tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/oscars2019-66935/articlesOscars2019 – The Conversation2019-02-26T12:26:19Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1124482019-02-26T12:26:19Z2019-02-26T12:26:19ZIf anyone won the Oscars this year it was Netflix – the prize for its industry disruption<p>No single film dominated the 2019 Academy Awards as in some years, but arguably Netflix emerges as the winner. It entered the awards as an outsider and won in some of the most important categories. With 15 Oscar nominations, Netflix achieved as many nominations in 2019 as in the previous five years added together. </p>
<p>The Netflix film <a href="https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80240715">Roma</a> was nominated for 10 awards including best picture, best director, best foreign language film and best cinematography, and <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/25/netflix-roma-oscar-wins/">went on to win the latter three</a>. For the first time, a film distributed by an online streaming provider has won the industry’s highest accolade. </p>
<p>Behind the polite plaudits and acceptance speeches there are bitter feelings within the mainstream film industry on whether Netflix merits this level of recognition. John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/business/media/netflix-movies-hollywood.html">articulated this reticence</a> when he said: “for filmmakers who want to go to Netflix, they are kind of selling their soul – the pot of money versus how they know a movie should be seen.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260775/original/file-20190225-26174-11g9dw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260775/original/file-20190225-26174-11g9dw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260775/original/file-20190225-26174-11g9dw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=877&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260775/original/file-20190225-26174-11g9dw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=877&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260775/original/file-20190225-26174-11g9dw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=877&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260775/original/file-20190225-26174-11g9dw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1102&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260775/original/file-20190225-26174-11g9dw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1102&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260775/original/file-20190225-26174-11g9dw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1102&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Roma’s theatrical poster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roma_theatrical_poster.png">Netflix</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Roma’s success is the latest beachhead in the ongoing march of Netflix as a serial disruptor in the entertainment industry. In the late 1990s the company famously disrupted the video and DVD rental business through an online subscription model with rented titles distributed by post. Its tenacity in sticking to this model saw Netflix dispatch rental industry leader Blockbuster, which closed in 2010. </p>
<p>Next in line were television broadcasters, which Netflix took on through its online streaming service once broadband internet speeds allowed it. This has fuelled the <a href="https://hbr.org/2018/10/how-netflix-expanded-to-190-countries-in-7-years">unprecedented speed of the company’s international expansion</a>, transforming Netflix from a content aggregator to a producer of high-quality content, now posing a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/48cc5458-2885-11e9-a5ab-ff8ef2b976c7">major challenge</a> to mainstream broadcasters and encouraging many “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/outlook-for-traditional-tv-goes-from-bad-to-worse-1542632401">cord-cutters</a>” to cancel the cable TV subscriptions once seen as essential. It has also driven fundamental changes in viewing habits, ushering in the generation of “binge-watchers”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fp_i7cnOgbQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>But the success of Roma at the Oscars was not a happy accident. It was the result of the same single-minded determination that has driven Netflix’s previous industry disruption. The film was the ideal weapon to seek an Academy Award. It had a director and producer with strong track records and previous awards and its <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/netflix-roma-theaters-explainer_us_5c0e77ece4b035a7bf5da827">black-and-white arthouse style</a> offered only limited appeal to mainstream cinema audiences anyway. Netflix even compromised on its long-held day-and-date strategy, which requires its programming to be available in all regions at the same time in order to meet the qualifying criteria of the Academy (which requires that a film has some degree of cinema release). It also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/17/business/media/netflix-movies-oscars.html">commissioned the Oscar campaign veteran Lisa Taback</a> to promote the case for this movie with Academy members.</p>
<h2>Keeping up the momentum</h2>
<p>But Netflix now faces stark <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/43f9e89a-30c4-11e9-8744-e7016697f225">commercial realities</a>. The company’s share price has risen over 20-fold and its revenue has grown from US$3.5 billion to US$16 billion since 2012, but by 2018 the company had long-term debt of over US$10 billion. And this excludes the additional US$19.3 billion needed to secure the rights to content Netflix intends to stream in the future. </p>
<p>The sheer volume of content that Netflix subscribers now expect is expensive to sustain, with production budgets estimated to be in the region of US$13 billion this year. This puts pressure on free cash-flow which will inevitably remain negative for the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>If Netflix is to service its mounting debt burden and remain sustainable, it needs to accelerate new subscriber growth and increase the revenue subscribers yield. This will be necessary in the face of aggressive competition from other established streaming players, such as Amazon, Hulu or HBO, and to stay one step ahead of new entrants such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/dec/24/netflix-market-leader-apple-disney-launch-streaming-services-roma">Disney and Apple</a>, which come equipped with very deep pockets. </p>
<p>This will not be possible if Netflix continues to be seen as merely an alternative delivery channel for viewing content that would otherwise be available via broadcast television. Instead, Netflix wants to be recognised as the premium channel through which high-quality content may be viewed. The hope is that it will therefore be perceived by the market as being at least equivalent – if not superior – to cinemas as somewhere to watch the latest movies. Achieving such a shift in consumer and producer preferences would disrupt the established industry business model of giving cinemas precedence for latest releases.</p>
<p>Even were Netflix to achieve this, past precedent suggests that we should not expect the company to be satisfied. The company makes no secret of its view that it sees itself in competition with all other users of leisure time and leisure dollars. Its focus on enticing subscribers to further increase their viewing hours at the expense of other activities is unlikely to diminish.</p>
<p>However, the question remains whether whether Netflix can navigate its financial challenges and battle the competition that seeks to thwart its extraordinary march of disruption. Media mogul Barry Diller has already concluded that Netflix has won and that “<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6723141/Former-CEO-Paramount-Fox-says-Netflix-won-game-Hollywood-irrelevant.html">Hollywood is now irrelevant</a>”. Perhaps, but we can expect many more episodes of Netflix as serial disruptor to play out before we know for sure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112448/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With 15 nominations and three Oscars, Netflix is besting the big film industry players at their own party.Louis Brennan, Professor of Business Studies, Trinity College DublinPaul Lyons, Lecturer in Business Studies, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1107522019-02-06T23:40:04Z2019-02-06T23:40:04ZWhat ‘Into the Spider-Verse’ can teach us about resilience<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256657/original/file-20190131-75085-u1s194.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), Peter Parker (Jake Johnson), and Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage) in 'Spider Man: Into the Spider-Verse.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sony Pictures Animation</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What can the movie <em>Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse</em> teach us about child development?</p>
<p>All stories and fairy tales contain symbols and archetypes. These are what make <a href="https://www.sfu.ca/media-lab/cmns320_06/readings/bettelheim.pdf">stories universal and relatable to everyone</a>. Such symbols and archetypes can represent human conflicts, struggles or experiences we have or may encounter — such as trauma and loss. </p>
<p>Stories provide us with options for how to deal with the adversity we face. They provide a way of experiencing how things could be resolved and show us that we are not alone in how we feel or experience events. </p>
<p>The film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4633694/"><em>Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse</em></a> helps us to learn the importance of relying on people and fighting through life’s adversity to save ourselves and the world. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256660/original/file-20190131-124043-cm9iw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256660/original/file-20190131-124043-cm9iw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256660/original/file-20190131-124043-cm9iw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256660/original/file-20190131-124043-cm9iw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256660/original/file-20190131-124043-cm9iw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256660/original/file-20190131-124043-cm9iw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256660/original/file-20190131-124043-cm9iw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Miles Morales played by Shameik Moore in ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sony Pictures Animation</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Resilience is the process of adapting to adversity, the ability to bounce back after difficult experiences throughout life. It helps children manage stress and feelings of anxiety and uncertainty — <a href="https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/resilience-game/">think of it as a balancing scale</a>, with protective or positive experiences and coping skills on one side and adversity or negative experiences on the other. </p>
<p>Resilience is evident when the scale tips to the positive experiences even when there is a heavy load on adversity. </p>
<p><em>Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse</em> shares this message of resilience, frequently encouraging the main character, Miles Morales, to get up and keep fighting. In one scene, Peter Parker tells Miles:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“No matter how many hits I take, I always find a way to come back.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The theme of bouncing back and continuing the fight is consistent throughout the film. </p>
<p>As viewers watching the film, we find ourselves rooting for a teenage boy who has newly developed superhero abilities and is struggling to become a hero: Spiderman.</p>
<h2>Strong together</h2>
<p>The story is about the Spider-heroes throughout the multiverse who come together to help Miles Morales learn how to be a hero, to be himself, to fight through the pain, loss and tragedy. </p>
<p>It’s a reminder that we are not on our own and that we need each other; we are stronger together. It reminds us of the importance of connection, relationships and asking for help. </p>
<p>Relationships help children develop the ability to <a href="https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/resilience/">monitor, plan and regulate behaviour as well as adapt to changes which help children respond to adversity</a>.</p>
<p>Miles Morales searches for the support of loved ones. <a href="http://origin-flash.sonypictures.com/ist/awards_screenplays/SV_screenplay.pdf">His mom supports him, while reminding him</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Our family doesn’t run from things.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Research indicates the <a href="https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/resilience/">most common factor for children who do well after experiencing a trauma or stressful time is to have the support of at least one loving and committed relationship</a>, such as with a parent. </p>
<p>Such relationships are the most important factor in building resilience. They protect children from negative outcomes by providing a loving, personalized response while helping the child understand and manage their feelings. </p>
<p>Important relationships help Miles cope and discover who he is and his capabilities. <a href="http://time.com/5468861/spider-man-into-the-spiderverse-is-characters/">Peter’s friend Gwen Stacy</a> tells Miles: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I know how hard it is to have to figure this stuff out on your own. It’s kind of nice not being the only Spider person around.” </p>
<p>“We are probably the only ones who… understand.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://marvel-movies.fandom.com/wiki/Aaron_Davis_(Into_the_Spider-Verse)">And Uncle Aaron says</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“You are the best of all of us, Miles.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Relationships help children develop the ability to <a href="https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/resilience/">monitor, plan and regulate behaviour as well as adapt to changes</a>.</p>
<p>This process is a critical aspect of learning to cope with manageable threats. The movie tells us we cannot do that all on our own. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256677/original/file-20190131-75085-1i94krr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256677/original/file-20190131-75085-1i94krr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256677/original/file-20190131-75085-1i94krr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256677/original/file-20190131-75085-1i94krr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256677/original/file-20190131-75085-1i94krr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256677/original/file-20190131-75085-1i94krr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256677/original/file-20190131-75085-1i94krr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peter Parker serves as Miles Morales’s reluctant mentor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sony Pictures Animation</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Miles’s dad speaks to him through a closed door and says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I see this…this spark in you. It’s amazing, it’s why I
push you.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But Miles’s father also tells Miles the spark is his and whatever he chooses to do with it, he’ll be great. Then he tells him:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I love you… You don’t have to say it back though.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These are important lessons for children and parents. </p>
<p>When adversity or stress feels overwhelming to the child and the parent is not available, the stress can feel toxic and create an opportunity for more negative outcomes. </p>
<p>This movie is a great reminder that not all stress or adversity is harmful.</p>
<h2>Takeaway tips</h2>
<p><em>Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse</em> provides important tips for helping children develop resilience:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Make connections: Create a strong family network and teach your child how to be a friend and make friends. This will help deal with stress. </p></li>
<li><p>Help your child remember they are not alone and others may feel as they do at times. This is important for trusting others and developing empathy.</p></li>
<li><p>Teach children how to move towards goals: focus on accomplishments rather than failures. Break down the desired outcome into smaller achievable goals and support your child in seeing them through.</p></li>
<li><p>Nurture a positive self-view and keep things in perspective: in this way, a child learns to trust their ideas, solve problems and make appropriate decisions, to understand past challenges, to build strength to handle future challenges. </p></li>
<li><p>Look for opportunities for self-discovery: tough times are often when children learn the most about themselves. Help your child look at what they can learn from whatever they are facing.</p></li>
</ol>
<p><a href="https://www.thisisinsider.com/spider-man-into-the-spider-verse-stan-lee-cameo-2018-12">The movie ends with a quote from Stan Lee</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“That person who helps others simply because it should or must be done, and because it is the right thing to do, is indeed, without a doubt, a real superhero.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s a beautiful message reminding us the importance of resilience and connection with others. These are two key factors in childhood development that will help our future generations become healthy and productive citizens — and save the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110752/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nikki Martyn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Even superheroes can’t do it alone – relationships are the most important factor in protecting us from negative outcomes and teaching us adversity doesn’t have to be harmful.Nikki Martyn, Program Head of Early Childhood Studies, University of Guelph-HumberLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1093302019-01-08T23:33:45Z2019-01-08T23:33:45ZThe Oscars: what you may have missed in ‘Roma’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252757/original/file-20190107-32154-whbv3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Critics and audiences of the Oscar-nominated film Roma may be missing important Mexican historical and cultural facts.</span> </figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.romamovie.com/">Roma</a> — Alfonso Cuarón’s powerful film about daily life in Mexico in the 1970s — has been nominated for 10 Oscars, including the top prize as best picture of the year. Cuarón has been praised for both his technical and storytelling skills and members of <a href="https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2019">the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences</a> have rewarded him with nominations for direction, cinematography and original screenplay.</p>
<p>Despite its popularity — Roma had limited theatrical release but is available for streaming on <a href="https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/80240715">Netflix</a> — the film contains some subtle but important elements that have been largely ignored by critics so far.</p>
<p>Two of these elements are Mexico’s political context in the early 1970s and the ongoing conditions that have characterized domestic workers’ lives since. </p>
<p>The main character of <em>Roma</em> is Cleo (played by Yalitza Aparicio, who was nominated for best actress), a domestic worker based on a woman named Liboria Rodríguez (known as Libo) who worked for Cuarón’s family when he was a child.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6BS27ngZtxg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Who were <em>Los Halcones</em>?</h2>
<p>Cuarón situates <em>Roma’s</em> characters amid significant historical events: the fight of some Mexicans for social progress and their opposition to a political, authoritarian regime that worked to maintain its privileges through various means.</p>
<p>One of these means is exemplified in the film by the character Fermín — Cleo’s boyfriend (played by Jorge Antonio Guerrero) who belongs to the paramilitary group <em>Los Halcones</em> (The Hawks).</p>
<p>We know now by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO_1E1cwzmM">various direct sources</a> and United States government declassified documents that high-ranking Mexican government officials <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB91/mexstu-18.pdf">secretly organized</a>, financed, <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB91/mexstu-35.pdf">trained and armed</a> various groups, including <em>Los Halcones</em>, to help quash social movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s.</p>
<p><em>Los Halcones</em> were composed of around 2,000 young men, aged 18 to 29, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO_1E1cwzmM">distributed in squads</a> of 200 members each.</p>
<p><a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB91/mexstu-20.pdf">The squads’ leaders were middle-class university students</a> who, for their participation, received free education, weekly stipends and the promise of a bright future in the ruling Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI).</p>
<p>The assailants and hit-men were <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO_1E1cwzmM">gang members</a> and <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB91/mexstu-38.pdf">working class</a> and unemployed young men. They were paid half of what the leaders received.</p>
<p><em>Los Halcones</em> <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB91/mexstu-35.pdf">were also trained by Mexican military and police personnel</a> who, <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB91/mexstu-17.pdf">subsidized by USAID</a>, <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB91/mexstu-01.pdf">had previously received training</a> at the International Police Academy in Washington.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252756/original/file-20190107-32145-4g9xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252756/original/file-20190107-32145-4g9xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252756/original/file-20190107-32145-4g9xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252756/original/file-20190107-32145-4g9xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252756/original/file-20190107-32145-4g9xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252756/original/file-20190107-32145-4g9xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252756/original/file-20190107-32145-4g9xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scene from the award-winning ‘Roma.’</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An attack on Mexican democracy</h2>
<p>On June 10, 1971, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO_1E1cwzmM">around 10,000 demonstrators</a>, <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB91/">mainly students</a>, marched to demand improvements to Mexico’s democratic, economic and social conditions.</p>
<p>In <em>Roma</em>, Cleo and others pass these demonstrators on their way to a furniture store. They also pass, in a depiction of real life, a long row of riot police trucks and idle police officers, while <em>Halcones</em> patiently wait at the corner.</p>
<p>Armed with canes and M1 and M2 rifles, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO_1E1cwzmM"><em>Halcones</em> attacked demonstrators</a>, producing the second bloodiest event in modern Mexican history (<a href="https://slate.com/culture/2018/11/roma-corpus-christi-student-massacre-el-halconazo.html"><em>El Halconazo</em></a>), only after the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7646473.stm">Tlatelolco massacre of October 1968</a>.</p>
<p>It is estimated that around 120 people were killed and hundreds more injured, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO_1E1cwzmM">children, women and seniors</a>. Although the military and uniformed police <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO_1E1cwzmM">knew beforehand about the attack</a>, they <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB91/mexstu-40.pdf">stood by and did nothing</a>.</p>
<h2>Masculinity and violence</h2>
<p>Fermín belongs to the second-tier group of <em>Los Halcones</em>. In the hotel, he confesses to Cleo: “I owe my life to martial arts [to <em>Halcones</em>]. I grew up with nothing, you know?”</p>
<p>Portraying the real <em>Halcones</em> youth, Fermín’s participation offered him certain social mobility but only in exchange for committing atrocities.</p>
<p>Some young men’s allegiance to <em>Los Halcones</em> and their corrupt decisions were thus mediated by class aspirations, ideology and violence.</p>
<p><em>Los Halcones’</em> violence also <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB91/mexstu-38.pdf">manifested in gender violence.</a> This is depicted in <em>Roma</em> when Fermín dismisses his paternity and threatens to beat Cleo and their unborn daughter if she insists on looking for him.</p>
<p>Moreover, despite his low-class background, Fermín ends the scene yelling “<em>gata</em>” at Cleo, an upper class-based insult aimed only at domestic servants, reflecting the latter’s low ascribed social status.</p>
<h2>Domestic workers in Mexico</h2>
<p>A second element that has not been widely discussed, which <em>Roma</em> touches on, is the historical conditions of domestic workers.</p>
<p>As of June 2018, there were <a href="http://www.beta.inegi.org.mx/contenidos/saladeprensa/boletines/2018/enoe_ie/enoe_ie2018_08.pdf">2.2 million domestic workers in Mexico</a>. Around 95 per cent are women, mostly young and middle-aged (<a href="https://www.conapred.org.mx/index.php?contenido=noticias&id=5427&id_opcion=446">some are even children</a>).</p>
<p>In 2010, <a href="https://www.inegi.org.mx/programas/ccpv/2010/">58 per cent of Indigenous women in the Monterrey Metropolitan Area were domestic workers</a>. Many migrated from the countryside to the city. This means that, as Indigenous migration researcher <a href="http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0185-39292013000200004">Séverine Durin asserts</a>, domestic work is strongly shaped by ethnicity.</p>
<p>It is not a coincidence then that Cuarón’s former nanny Libo or the characters Cleo and Adela in <em>Roma</em> are (young) Indigenous women.</p>
<h2>Disadvantageous labour conditions</h2>
<p>Mexican laws <a href="https://legalzone.com.mx/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Descargar-pdf-Ley-Federal-del-Trabajo-legalzone-m%C3%A9xico.pdf">do not offer domestic workers the same rights and benefits</a> that other workers enjoy, such as paid sick days and holidays. They can also be dismissed without warning at any time.</p>
<p>Only as recently as December 2018, <a href="http://www.internet2.scjn.gob.mx/red2/comunicados/noticia.asp?id=5806">the Mexican Supreme Court determined</a> that it is unconstitutional for employers to deny domestic workers access to social security, meaning mainly access to public health services.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0185-39292013000200004">It is commonplace for domestic workers</a> to face low wages, long working hours and no holidays. Some also experience humiliation, mistreatment and discrimination for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/nov/10/empleadas-domesticas-ciudad-de-mexico-luchan-trato-digno">speaking their Indigenous language</a>, wearing traditional clothes, <a href="http://www.revistaterritorio.mx/el-parque-de-las-gatas.html">practising cultural customs</a> and for their physical traits.</p>
<p>Others experience forced confinement or <a href="https://www.animalpolitico.com/2017/03/trabajadoras-domesticas-impunidad-delitos/">sexual abuse</a> by the men of the family or teenage sons. Yet, domestic workers are expected to thank their employers for the “opportunity” to have a job.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.conapred.org.mx/index.php?contenido=noticias&id=5427&id_opcion=446">Only one in 10 women file a complaint</a> when they encounter a problem with their employers. </p>
<p>Domestic workers with children also need to make extraordinary arrangements for their own children to be taken care of, meaning prolonged separation many times while they take care of other families’ children. Their caring and affection not only become commodified, but also dislocated.</p>
<h2>Not really part of the family</h2>
<p>Some employers consider domestic workers as “part of the family.” However, uneven power relations, class differentials, discrimination and racism make them not really part of the family.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAa9dueHtVI">Cuarón mentioned</a> that he was forced to recognize several decades later, and only after he started working on <em>Roma</em>, that Libo was, first, a woman, and second, an Indigenous woman. He then realized that Libo belongs to a “world of affective needs, a world of sexual desires,” and also to “a more dispossessed group, a world of injustice.”</p>
<p>In <em>Roma</em>, the family members are unaware of the domestic workers’ social and personal lives.</p>
<p>When Cleo is taken to the delivery room, the grandmother, Teresa, is asked by a nurse about Cleo’s second last name, her date of birth and if she has insurance. But Teresa cannot answer those questions.</p>
<p>Cleo picks up after the family dog’s, feeds the family, prepares the kids for school, puts them to bed, washes and irons the family’s clothes and cleans the house. Still, the grandmother ignores everything about Cleo despite living in the “same” house (usually, domestic workers sleep and even eat apart from the family).</p>
<p>Cleo is “part of the family” but she is not really part of the family.</p>
<h2>Daily violence</h2>
<p>Overall, <em>Roma</em> contains various stories that subtly unveil different forms of violence: poverty, social exclusion and gender-based violence promoted by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/17/difference-between-sexism-and-misogyny">sexist and misogynistic</a> forms of masculinity.</p>
<p>Moreover, domestic workers’ quiet but endless work, which in <em>Roma</em> takes over half of the film, hinders uneven power relations mediated by class, gender, age, affection, ethnicity, race and the urban/rural divide.</p>
<p>These factors intersect to maintain domestic workers, mainly (Indigenous) women, in subordinate positions. They are conveniently imagined as “part of the family,” but they are never really part of the family, neither in Mexico, nor <a href="https://utorontopress.com/ca/not-one-of-the-family-2">in Canada</a>, nor anywhere else in the world.</p>
<p><em>This is a corrected version of a story originally published Jan. 8, 2019. The original story said: “in 2010, 58 per cent of Indigenous women were domestic workers.” It should have said: “In 2010, 58 per cent of Indigenous women in the Monterrey Metropolitan Area were domestic workers.”</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109330/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alejandro Hernandez currently volunteers as Board of Directors member at the Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and is a member of the Canadian Sociological Association and the Latin American Studies Association. All opinions, however, are personal. Alejandro was also awarded a Vanier scholarship (SSHRC) and a Conacyt scholarship.</span></em></p>Director Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Roma’ has received 10 Oscar nominations. Here, a sociologist explains the hidden historical and cultural context of the film.Alejandro Hernandez, Instructor and PhD candidate in Sociology and Political Economy, Carleton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1014322018-08-16T21:54:22Z2018-08-16T21:54:22Z‘BlacKkKlansman’ – a deadly serious comedy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233412/original/file-20180824-149490-7flvbf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Actors Laura Harrier and John David Washington humorously and believably drive home the film’s strong racial irony.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Spike Lee’s <em>BlacKkKlansman</em> delivers more than a brilliantly entertaining story. Officially, <em>BlacKkKlansman</em> is about Ron Stallworth (John David Washington, son of actor Denzel Washington), the first African-American police detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department who infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan with the help of a white proxy. </p>
<p>The film is based on actual events discussed in Stallworth’s 2014 memoir, <em>Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime</em>. The actors humorously and yet believably drive home the film’s strong racial irony. </p>
<p>Stallworth’s operation upsets a string of Klan meetings and attacks, including a comically rendered attempt to bomb the female head of the Black student union. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232385/original/file-20180816-2894-1i8qnpm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232385/original/file-20180816-2894-1i8qnpm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232385/original/file-20180816-2894-1i8qnpm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232385/original/file-20180816-2894-1i8qnpm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232385/original/file-20180816-2894-1i8qnpm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232385/original/file-20180816-2894-1i8qnpm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232385/original/file-20180816-2894-1i8qnpm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Stallworth dupes the “Grand Wizard” of the KKK, David Duke (Topher Grace). Stallworth and Duke have a series of phone conversations about Stallworth’s feigned white nationalist beliefs and the upcoming ceremony marking his initiation into the “Organization.” </p>
<p>Drama and hilarity abound when Stallworth is assigned to personally guard Duke at the event and Duke is unable to make any connection between his new initiate and the police officer.</p>
<p>What makes this film good is not that it successfully delivers the story it promises, but that it also exposes how our racial past has only changed its bell-bottoms for straight-legs. Or put another way, <em>BlacKkKlansman</em> showcases how past racism still operates in the present. </p>
<h2>Using the past to illuminate the present</h2>
<p>Spike Lee offers a parody of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s enthusiastic endorsement of the 1915 box office hit, <em>Birth of a Nation</em>. <em>Birth of a Nation</em>, based on a novel by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1367770.The_Clansman">Thomas Dixon, Jr., and unabashedly titled <em>The Clansman, an Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan</em>.</a>, is set just after the American Civil War. Both book and movie were used as propaganda to depict the Klan as saving the white race from the newly emancipated Blacks, rendered in the film as crazed rapists and criminals.</p>
<p>Lee successfully uses the past, as he has done in movies like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097216/"><em>Do the Right Thing</em> (1989)</a>, to artistically quash the anticipated criticism that a film by a Black director that portrays white racism is guilty of being anti-white.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6xXnQwLZzB0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Do the Right Thing’ is seen by many as one of the most important Hollywood films of the 1980s.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In contrast, by integrating the facts about <em>Birth of a Nation</em>, Lee explodes this phoney critique and points to the real racial irony: That films depicting white supremacy are likely to be wildly popular, even praised by presidents of their time, while a film that depicts the personal and professional impacts of racism, particularly on Black people, is subject to petty but popular criticism that the film is inherently anti-white. </p>
<p>Lee does not tread lightly, but marches into this racial terrain at the end of the movie by explicitly invoking images of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-defends-white-nationalist-protesters-some-very-fine-people-on-both-sides/537012/">U.S. President Donald Trump’s equivocation that some white nationalists are very fine people</a>.</p>
<h2>Comic relief; deadly serious</h2>
<p>To artistically execute this heavy history in a film that runs two hours and 15 minutes is no easy feat. But Lee does not disappoint. </p>
<p>Lee deftly offers comedy as a necessary relief. For example, Connie Kendrickson, (Ashlie Atkinson), the wife of a Klan member, Felix Kendrickson (Jasper Paakkonen), is an eager-Jane, reminiscent of a classically uncool, geekish, eager-to-please teenager. She dresses up — rather badly — in a two-piece, too loose, bright red pantsuit to pursue her first terrorist act of planting a bomb. She foils the plan and the result is pure humour.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q2eL3YithTc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Comedy is a great relief to the serious issues of American racism exposed in BlacKkKlansman.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the other hand, Lee interestingly and expertly weaves together the serious mini-dramas in Stallworth’s life. Stallworth must face personal conflicts in his love life when his (completely fictionalized) romantic interest (Laura Harrier) holds anti-cop views. And he must deal with persistent racism when he is formally admonished and told to accept routine anti-Black sentiments expressed at work or face consequences for complaining.</p>
<h2>Confronting American racism</h2>
<p><em>BlacKkKlansman</em> is, of course, not the first time cinema has been used to confront similar themes of Blacks infiltrating the KKK or using covert police tactics. These themes have been variously treated in popular culture since at least the 1960s. </p>
<p>The 1966 film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060173/"><em>The Black Klansman</em></a> was directed by Ted V. Mikels and depicts a light-skinned Black man, Jerry Ellsworth (Richard Gilden), whose daughter is murdered by the Klan. Ellsworth passes as white to become a member of the KKK to take revenge on the organization and avenge his daughter’s death. </p>
<p>Another iteration was developed in the 1973 cult classic <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070726/"><em>The Spook Who Sat by the Door</em></a>, directed by Ivan Dixon and based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Sam Greenlee. In this film, Dan Freeman (Lawrence Cook) is an African-American who becomes a top CIA agent after being trained in advanced warfare, spy work and subversion. </p>
<p>Freeman soon resigns from the CIA and lives by day as a social worker but by night as the leader of a Black nationalist group called the Freedom Fighters. Freeman leads the group in pro-Black both non-violent and aggressive military acts against corrupt police and anti-civil rights efforts. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231744/original/file-20180813-2906-1w3fp0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231744/original/file-20180813-2906-1w3fp0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231744/original/file-20180813-2906-1w3fp0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231744/original/file-20180813-2906-1w3fp0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231744/original/file-20180813-2906-1w3fp0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231744/original/file-20180813-2906-1w3fp0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231744/original/file-20180813-2906-1w3fp0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘BlacKkKlansman’ does more than chase laughs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Universal Pictures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then there’s David Chappelle’s famous <a href="http://www.ebaumsworld.com/videos/chappelles-show-clayton-bigsby-the-black-white-supremist/82404406/">skit of Clayton Bigsby</a> on <a href="http://www.cc.com/shows/chappelle-s-show"><em>Chappelle’s Show</em></a>. Because Bigsby is blind, raised in an all-white group home, and no one ever tells him that he’s African-American, he develops deeply racist views and joins the town’s chapter of the KKK. He learns he is Black while lecturing at a white supremacist rally when the crowd requests that he take off his hood. Even then, his views don’t change. When asked why he divorced his wife of almost two decades, he responds that it is because she is a n***** lover. </p>
<p>So <em>BlacKkKlansman</em> has to be more than just another cinematic episode depicting how a Black subversive is finally sticking it to “The Man.” This story is about much more than one Black police officer who successfully and brilliantly subverted and breached the Klan to assist efforts of Black liberation. </p>
<p>And the film certainly does more than chase laughs by exposing the inanity of racist views. <em>BlacKkKlansman</em> is an insightful foray into the neo-passing genre. The neo-passing genre addresses contemporary injustices and asks audiences to consider and distinguish between <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/65zws7hy9780252041587.html">“classic and popular narratives of passing” where contemporary versions of passing can be about performing resistance and contesting unjust social circumstances.</a> </p>
<p>As a neo-passing story, <em>BlacKkKlansman</em> is ultimately about the current reality that African-Americans specifically, and other racial minorities in general, must continue to endure racism; that they must still argue that saying “Black lives matter” always means all lives matter. That Lee is able to highlight this through an entertaining adaptation of the past makes his latest film one to see and discuss.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101432/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vershawn Ashanti Young does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>BlacKkKlansman is more than a good story: it expertly weaves together comedy with serious drama to bring the story of past racism to illuminate our present day issues.Vershawn Ashanti Young, Professor, Department of Drama and Speech Communication, University of WaterlooLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/935432018-03-28T22:56:08Z2018-03-28T22:56:08Z‘Black Panther’ villain can teach us about revolutionary history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212259/original/file-20180327-109204-1po0wbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Killmonger, the evil villain of 'Black Panther,' has plans of global insurgencies to liberate Black people. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Marvel/Disney)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Black Panther’s</em> Erik Killmonger is the quintessential super-villain. His character fulfils the requirements of the typical superhero movie with good guys versus bad ones and his demise at the end is inevitable.</p>
<p>How could we possibly find anything positive about him? Actually, there is much more to his character than just evil. In fact, I think his character has a lot to teach us.</p>
<p>Many critics have highlighted <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/03/01/forget-the-abusive-killmonger-wakandas-women-are-black-panthers-true-black-liberators/?utm_term=.e892661f71dc">his killings</a>, <a href="https://lasentinel.net/wishing-for-wakanda-marooned-in-america-movies-and-matters-of-reflection-and-resistance.html">his CIA connection</a> and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/02/black-panther-erik-killmonger/553805/">his imperialist power lust</a>. They focus on his bloody trail of slaughter and his destruction of the magical flowers that energize the spirit of Wakanda. </p>
<p>But consider his hate both for the oppressors of Black people and for the pretentious isolationism of Wakanda that cared nothing about Blacks elsewhere, and his plans of global insurgencies to liberate Black people.</p>
<p>While condemnation of Killmonger is to be expected, it’s unfortunate if it occludes his historical significance. Killmonger is larger, more complex, and deserving of more nuanced appraisal. His character reflects the anger, frustrations, hopes, yearnings and aspirations of young and old African-Americans today. </p>
<p>Killmonger’s character represents the dialectical struggles - the complex history of debates and raucous disagreements among African American leaders - over their conflicting strategies and methods to win freedom from slavery, colonialism, racism and oppression. </p>
<h2>Black liberation struggles</h2>
<p>Killmonger shares a central and enduring goal with many previous Black leaders; the dream of freedom for his people and of righting injustices against them. </p>
<p>Consider abolitionist <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2931.html">David Walker</a>, who in 1830, against the prevailing gradualism of the abolitionist movement, <a href="http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/walker/walker.html">circulated an appeal</a> for Blacks to resist their oppressors with violence. He argued that kidnappers and murderers of Black people were enemies of God whose death when being resisted was justified. </p>
<p>In an argument similar to Walker’s, abolitionist and minister Henry Highland Garnet in 1843 informed his fellow Blacks how sinful it was for them to submit to degradation and oppression, to “<a href="https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=etas">a state of slavery where you cannot obey the commandments of the Sovereign of the universe</a>.” Calling for a violent rebellion, he contended it was the Blacks’ “solemn and imperative duty to use every means both, moral, intellectual, and physical, that promises success.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212246/original/file-20180327-109196-1oh8wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212246/original/file-20180327-109196-1oh8wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212246/original/file-20180327-109196-1oh8wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212246/original/file-20180327-109196-1oh8wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212246/original/file-20180327-109196-1oh8wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212246/original/file-20180327-109196-1oh8wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212246/original/file-20180327-109196-1oh8wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ida B. Wells was a journalist who lead the first anti-lynching campaign in the United States. In 1892, she advocated that Black families own rifles to defend themselves.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://photoarchive.lib.uchicago.edu/db.xqy?one=apf1-08637.xml">(University of Chicago Photographic Archive, (apf1-08637), Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Frederick Douglass opposed this view and at the <a href="http://coloredconventions.org/files/original/73369fab9bb261275b57276ccbdbded2.pdf">1843 National Convention of Colored Citizens narrowly won the majority vote against it</a>. Soon though, Douglass shifted his position to favour the use of direct action against slavery while maintaining his belief in the unity of the United States.</p>
<p>Frustrated by government abdication of its duty to protect Blacks from the Jim Crow lynchings, the famous Ida B. Wells urged that “…<a href="http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=3&psid=3614">a rifle should have a place of honour in every Black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give</a>.” </p>
<h2>Killmonger reflects his environment</h2>
<p>As a special op in the U.S. army, Killmonger, née N'Jadaka (but also known as Erik Stevens), mastered the use of the rifle. There is a significant revolutionary symbolism to all this. <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/ida-b-wells-9527635">Ida B. Wells</a> applauded Black men who avoided being lynched because they armed themselves with the Winchester rifle. </p>
<p>Killmonger’s adoption of the violent revolutionary method also parallels revolutionary philosopher and Pan-Africanist <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=BdVRpzeA47YC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">Frantz Fanon.</a> Both of their experiences <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/fanon/#H1">participating as soldiers in violent national liberation struggles</a> shaped their dispositions to consider violence instrumental to physical and psychological liberation. </p>
<p>Erik Stevens grew up an orphan, experienced tough inner-city teen life and suffered racism and oppression. He was also roiled by what he felt was the needlessness of Blacks’ sufferings as he was aware of the technologically advanced Black Wakanda and their isolationist policy of not intervening to liberate other Blacks. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212262/original/file-20180327-109190-13jwx8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212262/original/file-20180327-109190-13jwx8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212262/original/file-20180327-109190-13jwx8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212262/original/file-20180327-109190-13jwx8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212262/original/file-20180327-109190-13jwx8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212262/original/file-20180327-109190-13jwx8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212262/original/file-20180327-109190-13jwx8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Killmonger’s ideas reflect historical debates around Black liberation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Marvel/Disney)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Killmonger responds to a history which tyrannized him and left him with no hope of remedy. His choice of method reflects his environment and his association with working class and unemployed Black people.</p>
<p>Like Marcus Garvey, the radical Black nationalist and pan-Africanist leader of UNIA, a back-to-Africa movement, Killmonger envisions an African empire led by technologically advanced Wakanda that straddles the Atlantic and that sends out liberation squads to turn the table of hegemony on the powers that oppress the Blacks. </p>
<p>Garvey, who pioneered this inverted hegemony idea, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=QmMIAzoVt80C&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=marcus+garvey+is,+without+doubt,+the+most+dangerous+enemy+of+the+Negro&source=bl&ots=sbQ5j-cHvA&sig=brp76N3OCz6D6_XQGp4VkN1rFPo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwik2Znb7IzaAhXH6oMKHUtkAGIQ6AEIMjAC#v=onepage&q=marcus%20garvey%20is%2C%20without%20doubt%2C%20the%20most%20dangerous%20enemy%20of%20the%20Negro&f=false">was vilified as a lunatic and dangerous by the popular Black leader, W.E.B. Du Bois</a>. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Garvey was ahead of other Black leaders of his time in rousing the popular masses, gaining their allegiance and devising cross-continental structures and ventures to help in his audacious plans to create an economically self-sufficient and militarily powerful Black empire to liberate all Blacks.</p>
<p>We should also note that Killmonger operated only within a delimited historical moment. He is not absolute. His choice of method cannot be the absolute solution either. </p>
<h2>Remember Malcolm X and MLK</h2>
<p>Neither Malcolm X nor Martin Luther King Jr. and their choices of method for liberation achieved that status either. Indeed, both contradictorily held aspects of the other’s strategy. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/01/14/martin-luther-king-jr-met-malcolm-x-just-once-the-photo-still-haunts-us-with-what-was-lost/?utm_term=.27873cb6c134">Malcolm X came around to modify his strategy. He eventually accepted the unity of all oppressed across colour lines. Before his death, he manifested the possibility that hate and love could follow each other serially as underpinnings for liberation</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212254/original/file-20180327-109193-s1iub9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212254/original/file-20180327-109193-s1iub9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212254/original/file-20180327-109193-s1iub9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212254/original/file-20180327-109193-s1iub9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212254/original/file-20180327-109193-s1iub9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212254/original/file-20180327-109193-s1iub9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212254/original/file-20180327-109193-s1iub9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">During months of anti-segregation campaigns in Albany, Georgia, Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested by Albany’s chief of police, Laurie Pritchett, after praying at City Hall in July 1962.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rev. King, while maintaining his faith in “militant, powerful, massive, non-violence,” said that he would not condemn civil right riots. King said <a href="http://www.gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/mlk-gp-speech.pdf">“a riot is the language of the unheard” and that “America …has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met.</a>” Even Mohandas K. Gandhi was emphatic that those unable to protect themselves by facing death with non-violence “<a href="https://www.mkgandhi.org/nonviolence/phil8.htm">may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor.</a>” </p>
<p>Douglass before them also changed his position from advocating moral suasion to a more robust political activism and violent resistance to preserve freedom won by fugitive enslaved.</p>
<p>Thus, Killmonger’s character addresses the problem of Black liberation. His presence challenges the power of popular media and the hegemonic ruling opinion to dictate the acceptable methods to obtain Black freedom. The idea of Killmonger highlights the power of a global ethos to legitimate or delegitimate these choices.</p>
<p>The shallow development of Killmonger’s character in the movie subverts the universal scope of his liberation plans as well as his character’s ability to bring conversations of historical Black liberation figures together.</p>
<p>Black leaders and their revolutionary strategies like those of Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, South Africa’s ANC and PAC, Mandela’s <em>Mkhonto we Sizwe</em>, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. all accomplished transformations in their societies. Their methods, conflicting and sometimes contradictory, provided answers over a stretch of time to different aspects of the big problem of liberation. </p>
<p>Each method fulfilled its role at auspicious moments that supported its popularity among significant sections of the oppressed Blacks. The simultaneous relevance and application of these conflicting methods in those struggles is evidence that no single method was sufficient for the purpose. </p>
<p>There has always been a Killmonger in the history of Black liberation struggles, and while history may not repeat itself, history often rhymes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93543/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>History Department
University of Guelph, Guelph, On. Canada.
I have in the past received research funding from Canada's Social Science and Humanities Research Council</span></em></p>The lead villain of Black Panther is a complex character who represents years of conflicting debates among African American leaders about how to achieve Black liberation.Femi Kolapo, Associate Professor, African History, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/914682018-02-15T16:08:48Z2018-02-15T16:08:48Z‘Black Panther’ roars. Are we listening?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206499/original/file-20180215-124886-18xcxrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Letitia Wright in _Black Panther_. Popular discussions about the movie demonstrate a desire for representation in commercial media. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Marvel/Disney)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Marvel Studios’ <em>Black Panther</em>, opening tonight in theatres across Canada and the United States, is pretty much guaranteed to be a hit. It <a href="http://deadline.com/2018/01/black-panther-advance-ticket-sales-record-fandango-superhero-movies-1202275304/">set records for advance ticket sales on Fandango</a>, its <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8099442/black-panther-soundtrack-number-1-debut-billboard-200">soundtrack album debuted in the No. 1 spot on the Billboard charts</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/comic-riffs/wp/2018/02/13/black-panther-is-now-on-track-to-be-the-biggest-february-opening-ever/">industry estimates point to opening-weekend revenues as high as US$170 million</a>. </p>
<p>Director Ryan Coogler and star Chadwick Boseman appeared on the cover of the industry trade magazine <a href="http://variety.com/2018/film/features/black-panther-chadwick-boseman-ryan-coogler-interview-1202686402"><em>Variety</em></a>, while <a href="http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/black-panther-michael-b-jordan-cover"><em>British GQ</em></a> styled actor Michael B. Jordan to recall Black Panther Party activists. The red-carpet premiere <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-panther-honouring-the-legacy-of-black-style-91067">made a splash on celebrity and fashion blogs</a>, and it’s <a href="http://variety.com/2018/digital/news/black-panther-twitter-record-2018-1202695436/">the most-tweeted-about film of the year</a>. Marvel’s had big hits before. But this feels like something different.</p>
<h2>Ahead of its time</h2>
<p>The Black Panther, also known as King T’Challa of Wakanda, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Panther-comic-book-character">was created as a comic book hereo in 1966</a> by artist Jack Kirby and writer/editor Stan Lee. Although considered the first Black superhero in American comics, this is not the first time we’ve seen a Black superhero in the cinema. Comedian Robert Townsend gave us Meteor Man in 1993, Shaquille O’Neal portrayed the DC Comics character Steel in 1997 and Wesley Snipes starred as Blade the Vampire Hunter in three films beginning in 1998.</p>
<p>This is, however, the first Black-led superhero film since comic book movies became, in the words of <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=r4zdBwAAQBAJ">Liam Burke</a>, “modern Hollywood’s leading genre.” </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206496/original/file-20180215-124890-6v5s6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206496/original/file-20180215-124890-6v5s6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206496/original/file-20180215-124890-6v5s6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206496/original/file-20180215-124890-6v5s6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206496/original/file-20180215-124890-6v5s6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206496/original/file-20180215-124890-6v5s6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206496/original/file-20180215-124890-6v5s6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cover, <em>Black Panther (2016)</em> #1.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Grand Comics Database</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Much as T’Challa’s first appearance in print — in the <em>Fantastic Four</em> issue #52 in July 1966 — predated the founding of the Black Panther Party by a few months; the decision to bring him to the silver screen 50 years later ran ahead of major shifts in the discourse about diversity and representation in the entertainment industries. </p>
<p>The project was announced as part of Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in October 2014, a few months before <a href="http://www.reignofapril.com">April Reign</a> launched the hashtag <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=%23OscarsSoWhite">#OscarsSoWhite</a> to draw attention to the racialized economy of recognition in Hollywood, and more than a year before the <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=%23whitewashedOUT">#whitewashedOUT</a> campaign focused on the casting of white actors in roles written as Asian or Asian-American. It came before <em>Moonlight’s</em> dramatic win for Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards.</p>
<p>Sight still unseen by most, <em>Black Panther</em> has been embraced as a triumphant rejoinder in our long, difficult conversations about race and the legacies of colonialism and slavery. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/magazine/why-black-panther-is-a-defining-moment-for-black-america.html"><em>The New York Times Magazine</em></a> hails it as a “defining moment for black America,” while <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/the-black-panther-revolution-ishere/article37967876/"><em>the Globe and Mail</em></a> says its treatment of the Black experience “resonates across the diaspora.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206493/original/file-20180215-124909-1p63jic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206493/original/file-20180215-124909-1p63jic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206493/original/file-20180215-124909-1p63jic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206493/original/file-20180215-124909-1p63jic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206493/original/file-20180215-124909-1p63jic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206493/original/file-20180215-124909-1p63jic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206493/original/file-20180215-124909-1p63jic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael B Jordan and Chadwick Boseman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Marvel/Disney)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a short video clip I first encountered on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H97GhLWZR8">Twitter</a>, three young men admire the film’s poster, exclaiming, “This is what y’all feel all the time? I would love this country, too.” Activists, educators and scholars from racialized communities have long raised concerns about <a href="http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/2286/3017">under-representation and stereotyping in the media</a> and <a href="http://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/Media-Impact-onLives-of-Black-Men-and-Boys-OppAgenda.pdf">their impact on self-esteem and identity</a>.</p>
<p>While it is difficult to draw a direct, causal line from watching a movie to an improved sense of self-worth or well-being, it is undeniable that <em>Black Panther</em> —with its nearly all-Black cast, stylish use of hip-hop, lush costuming, and setting in the proudly uncolonized, technologically advanced nation of Wakanda —is giving <a href="http://annenberg.usc.edu/sites/default/files/Dr_Stacy_L_Smith-Inequality_in_900_Popular_Films.pdf">many of us who have felt under-served by Hollywood</a> a language with which to speak our aspirations.</p>
<h2>Box office politics</h2>
<p>While echoing the broad picture of under-representation, <a href="http://bunchecenter.pre.ss.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/82/2016/02/2016-Hollywood-Diversity-Report-2-25-16.pdf">research conducted by Darnell Hunt, Ana-Christina Ramón and Michael Tran at UCLA’s Ralph Bunche Centre for African American Studies</a> also points to the positive incentives towards diversity. Canada and the U.S., which together make up the “domestic” film market, are becoming more diverse, and young people, who are the biggest purchasers of cinema tickets, are the most diverse of all. </p>
<p>As a result, according to Hunt, Ramón and Tran, films with diverse casts have higher global box returns and higher returns on investment. In a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/movies/black-panther-marvel-chadwick-boseman-ryan-coogler-lupita-nyongo.html"><em>New York Times</em> roundtable</a>, Coogler suggested that commercial media production provided a space that could harmonize marginalized communities’ aspirations for representation with economic imperatives:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They say it’s the studio system, but it’s really the people system. It’s who’s running the studio? How are they running it? When you look at Disney with [Tendo Nagenda, executive vice president for production at Walt Disney Studios, and Nate Moore, a producer at Marvel Studios and an executive producer of “Black Panther”], it’s a place that’s interested in representation, not just for the sake of representation, but representation because that’s what works, that’s what’s going to make quality stuff that the world is going to embrace, that’s what leads to success.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206501/original/file-20180215-124890-f48x55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206501/original/file-20180215-124890-f48x55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206501/original/file-20180215-124890-f48x55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206501/original/file-20180215-124890-f48x55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206501/original/file-20180215-124890-f48x55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206501/original/file-20180215-124890-f48x55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206501/original/file-20180215-124890-f48x55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The studio’s embrace of diversity may be sincere but it is also strategic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Marvel/Disney)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Black Panther</em> is a case in point. Coogler and his stars speak movingly about the experience of making this film and what it means to them as African-Americans with more or less immediate connections to Africa. But, at the same time, the studio’s embrace of diversity is also a highly strategic move — 18 films into their mega-franchise. </p>
<p>While some critics have begun to call out the ossifying house style of “Marvel movies,” Coogler (like Taika Waititi, director of the recent <em>Thor: Ragnarok</em>) brings a distinctive aesthetic sensibility and critical reputation to bear. The studio may have gambled that the Black film-goers who supported recent films like <em>Hidden Figures</em> and <em>Get Out</em> would pick up the slack as producers reach deeper and deeper into Marvel Comics’ catalogue for characters with less existing brand recognition.</p>
<p>We have yet to see if the <a href="http://deadline.com/2018/02/black-panther-african-american-films-foreign-box-office-1202286475/">increasingly vital international audiences — often rhetorically brought up by studio executives as the obstacle to more diverse casting — will also respond positively</a>?</p>
<p>Marvel Studios and Disney did not make <em>Black Panther</em> in order to say something about race in America. It is, rather, a product designed to fit into a series, offering familiar pleasures with enough difference to keep the whole franchise interesting. </p>
<p>Yet, it arrives at a moment of possibility. Creators involved in its production, at the studio and on set, as well as audiences, have transformed it into a referendum on representation. </p>
<p>Putting different faces on movie screens will not solve all our problems, yet the <em>Black Panther</em> phenomenon demonstrates that people are crying out for chances to see themselves and their communities portrayed with dignity and diversity —as heroes, villains and everyone in between. Will the executives who control the purse strings listen ?</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fsT5SyBLlIg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">(Marvel/Disney)</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91468/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Woo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Black Panther arrives at a moment of possibility. Its popularity demonstrates that people are crying out for chances to see themselves and their communities portrayed with dignity—as heroes.Benjamin Woo, Assistant Professor, Carleton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/910672018-02-12T23:17:05Z2018-02-12T23:17:05ZBlack Panther: Honouring the legacy of Black style<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205759/original/file-20180209-51719-ghlol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The release of Black Panther provides the opportunity to honour the many contributions of Black style to North American fashion.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Marvel)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One knows that something is touching a nerve in North American culture when a foreign luxury car company wants a piece of the pie. The movie <em>Black Panther</em> is that type of archetypical popular culture milestone. </p>
<p>The film has generated a <a href="http://time.com/black-panther/">widespread sense of optimism.</a> No wonder Lexus invested heavily in <em>Black Panther</em>’s production — in hopes that the movie’s popularity may lift car sales. </p>
<p>The timing of <em>Black Panther</em> couldn’t be better either. It’s Black History Month in Canada and the United States and disappointment over the <a href="http://variety.com/2018/tv/columns/golden-globes-2018-year-of-the-white-women-1202649927/">lack of African-American winners at the 2016 Oscars is still fresh</a> </p>
<p>Lexus aside, what has gathered a lot of <a href="http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/movies/st-louis-native-and-clothing-designer-says-black-panther-costumes/article_7c0ab9b7-6b9d-5f09-a7b2-97f08c86feb3.html">media traction about the movie relates to dress.</a> Both the costumes of the <em>Black Panther</em>’s characters and the styles worn by the actors at the film’s premiere <a href="https://thegrio.com/2018/02/09/find-outfit-black-panther-premiere/">have become a popular focus</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BelGocAn8-d/?taken-by=davidoyelowo","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>There are several other culturally significant aspects about the movie, of course. Chief among them is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2018/02/09/its-going-to-change-hollywood-why-black-panther-will-mean-so-much-to-so-many/?utm_term=.e4103939bb17">the fact that Black Panther features the only Black protagonist superhero in the Marvels Comics universe</a>. </p>
<p>But dress style has long been one of few accessible forms of self-expression for North America’s marginalized groups. For the <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/danielle-james/the-illustrative-identity_b_6519244.html">African Diaspora in North America, dress has always had political connotations.</a> </p>
<h2>Black style politics</h2>
<p>For social groups that <a href="http://sites.psu.edu/comm292/wp-content/uploads/sites/5180/2014/10/FormanNeal-Thats_the_Joint_The_Hip_Hop_Studies_Readerbook.pdf">can’t access institutionalized forms of creative expression</a>, dress and personal style often become a form of political and cultural broadcasting. The immediacy of clothing and its perceived lack of pretension provides a visible and versatile canvas. For North American Black communities, style can also connect them to a cultural continuum that stretches all the way to Africa. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206051/original/file-20180212-58327-1qpofbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206051/original/file-20180212-58327-1qpofbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206051/original/file-20180212-58327-1qpofbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206051/original/file-20180212-58327-1qpofbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206051/original/file-20180212-58327-1qpofbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206051/original/file-20180212-58327-1qpofbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206051/original/file-20180212-58327-1qpofbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Brown, Milt (Milton) Jackson, and Timmie Rosenkrantz, Downbeat, New York, N.Y., ca. Sept. 1947.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/gottlieb/gottlieb-home.html">William P. Gottlieb Collection (Library of Congress)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In understanding how and why <em>Black Panther</em> entered our collective consciousness, it’s important to make a distinction between the film’s two strands of dress. On one hand we have dress as a fictionalized characterization; <a href="http://ew.com/movies/black-panther-costumes-behind-the-design/wakandas-best-dressed">the movie costumes.</a> On the other hand we have dress as celebrity-enabled commentary; <a href="http://variety.com/gallery/black-panther-red-carpet-premiere-photos/#!5/black-panther-film-premiere-arrivals-los-angeles-usa-29-jan-2018-7">the actor’s outfits during the film’s premiere.</a> </p>
<p>Both wardrobes represent related but distinct aspects of Black style’s linkage to identity, race and culture in North America. Within this context, both the political and social significance of Black style are important. But most important is the long overdue need to honour the many contributions of Black style to North American fashion.</p>
<h2>Black Panther’s dress codes</h2>
<p>Similar to other Marvel superheroes, Black Panther has a double life and matching outfits for each one of those lives. His supernatural persona is outfitted in a skintight, high-tech suit complete with a feline mask. When not on superhero duty, he wears dapper suits or African warrior regalia. Each of those outfits represents different strands of Black style. </p>
<p>Like Black Panther himself, supporting characters exist in three overlapping spaces; the U.S., the fictional African country of Wakanda and the legendary kingdom of Wakanda.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206023/original/file-20180212-58339-s0ubv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206023/original/file-20180212-58339-s0ubv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206023/original/file-20180212-58339-s0ubv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206023/original/file-20180212-58339-s0ubv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206023/original/file-20180212-58339-s0ubv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206023/original/file-20180212-58339-s0ubv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206023/original/file-20180212-58339-s0ubv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Like most superheroes, Black Panther leads a double life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Marvel)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Costumes worn by characters in each of these spaces capture complementary facets of <a href="http://www.vogue.co.uk/article/black-panther-costume-designer-ruth-e-carter">pan-African dress style across geographical, temporal and cosmological boundaries.</a> We see the expected Westernized dress of Wakanda — a front for the hidden Wakanda Kingdom. But when the action takes place in the kingdom of Wakanda, the overall aesthetic is <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/your-far-out-guide-to-afrofuturism-and-black-magic_us_5711403fe4b0060ccda34a37">Afrofuturistic</a>. </p>
<p>However disparate those realms, the overall visual ambience of the movie, including costumes, just flows. How is this even possible? Maybe visual culture from Africa defies stylistic, spatial and temporal demarcation. No wonder <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aima/hd_aima.htm">modernists used traditional African artifacts as a springboard to reinvigorate European art</a> styles. </p>
<p>Distinctions such as traditional and contemporary don’t apply to African cultural products, including dress. Instead there is a continuous process of concurrent celebration and improvement of ancestral themes and motives. The end result is a sort of permanent impermanence of artifacts and practices.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206024/original/file-20180212-58327-1pnmz2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206024/original/file-20180212-58327-1pnmz2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206024/original/file-20180212-58327-1pnmz2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206024/original/file-20180212-58327-1pnmz2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206024/original/file-20180212-58327-1pnmz2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206024/original/file-20180212-58327-1pnmz2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206024/original/file-20180212-58327-1pnmz2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A celebration of ancestral themes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Marvel)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This sensibility underpins the design of the costumes and the overall art direction of <em>Black Panther</em>. The result is a coherent depiction of several visions of African-ness taking place simultaneously. Slick and fluid as these filmic visions are, there is still a political undertone to it; <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/francis-tapon/why-are-image-of-africa-i_b_5345209.html">it challenges our uncomplicated ‘National Geographic’ understandings of Africa.</a></p>
<p>Take for example the <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2018/02/black-panther-natural-hair.html">hairstyles featured in the movie.</a> Black characters sport endless variations of natural hair; from bald to intricate braiding to dreadlocks and everything in between. And this is no small thing. </p>
<p>In Black style, especially Black style in North America, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199831.Hair_Story">hair is a contentious topic</a>. In this context, natural Black hair has connotations that range from racist implications of backwardness to empowerment to <a href="https://ca.style.yahoo.com/boy-braided-hair-violated-dress-code-mom-switched-schools-031708298.html">militant attitudes</a>. </p>
<h2><em>Black Panther</em> live</h2>
<p>Connected to the time-bending quality of the film was the decision by the cast to appear wearing Afrocentric outfits during <em>Black Panther</em>’s world premiere. It was a display of homage to the celebration of African style and beauty manifest in the movie. It also demonstrated the diversity and timeless quality of African style.</p>
<p>For example, there was a nod to ancient Egyptian dress in the pleated and bejeweled outfit worn by Lupita Nyong’o. While Danai Gurira’s ensemble pays tribute to jazz age Black divas, Angela Bassett’s look evokes Afrofuturistic styles. Clearly this was all mindfully orchestrated.</p>
<p>Because of these dress codes, the premiere worked to as a real-life prolongation of the premises of the film. Simultaneously, it visualized how the influence of Black style pervades every corner of North American dress culture. From costumes for show business performers to colourful sportswear and streetwear, Black style is discernible everywhere. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BeqL0g7jare/?taken-by=lupitanyongo","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Perhaps Black style is one of the key ingredients of that distinctive flavour of fashion that is North American style. Take for example that <a href="http://www.complex.com/style/2015/06/hip-hop-style-fresh-dressed-documentary/">uniquely North American export called cool</a>. It originated in predominantly Black urban communities before it became a mainstream staple of style.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the evolution of Black style in North America and its influences to mainstream fashion can be readily traced. It starts with <a href="https://www.cnn.com/style/article/black-dandy-art-exhibition/index.html">19th century Black dandies that crystallized into the ‘New Negro’ style of the early 20th century</a>. From there it forks into several streams <a href="https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/16/black-dandies-style-rebels-with-a-cause/">that includes conformity,</a>rebellion, tradition and innovation. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206084/original/file-20180212-58318-1vgsp4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206084/original/file-20180212-58318-1vgsp4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206084/original/file-20180212-58318-1vgsp4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206084/original/file-20180212-58318-1vgsp4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206084/original/file-20180212-58318-1vgsp4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206084/original/file-20180212-58318-1vgsp4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206084/original/file-20180212-58318-1vgsp4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Thelonious Monk, Minton’s Playhouse, New York, N.Y., ca. Sept. 1947.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/gottlieb/gottlieb-home.html">William P. Gottlieb Collection (Library of Congress)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Black Panther</em> conveys all the complexities of Black style. It is a vehicle for asserting cultural significance and enabling identity in a culturally hostile environment. Symbolically the movie also transmits the struggle inherent to this process. </p>
<p>Black Panther’s popularity then begs the question: Is our society finally ready to fully recognise the contributions of Black style to North American fashion?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry Navarro Delgado receives funding from Ontario Provincial Goverment. </span></em></p>The hype around the costumes in the film Black Panther shows a need to recognize the legacy of Black style in mainstream fashion.Henry Navarro Delgado, Associate Professor of Fashion, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.