Women of Wakanda

            I spent a lot of Sunday writing my food bank adventure and my review of Deadpool 2.

            I had another turkey dinner with a beer and watched Black Panther. When I was a kid I had the Fantastic Four comic that featured the first appearance of T'Challa, The Black Panther. In those days he was cooler because his costume was not bullet proof and so he had to rely more on his wits, his speed, his strength and agility. Vibranium was used for various miraculous things but it wasn’t until years later that it was sewn into his costume making him impervious to even some explosives and therefore more boring.

            The portrayal of the kingdom of Wakanda as a technologically advanced society that poses as a developing nation was interesting and I like that the king is guarded by female warriors.

            Spoiler alert!

            Vibranium has been stolen by Klaw from Wakanda and he did the same thing in the original comic story. Klaw originally appeared in the Fantastic Four storyline that also first featured The Black Panther and so except for The Fantastic Four the movie follows the same back-story. Klaw killed T'Challa’s father T’Chaka in Captain America Civil War but in the comic book Klaw had already killed T’Chaka just before the Black Panther’s first appearance. Klaw is one of the few outsiders that know the Wakandans are secretly advanced.

            T’Challa is made king but the ceremony invites challengers from the five tribes of Wakanda and of course there is one challenger who of course comes close to winning but of course loses.

            The Black Panther, his girlfriend Nakia and his female general Okoye (very uncomfortable with her shaved head in a wig) go on a mission o intercept Klaw’s plan to sell the vibranium in Korea and to arrest Klaw. They capture Klaw with the help of the CIA headed by Agent Ross. Klaw is taken into CIA custody though T’Challa still plans on taking him to Wakanda. 

Klaw’s team spring Klaw from custody in Korea. Among the gang members is a US mercenary named Killmonger who was also in the comics and his girlfriend. During the gunfight Ross takes a bullet to save Nakia and so they bring him back to Wakanda to save him. T’Challa’s sister Shuri, the master scientist of Wakanda uses vibranium to heal Ross very quickly.

Killmonger kills Klaw and his own girlfriend and heads for Wakanda with Klaw’s body. It turns out that Killmonger is the son of T’Chaka’s brother N’Jobu. Twenty-five years earlier T’Chaka as the previous Black Panther came to the United States to stop his brother from selling vibranium to arms dealers. They fought and N’Jobu was killed but T’Chaka did not do the right thing and bring his son back to Wakanda. Killmonger grew up with a violent mission, to take over Wakanda and give the technology to people of African descent all over the world in the form of weapons.

Killmonger challenges T’Challa for the throne. The pre-fight ritual involves T’Challa drinking a potion that takes away his Black Panther powers. T’Challa is losing but he does not yield. Killmonger however throws him over a cliff and he is believed dead. Killmonger because of the stupid rules of ritual combat becomes the king of Wakanda. Okoye stays as Killmonger’s general because she serves the throne but T’Challa’s mother Ramonda, Nakia, Shuri and Ross go into exile. They go to the mountain gorilla tribe to ask for help and discover that T’Challa is with them but barely alive. Shuri uses the heart shaped flower to make a potion to restore T’Challa’s strength. The gorilla tribe’s king M’Baku refuses to help fight Killmonger. He tells Ross that if he speaks he will be eaten but then he laughs and says, “I’m kidding! We are vegetarians!”

Just as Killmonger is about to send ships all over the world to deliver vibranium, the Black Panther returns to try to stop him. Okoye and her spear guards fight for T’Challa but her lover W’Kabi and his tribe fight for Killmonger. Shuri sets Ross, an ex-fighter pilot, up in her lab to control a Wakandan fighter ship cybernetically and he takes out the ships heading to deliver the vibranium.

The gorilla tribe arrives to help after all. W’Kabi commands a cavalry of armoured CGI rhinoceroses and there is a scene where he is riding one and charging towards M’Baku but Okoye steps in front and the rhinoceros stops to affectionately lick her face.

The two Black Panthers have a long battle but T’Challa wins. Killmonger is mortally wounded and T’Challa says they can save him but does not want to be imprisoned and so he chooses to die. He says to bury him at sea like his slave ancestors who chose to drown rather than become slaves in America.

I can see how this story would tug on the heartstrings of Africans and people of African descent. The producers went to great lengths to make Wakanda a composite of all the cultures of Africa. Most of the good guys are strong African women, which speaks to the hopes of Africa rather than its reality of being extremely patriarchal.

It is certainly a well-made movie with good performances and well-choreographed action. I would say though that if this exact same story were to take place on another planet with made up animals being the symbols, the movie wouldn’t have much of a story.

In many ways the Black Panther is derivative of The Phantom, even though the Phantom was white. The Phantom’s costume and abilities are inherited just like those of The Black Panther and they are both protectors of Africa. In a sense then the Black Panther is the Black Phantom. They could probably never do a white Phantom movie now because it would seem too colonial.

So I would say that Black Panther is culturally important for the African Diaspora and also from a feminist perspective because no other superhero film has had so many strong women out front and important to the positive resolution of the story throughout. It’s just not that great a story.