Social Black Panther (War Room Discussion)

For real, it's incredible how butthurt this movie has made people
 
Just saw the movie. Was pretty good, a solid B like almost always from Marvel

Anyone complaining about the black power theme in it is a snowflake who needs a safe space. The “overthrow our opressors!” And “But we wuz salves” came from the movie’s villain ie NOT ther person to emulate
 
Is the Spider-Man they become more than one character?

Younger generations of comics readers have been taken for a ride by minimally talented writers looking to cash in on established, marketable super-heroes. It's too bad.


They’re different characters completely. Sorry but you’re wrong here.

It’s no different than Spider Man 2099, old man Logan, different green lanterns, future version of characters, alternate universe version of characters etc etc etc
 
It’s no different than Spider Man 2099, old man Logan, different green lanterns, future version of characters, alternate universe version of characters etc etc etc

How is this not what I was saying? The difference is, you think these lazy rip-offs are cool and I don't. To each his own.
 
There are no real politics within the film that are not strictly about the fictional African nation, Wakanda. There are identity issues raised by characters but it's trivial. It does however bring to mind a parallel point.

I saw Wolf Warrior 2, a pro-Chinese action movie that copies every generic trope except with Chinese people in the lead. It made me very aware of how we, the viewer, have come to associate certain ideals and rhetoric with the imagery of the film. There was nothing unusual in the Chinese film but it felt unusual because the actors were Chinese while the film felt very 80's American in every other way.

Watching Black Panther elicited a similar response. Everything that you could realistically refer to as identity politics wouldn't have been seen that way if the characters had been Irish talking about the potato famine that brought them to the US, or Italians discussing coming to America with nothing. Or some British piece where the actors discussed their affinity to Britain, it's history and their belief in the strength of character that the British people possessed.

But because all of the major speaking roles in Black Panther are black, when they speak to those trope they must speak to black history to be authentic. And that feels unusual because we almost never see major movies, that are not about race and black history, where the references to blackness are thrown about in such a casual way, ie without them becoming the raison d'etre for the film itself.

In that way, I can understand the hype. I can also understand whatever backlash is out there because usually when black characters talk about blackness it's in some heavy handed way that will be the plot device for black character seeking equality within the white world. In movies where race isn't the central theme, black characters tend to rarely discuss their blackness except in the context of currently fighting some racial injustice.

It doesn't happen in this film because the black characters already perceive themselves as living in a positive place of wealth and power...but they still reference the same history that you'd get in some 1960's "fight for integration" film. The same history but not the same sense of angst. I don't know - I know what I'm thinking, I don't know if I'm explaining it well.

not really.
 
I'm not exaggerating my feelings when I say those who created this should be beaten within an inch of their lives, or at least prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Fostering division instead of unity amongst their fellow countrymen? Yeah, human trash.
 
You actually went out to see Barbershop?

Do you just categorically not like, or consider to be gimmicky, any film with black actors or black directors?

Like....Barbershop is both a good film and a black film perfectly packaged for white consumption, with its "black folks need to stop blaming the white man and take personal responsibility for themselves" motifs.
 
Blade was half vampire....half human...doing the right thing, the just thing despite the hate he received from humans and vampires ..

I guess as a fellow half breed, i have a bias and believe blade is one of the best super hero comic films ever. .

This kind of illustrates my point exactly though. Blade's "thing" wasn't that he was half and half, it was that the half of him that gave him powers was naturally "bad" or "monstrous". He had to act against what he naturally was to be good. You even admit that particular point was what resonated with you: not that he was purely a good being, but that half of him was instinctively bad and he had to act against it to be good.

We can all see why that's not gonna be celebrated the same as a King of an African nation that happens to be the most advanced on earth, who gets his powers from natural resources other countries don't have.

One is basically a metaphor for how black people felt after oppression(they were part bad and had to act against it to be good), while the other is how they would like to feel in a world free of oppression(they're the best and the baddest because no one raped them and their land). This is kinda why I've been a little dumbfounded at people going "but what about Blade!!" when the whole 'first black superhero' thing gets brought up.

To me Blade is essentially the opposite of Black Panther, and much more an "anti-hero" than anything. He was also not very kid-friendly and that was an issue for those that were wondering "where's all the black role models!" at the time.
 
Do you just categorically not like, or consider to be gimmicky, any film with black actors or black directors?

Like....Barbershop is both a good film and a black film perfectly packaged for white consumption, with its "black folks need to stop blaming the white man and take personal responsibility for themselves" motifs.
hmm...I liked Pulp Fiction.

Barbershop wasn't good. It was a little better than a Wayans brothers movie.
 
As a 9th Dan in Nerd-Jutsu, I can't believe I'm saying this but,

It's a fucking comic book movie. People need to stop taking it so seriously.

If black people feel inspired by seeing a powerful, technologically advanced African nation with their own Superhero on screen, good for them. Hell, as a Scot, I'm in no position to judge; some of my countrymen regard Braveheart as a documentary:rolleyes:

I'm going to watch it because it looks cool AF:cool:
 
With african american actors that looks barely african at all.

This sort of thing bothers me too, but it's not really true in this case. The movie's got several, legit ethnic Africans - Including a Ugandan, a South African and a Kenyan. It's not just African Americans.

I do wish America would stop making every white South African a villain, and giving them all horribly rendered Afrikaans accents though.
 
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For real, it's incredible how butthurt this movie has made people
I totally agree!!

That Black Panther will be an exciting, action-packed superhero film is obvious from the second the Marvel fanfare begins. As its narrative unfolds, it becomes just as obvious that the film - about the heroic head of state of a wealthy, technologically-advanced first-world nation with a strict immigration policy whose closest advisers are the strong, beautiful women in his family - is an adulatory homage to Donald Trump. Director Ryan Coogler's decision to use a comic book character from the fictional African nation of Wakanda as his vehicle to deliver his cinematic genuflection to the 45th President of the United States - an aspirational allegory for America - is brilliant in its subversiveness; the choice makes this political parable bulletproof from any specious criticism of racial bigotry, letting the purity and wisdom of its message shine through the screen.

That message, of course, is that a monarchial ethnostate was, remains, and will forever be the best form of national government. If the global experiment of democracy over the last two centuries has shown us anything, it's that populations ought to have a say in their own governance to the extent that children should direct their own parenting: little to none. It's a preposterous proposition. While it's fun to vote yourself piles of candy for dinner every night, the foolishness of the endeavor becomes clear when you've made yourself sick, toothless, and penniless. The royal line from which King T'Challa descends hasn't fallen into this trap, and we see the result: a happy, harmonious people who love the ruler who loves them back.

The more-controversial, but eminently defensible, moral of this superhero story is that ethnic homogeneity is simply the most ideal and natural state of nations. Scolds and scoundrels might squeal, "That's racism!" Not true, replies the student of history; after all, we are all one single human race. Our various cultures, however, are vastly different, and peace with your neighbor can only last when you both share one. That isn't to say that Coogler is claiming there exists no legitimate roles for "the other" in Wakanda. There are - the political refugee, the foreign diplomat - but so often, as personified by Ulysses Klaue (another of Andy Serkis' brilliant CGI character creations, fitting seamlessly into his real-life surroundings), the outsider simply wants to rape and pillage, and if the ruler is to remain a hero, he must prevent such an intrusion by any means possible.

So bravo, Mr. Coogler, and the entire cast and crew, for showing America - and every country on earth - an ideal to strive for. You've made a film that cuts a clear path through the miasmic, rotten jungle of open borders, multiculturalism, and assimilation, so I don't think I exaggerate when I say this: Black Panther may have just saved the world.

Lololol
 
For real, it's incredible how butthurt this movie has made people

Right Wingers are some of the biggest pussies of all time...Never seen a fictional movie trigger people so much.



Some of the right wingers are outright racist pussies...It can't be denied anymore.
 
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