king.
	I found her unrealistic, unrelatable, and unbearable, so I wasn't surprised to learn that her character was also a far-left open borders advocate, which T'Chala shuts down without any further discussion.
	He points out, correctly, that if they let people in, Wakanda will change, which was a surprisingly woke defense of anti-immigration policies.
	Mishon from The Walking Dead plays leader of a bald-headed troop of warrior women loyal to the throne of Wakanda above all.
	Her character actually has a sense of responsibility and gravitas, so naturally ends up doing the yeoman's work through most of the movie.
	First Whitaker is meant to be Black Panther's answer to Obi-Wan Kenobi, in the form of a tribal shaman whose sole purpose is as the keeper of the heart-shaped herb and to look venerable.
	Meanwhile, Gollum is in South Korea trying to sell his stolen Vibranium weapons, so T'Chala and crew fly over in their flying saucer to intercept him.
	They meet his contact in a casino, a CIA agent called Bilbo Baggins.
	Gollum's cover is blown and after a pointless CGI car chase, Gollum is captured.
	Why the friendly white person role is played by a CIA agent is for the more conspiracy-minded among you to debate, but Bilbo is as weak and ineffectual as one might expect from a character played by Martin Freeman.
	The interrogation of Gollum was actually really annoying, because Gollum was the only person in the room telling the truth.
	The entire reason the Wakandans are trying to capture him is to cover up their own lies about their country.
	Proving that life choices do matter, Njobu's orphan son Eric has grown up to become an elite black ops soldier, with such an amazing kill record that he's adopted his Call of Duty moniker in real life, and is now known as Killmonger.
	Killmonger decides to rescue Gollum only to kill him and then take him back to Wakanda as a trophy.
	Once there, Killmonger reveals he's the son of Njobu, and so is actually an heir to the throne.
	He challenges T'Challa for the throne, which you might think is a bloody stupid thing to do, since T'Challa is a superhero, but T'Challa dutifully takes an antidote to his powers so that he becomes a regular human again.
	Killmonger then proceeds to beat seven shades of shit out of T'Challa and throws him over the waterfall, presumably to never be seen again.
	Killmonger becomes king of Wakanda, ingests some heart-shaped herb, kills Forrest Whittaker, and then whips out a copy of Mein Kampf and proceeds to quote from it at length to explain how he's going to anschluss all the black people of the world into the Wakandan Empire like the proud ethno-imperialist that he is.
	Killmonger is an American and when he enters into the holy places of Wakanda he promptly decides to pull a Yoda and burn the fucking place down.
	T'Challa's family realise that they're in danger and before Eric can implement his final solution on them flee to Mbaku's tribe who not only takes them in but reveals that T'Challa is actually still alive and that he has his body frozen in carbonite because he's on the verge of death.
	Nakia fetches yet another heart-shaped herb which technologically heals T'Challa and T'Challa asks Mbaku for his tribe's assistance in retaking Wakanda but Mbaku refuses.
	Bilbo Baggins begins to chime in with a suggestion and we are treated to the most racist scene in a film since Edward Norton decided there were too many niggers on his lawn.
	Upon hearing Bilbo speak, Mbaku turns his head towards him and I'm not joking, literally starts hooting at him like a chimpanzee.
	Once Mbaku starts hooting, other members of his tribe join in until Bilbo is drowned out in a sea of monkey noises made by black people dressed as gorillas until he becomes quiet.
	Once the howling dies down, Mbaku tells him that he can't speak because he's white and continues his conversation with T'Challa.
	I'm not even joking and at that point I honestly felt like the movie was pandering to racists.
	The problem is I wasn't even sure what kind of racist the movie was pandering to.
	Mbaku refuses to help, so T'Challa decides to return to fight Killmonger anyway, who now has his own technological Black Panther suit.
	Let's take a moment to talk about these suits.
	They're apparently made from vibranium nanites and form a protective layer over the body that acts like Iron Man's suit in that they protect the wearer from damage and are completely bulletproof.
	The suit retracts into a charm, if you will, that hangs around the wearer's neck, which is a technological manifestation of a not uncommon mystical belief in Central Africa.
	Only this one works and turns the wearer into the black predator.
	The CGI fight scene between two superheroes who actually lack the power to hurt one another is as pointless as it sounds.
	And after the battle rages around various parts of Wakanda, turning into a civil war between the elite bald-headed all-female guards who pledge their allegiance to Wakanda and a group of rhinoceros-riding Maasai tribesmen with blue shield cloaks, in which Bilbo Baggins actually becomes a CIA drone pilot, using remote control to pilot the Flying Saucer to shoot down the weapons shipments before they escape.
	T'Challa eventually wins, defeating Killmonger and ending the ritual combat that sees T'Challa once more become king of Wakanda.
	T'Challa decides Wakanda can't simply be an isolationist ethno-state and begins diplomatic contact with the rest of the world after explaining how fucking great Wakanda is, before getting back together with his baby mama.
	In the final scene we see the basketball court in Oakland with the Wakandan Outreach Centre located nearby, and a flying saucer lands in the basketball court to impress the kids playing there.
	The Black Panther is a film about identity, first and foremost.
	It is exclusively concerned with the modern black identity from the diaspora in the US and the spiritual and cultural connections to black traditions in Africa.
	The culture shock between these two is symbolically explored and not to the advantage of American blacks, as seen in Killmonger returning to Africa, burning down Wakandan traditions and setting himself up as a revolutionary despot.
	Wakanda itself is a fictional utopian state.
	A futuristic technological marvel juxtaposed with advanced but primitive planesherders demonstrates the inconsistencies of the setting, as we are never shown the necessary institutions required for Wakanda to create and maintain their level of technological expertise and still remain tied to a primeval tribal existence.
	Although some kind of large urbanite middle class of office workers, managers, bankers, and industrialists must exist to produce and maintain Wakanda's level of technological expertise, we never see any of them because there is no place for them in the faux tribal cultural fabric of the movie.
	The closest we come to see anything resembling civic life are bustling Eastern-style bazaars, which speak to an unexplained prosperity in this isolationist protectionist kingdom.
	Other than that, we only see herders in the royal court.
	When we're shown a glimpse of life outside of the royal bubble, we see poor ignorant tribesmen who cluster around the flying saucer only to be left in the dust as it zooms away.
	This shows us that Wakanda isn't a utopia for black people, but instead a highly stratified society steeped in the feudal class divisions that one would expect from the absolutely backwards nature of Wakanda's oppressive political system.
	I want to be completely clear about this.
	Wakanda's political system is so primitive that the kingdom is governed in much the same way that Uruk was governed in the epic of Gilgamesh.
	Wakanda is a patrilineal, absolute monarchy where the right to rule is determined by who was born into the correct bloodline and who is the strongest.
	The king must accept challenges to his throne on their terms and defeat them in personal combat because the underlying principle that dictates all of Wakandan politics is that might makes right.
	When Killmonger defeats T'Challa, he becomes instantly legitimized and immediately takes control of the entire kingdom in a demonstration that Wakandan politics is nothing but Machiavellian.
	T'C'Alla's family realize that they must flee, because Killmonger will kill them too, because the king's family could become a focal point around which a rebellion could form.
	In fact, murdering the bloodline of a deceased king is the only way to make a kingdom docile.
	As Machiavelli observed, when cities or countries are accustomed to live under a prince and his family is exterminated, they, being on the one hand, accustomed to obey, and on the other hand not having the old prince, cannot agree in making one from amongst themselves, and they do not know how to govern themselves.
	There is no such thing as democracy, freedom, or human rights in Wakanda.
	The political system is simply too primitive to have evolved such concepts, let alone support them.
	Instead of developing advanced political theory, Wakanda is trapped in the dawn of human civilization.
	The next point that I want to be completely clear about is this: Wakanda is the alt-rights paradise, and every single inhabitant of Wakanda, with the exception of T'Chala's sister, is alt-right.
	Wakanda is a xenophobic, high-tech, space-age ethnostate that does not wish to have any interaction with the outside world and is surrounded by a big, beautiful wall which is guarded by a warrior class.
	This is word for word what Richard Spencer wants for the white race.
	The state would obviously have a say in education.
	We would want to continue the existence of the ethnostate.
	We'd want to create an elite class of highly educated, a kind of warrior guardian class of people who would maintain this order.
	I'm tempted to say that it could be anywhere.
	I could imagine an ethnostate in space.
	And I imagine that's why Richard Spencer has unequivocally endorsed Black Panther, and the alt-right have been sharing Black Panther memes with a make Wakanda great again cap.
	An anti-immigration, isolationist, protectionist, monoracial, ethno-nationalist, traditionist monarchy is actually what the alt-right wants.
	And if they got their way, all the other races would be segregated into their own ethnostates as well.
	The end state of Wakanda and the alt-right is exactly the same.
	That is, at least, until Adolf Killmonger arrives, unironically espousing an expansionist version of this philosophy that Hitler himself outlined on page 1 of Mein Kampf.
	People of the same blood should be in the same Reich.
	And Killmonger wants to unironically anschluss all black people into a single Wakandan ethnostate, much like Hitler wanted to do with the Germans.
	The ethno-nationalism in Black Panther is so pronounced that the Wakandans even have a way of telling each other apart from other black people by showing tattoos inside their lower lips.
	Winston Duke, who played Mbaku, sums up the ethos he feels behind his character.
	And if you were to replace the word Wakanda with white people, you would have a very similar statement to that which is regularly made by leading figureheads of the alt-right.
	What it does do is tell me what my character's attachments are.
	Once I understand that these are byproducts from caring about your people, he deeply cares about his people.
	He deeply cares about his country as a whole.
	What I love about the atmosphere and culture of Wakanda is that it's almost like an extended family, a large extended family that is a country.
	He cares about his people.
	He cares about everyone.
	If you have those deep, strong attachments, you're willing to do whatever to make sure everyone is safe and happy.
	The women of Wakanda are portrayed as strong, intelligent, and capable, but are locked out of ruling the patriarchal kingdom because of their gender, which is alluded to in a conversation between T'Challa and his sister, where he gently chastises her for suggesting that one day she might rule because she's a girl.
	Beyond that, women are well represented, most notably in the all-female bodyguard of the king, a fictional facsimile for the Dahomey Amazons, a warrior elite that existed in the 19th century African kingdom of Dahomey until it was annexed by the French.
	The reason for Wakanda's existence is to provide black people with a fantastical, heroic, historical narrative.
	Wakanda is the one unconquered black kingdom of Africa, and a symbol of what Africa might have been were it not for the ravages of colonialism, a historical event that has clearly left deep cultural trauma on the soul of the American diaspora.
	Even the traditional rituals of African tribes are given practical significance, and they are shown to have a real, functional purpose in the world, such as opening the way into Wakanda to allow the flying sorcerer to enter.
	This is actually a clever way of assimilating traditional ritualistic tribal culture into a modern setting.
	Although tribalistic rituals appear to be a relic of a more primitive time, they are still with us and actually bind groups of people together through mutual action.
	And I actually quite like the way that that was represented in Wakanda in a functional way.
	As a tribal ethnostate, Wakanda is naturally an incredibly groupish culture, which is represented well in all the singing and dancing in front of waterfalls and various cult rituals.
	The cultural mishmash of the tribes that make up Wakanda are broadly representative of the various cultural groups of Africa, which comes with all the modern political incorrectness one might expect.
	Winston Duke's character Mbaku is the best example of this.
	The comic book character was originally called Man Ape and dressed in a white gorilla suit.
	This is obviously going to inflame progressive sensibilities, because having a black man wearing a gorilla suit is haram.
	But Black Panther solves the problem raised by intersectionality by simply pretending it doesn't exist.
	According to executive producer Nate Moore, we don't call him Man Ape, we do call him Mbaku.
	Having a black character dress up as an ape, I think there's a lot of racial implications that don't sit well if done wrong.
	Manape is a problematic character for many reasons.
	Indeed.
	And perhaps next time you shouldn't have him hooting at a white man like a gorilla.
	King T'Challa is actually a really boring character, who is struggling against his own inability to fulfil the obvious destiny laid out before him because the obstacles in his way are more interesting.
	His love interest Nakia is essentially just a symbolic character who plays no significant part in the story.
	When T'Challa kisses her at the end, I could barely remember who she was.
	Whatever romantic subplot was meant to happen with her must have been cut, because her relationship with T'Challa was insubstantial.
	Killmonger is actually quite an interesting character and plays his role well.
	The actors in the film all affect a South African accent, which becomes familiar and expected, so when Killmonger turns up in Wakanda and speaks with a typical American accent, it's jarring and uncomfortable, as if the wrong actor turned up in the movie.
	This actually goes a long way to making Killmonger, the sole American black person in Wakanda, seem like a complete outsider, who not only doesn't understand the traditions of the nation, but also doesn't respect them, as we see when he starts burning the place down.
	This made me feel a lot more empathy towards the Wakandans.
	As absurdist as their nation is, they still have traditions and procedures that this thug was prepared to abuse for his own gain, but to which he would show no respect.
	Perhaps it's because I'm British, but this actually really grated on my nerves, enough for me to root for T'Challa.
	One in Rome after all, Eric.
	Vibranium is the Wakandan equivalent of Orichalsum and apparently has sound-absorbing qualities, but is basically just magic.
	although we're told reproachfully by T'Challa's younger sister that it's not magic, it's technology.
	Can you explain that scientifically?
	Because there's something that happens if we're not since we're never told how any of this technology works and it seems to be functionally indistinguishable from magic, I guess Arthur C. Clarke was right.
	For all intents and purposes, Vibranium is a convenient plot contrivance that explains away the amazing scientifics of the Wakandans without negating the otherwise primitive nature of their society.
	This is actually a remarkably disempowering message.
	All of Wakandan's civilization is possible because of some outside force, not because they could have achieved it themselves, and without the Vibranium, they would be nothing.
	Which is why they must guard it jealously from the outside world and make sure that the outside world is unaware of its existence.
	If anything, the people of Wakanda are prisoners of Vibranium and the monarchy that it sustains.
	Also, they're all carrying magical spears because apparently Prince Philip was right.
	The politics of Black Panther accurately portray an ancient style of ritualistic kingship, To believe that this is possible in a futuristic country, it must be believed that while technological progress advanced, political philosophy did not.
	I personally found that this broke my suspension of disbelief.
	Putting this aside, however, was Black Panther a good movie?
	Well, I was on board.
	The film is well cut and gets into its stride about halfway through, but the plot of the movie is quite generic.
	That a CGI Black Panther just has to fight an evil CGI version of himself is incredibly dull, but the characters do make sense and the reason for the combat is justified.
	Overall, the remarkable absence of fight scenes is actually to the film's credit and gives weight to the politics.
	But in conclusion, this film was not for me.
	I actually found myself having a good time at the theatre, but there are large complex cultural attachments to this film that I personally don't feel but wouldn't want to deprive from anyone else.
	Honestly, the fact that there is a need for an ethno-nationalist fantasy to help a large community of black Americans feel better about themselves is deeply saddening to me.
	I don't think the tribulations of one's ancestors should be something that affects your daily life in a free Western country, but apparently to these people it does.

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