tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/black-panther-27112/articles
Black Panther – The Conversation
2023-12-28T06:02:31Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219232
2023-12-28T06:02:31Z
2023-12-28T06:02:31Z
Black Panther, Wakanda Forever and the problem with Hollywood – an African perspective
<p><em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/">Black Panther</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9114286/">Black Panther: Wakanda Forever</a> were global hits that played out in an imaginary African kingdom and feature a universe of black creative talent. What’s not to love about the franchise? <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17533171.2023.2256514?casa_token=_9fDNeT6IQMAAAAA%3AJeGd5d6nr3wYao8GUbCBWBr-O3mg6KdYOjxOpPqSMABFfKkZpfJWI4oPpI-Q9_W-1lUSoFPBL7KKI7w">Quite a lot</a>, <a href="https://find.library.unisa.edu.au/discovery/fulldisplay/alma9916619232601831/61USOUTHAUS_INST:ROR">reckons</a> cultural and literary studies <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Jeanne-Marie+Viljoen&btnG=">scholar</a> Jeanne-Marie Viljoen. We asked her to explain.</em></p>
<h2>What are Black Panther’s limitations when it comes to diversity?</h2>
<p>Even though the Black Panther films didn’t represent Africans on their own complex terms, they’re still a major cultural phenomenon. They bring issues of racial representation into the spotlight for Hollywood’s still largely white audiences. They do so through the use of Black talent, both in front of and behind the camera. </p>
<p>In the first film, the black superhero, T'Challa, is crowned king of Wakanda, a mythical African kingdom with advanced technological prowess. Drama ensues when he is challenged by Killmonger, who plans to use the kingdom’s power to begin a global revolution. In the sequel, the leaders of Wakanda fight to protect their nation and its valuable resources in the wake of King T'Challa’s death as his sister Shuri becomes the new Black Panther. </p>
<p>The first film was a phenomenal box office success, with over half of its sales coming from the US market. The sequel, although not quite as successful, was most successful in global markets. It’s my view that Hollywood’s investment in these films is driven by a narrow western definition of spectacle. US audiences marvel at the visual spectacle that entertains and sells. This has the effect of distancing them from the actual content of what they are viewing (Africa and diversity).</p>
<p>It is not so much because of the films themselves, but because of how they have been received by Hollywood audiences who understand spectacle in a very particular way. So films like Black Panther have in some ways been counterproductive. They’ve made Hollywood audiences believe that enough has been done about diversity. The 2019 Hollywood Diversity <a href="https://socialsciences.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/UCLA-Hollywood-Diversity-Report-2019-2-21-2019.pdf">report</a> singles out Black Panther as a good example of how the power of diverse images has convinced a significant number of American film spectators (42%) that <a href="https://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1021-14972022000100002">enough has been done</a> about diversity in Hollywood. So it’s making matters worse, instead of helping to increase diversity and ultimately decolonise the US mainstream imagination. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Z3QKkl1WyM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>This suggests that Hollywood spectators are lulled by such films and their spectacle. They don’t feel there’s further reason to find out any more about Africa and African film-making or audiences. This means Hollywood audiences are not invested in a more nuanced understanding of the kind of spectacle we see from Nollywood audiences in Nigeria, for example. This not only limits the understanding of diversity but also limits the way that films about such topics are made.</p>
<h2>What can Hollywood learn from how the films have been received in Africa?</h2>
<p>While the <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1210704/black-panthers-african-cultures-and-influences">costumes</a> of Black Panther draw from various authentic African cultures, this is just an appropriation of some of the most popular visual aspects of some African cultures (such as lip plates and neck rings). In the sequel, critics <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-panther-wakanda-forever-reclaims-the-myth-of-an-african-utopia-195157">point out</a> that the average (presumably American) viewer won’t know that the language being spoken in the film is isiXhosa, a South African language, or that some of the garments are made with Ghanaian Kente cloth and designs. Since Africa is a continent of over 50 countries that are diverse culturally and geographically, this “borrowing” could suggest that their cultural markers are shared and interchangeable. Real empowerment only <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341195304_Black_Panther_and_Blaxploitation_Intersections">comes about</a> with more “direct engagement with African political and social issues” and less emphasis on profit. </p>
<p>Yet, despite these inaccurate and inauthentic displays of Africa, in Nigeria, Wakanda Forever performed better than it did in the Hollywood domestic market, relatively speaking. It became the biggest grossing film ever at the Nigerian box office, the <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/04/black-panther-wakanda-forever-box-office-profits-1235320190/">first film</a> to earn one billion naira. This is because Nollywood audiences have a more nuanced reading of spectacle and how politics and entertainment come together than Hollywood audiences do. </p>
<p>Nollywood has developed its own conventions around cinematic spectacle which Hollywood largely neglects. According to these conventions the audience engages with socio-cultural and socio-economic issues in a way that exceeds merely visual displays. So, a Nollywood blockbuster includes both visual spectacle and a reflection of the lived conditions and social issues that Nigerian people face. Some academics <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17533171.2019.1551739">argue</a> that for African audiences, Afro-superheroes are not just visual spectacles but are also embedded in political and social issues. They offer ways of understanding the world today. This explains why, in African criticism, Wakanda has become a potential resource for imaginative transformation, rather than merely escapism. </p>
<p>This may explain why, despite its unrealistic portrayal of Africans, in Nigeria the film has been popular. It has been interpreted through the sophisticated lens of Nollywood spectacle. Wakanda Forever tackles political issues, even though it does so in a limited way. For Hollywood audiences the spectacle stops deeper engagement with politics. In Nollywood this engagement with politics is something people are comfortable with and want to make more of. They use this to build knowledge about African futurism and engage in political knowledge building.</p>
<h2>Why should Hollywood look to Africa for a better future?</h2>
<p>Hollywood should <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17533171.2023.2256514">look to Africa</a> in order to expand and decolonise what Hollywood envisions cinema can do in relation to building knowledge about diversity and film-making. In focusing mainly on a Hollywood audience and largely ignoring African audiences, Hollywood not only makes its audience believe that the limited headway that this film makes with inclusion and diversity is enough. It also fails to exploit African audiences both for their appetite for films but also for what can be learnt about inclusion and film-making from their more complex understanding of diversity politics and cinematic spectacle. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/black-people-beware-dont-let-black-panther-joy-mask-hollywoods-racism-93095">Black people beware: don't let Black Panther joy mask Hollywood's racism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This limits the kinds of social problems Hollywood audiences can solve and also the films that Hollywood can make. This is unfortunate when one <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43821507">considers</a> Africa’s global authority in the arts and when one observes that Africa boasts several robust cinema industries of its own. If African audiences were taken into account by Hollywood then Hollywood could do more for diversity and inclusion instead of repeating the same old, tired spectacle we are used to seeing in Hollywood superhero films.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219232/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeanne-Marie Viljoen 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>
There’s a big difference between how Hollywood audiences view Black Panther and how African audiences do.
Jeanne-Marie Viljoen, Lecturer, Creative Unit, UniSA, University of South Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219227
2023-12-22T07:34:29Z
2023-12-22T07:34:29Z
Hollywood’s first major Black female superhero: how Wakanda Forever broke the mould
<p><em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9114286/">Black Panther: Wakanda Forever</a> rewrote Hollywood’s script for superhero movies. English professor Diana Adesola Mafe was involved in an academic <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17533171.2023.2256530">roundtable</a> that offers a critical conversation about it and another film set in an African kingdom, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8093700/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Woman King</a>. She <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17533171.2023.2256529?casa_token=Hxo2L9mLZYYAAAAA%3Al0YdqYcIXaZ2KaqNoW6m_IRfDzeozewbbNeKxZ-xUsHgM_JeVmJ8ez59GdUTlp1jz2SDvZgzM5OEFbk">argues</a> that Wakanda Forever is a breakthrough film. We asked her why.</em></p>
<h2>Why are these two films such talking points?</h2>
<p>As big budget productions with Black female heroes, The Woman King and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever invite discussion and debate about Hollywood representations of Africa and the kinds of roles that women and girls can and should play. They lend themselves to discussing topics ranging from the importance of historical accuracy to the power of imagining alternative histories and fantastical futures.</p>
<h2>Why is Wakanda Forever important to you?</h2>
<p>One of my primary <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Diana+Adesola+Mafe&oq=diana">research areas</a> is the representation of Black women in literature and popular culture. My 2018 <a href="https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477315231/">book</a> Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before: Subversive Portrayals in Speculative Film and TV is precisely about Black women in science fiction and fantasy roles. I am always on the look-out for films that push boundaries, challenge stereotypes, and put Black women at the centre of the story.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Z3QKkl1WyM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Wakanda Forever does that by presenting a superhero action flick headlined by Black women. The film is set in the fictional African kingdom of Wakanda, where the people are mourning the death of their king and fighting to defend their land and resources, especially the powerful metal vibranium, from world powers.</p>
<p>It’s the first Hollywood film to showcase Black female superheroes on such an epic scale, backed by a US$250 million budget and the global reach of a juggernaut like Marvel Studios. The <a href="https://thedirect.com/article/disney-black-panther-wakanda-forever-posters-official">posters</a> alone tell viewers that this film is doing something different. </p>
<p>Of course the film is not perfect, and director <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3363032/">Ryan Coogler</a> has been <a href="https://theplaylist.net/wakanda-forever-ryan-coogler-original-script-featured-father-son-dynamic-post-thanos-snap-20221223/">open</a> about the fact that he originally set out to make a completely different and male-centered film. The <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53955912">untimely death</a> of the original Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman called for an overhaul of the script and the reveal of Shuri, played by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4004793/">Letitia Wright</a>, as the new Black Panther. But the film’s production history does not change its status as a pioneer for Black female representation, especially in the genre of superhero cinema.</p>
<h2>You discuss “the act of looking” in your paper. Tell us about that.</h2>
<p>One of the lasting presumptions of early Hollywood movies was that the audience was white. To put this another way, few film-makers were catering to Black viewers and fewer still imagined Black women as a primary audience. This has changed over time, but the notion of a default white male gaze both on and off screen often remains implicit in western cinema. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/black-panther-wakanda-forever-continues-the-series-quest-to-recover-and-celebrate-lost-cultures-193508">'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' continues the series' quest to recover and celebrate lost cultures</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A film like Wakanda Forever is intentional about inviting Black spectatorship and showcasing Black women as active players who drive the plot and whose gazes are bold, instead of averted or downplayed. The Black female characters in the film constantly look back at the viewer by way of the camera, as well as at one another, defying a western cinematic tradition of marginalising and objectifying Black women.</p>
<h2>Is Hollywood’s diversity problem getting better or not really?</h2>
<p>The short answer is yes and no. If you consider that the US film industry goes back over a century, then yes, we’re seeing more diversity in front of and behind the camera, not just in terms of race and gender but also ethnicity, sexuality, age, and so on. Wakanda Forever would have been an unlikely blockbuster or Oscar contender 20 or even 10 years ago. Thanks to the first <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/">Black Panther</a> film, Hollywood is now aware that an all-Black superhero movie can gross over a billion dollars and win Academy Awards. </p>
<p>But the success of a single film or even a handful of films does not mean a wider shift in the industry. For example, Marvel just released <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10676048/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Marvels</a>, its first film by a Black female director, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4804442/">Nia DaCosta</a>, but that does not change the fact that Black women are underrepresented in the industry. </p>
<p>Organisations such the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have <a href="https://www.oscars.org/news/academy-establishes-representation-and-inclusion-standards-oscarsr-eligibility">offered</a> new (and controversial) strategies and standards in terms of equity and access. Starting in 2024, films must meet diversity targets in areas like “on-screen representation, themes and narratives” and “audience development” to be eligible for a Best Picture Oscar. And hashtags like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/story/what-is-the-significance-of-the-oscarssowhite-hashtag#:%7E:text=Twitter%20user%20and%20activist%20April,being%20given%20to%20white%20actors.">#OscarsSoWhite</a>, as well as academic studies like the UCLA <a href="https://socialsciences.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/UCLA-Hollywood-Diversity-Report-2022-Film-3-24-2022.pdf">Hollywood Diversity Report</a>, continue to track progress but also ongoing challenges where Hollywood’s diversity problem is concerned.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219227/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diana Adesola Mafe 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>
Few film-makers imagined Black women as a primary audience. This has changed over time.
Diana Adesola Mafe, Professor of English, Denison University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/208557
2023-06-29T15:03:50Z
2023-06-29T15:03:50Z
Listen — Indiana Jones’s last ride: A legacy to celebrate or bury?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534185/original/file-20230626-19-s9axwz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=36%2C1%2C1257%2C721&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' comes out in theatres on June 30. The fifth in a series over 42 years, many of its originating ideas are taken from 19th-century racist archaeology. Will this iteration be different?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Walt Disney Pictures)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/8f4853b0-cd33-48af-9d8a-77c625f697b0?dark=true"></iframe>
<p>I love watching a good adventure movie, especially at the start of summer. I have some great memories of eating popcorn in the local suburban movie theatre while we watched aliens take over a spaceship or a group of kids hunt for long-lost treasure in an underground cave.</p>
<p>At the same time, even as a kid, I remember thinking how awful some of the racial and gender stereotypes were. </p>
<p>I specifically remember watching <em>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom</em> and cringing at the representations onscreen, especially, the <a href="https://scroll.in/reel/805944/temple-of-doom-is-the-indiana-jones-movie-that-indians-wont-forget-in-a-hurry">ruthless and flat-dimensioned South Asian characters and the ridiculous idea that Indians ate monkey brains</a> — and then there was little Short Round, Indy’s child guide and sidekick played by the young Ke Huy Quan.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534382/original/file-20230627-23-73q8up.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The late Amrish Puri played the critically acclaimed villain in ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Lucas Films)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the series, filmmakers George Lucas and Steven Spielberg showcased nostalgia for the early mid-century with Indiana Jones, the humanitarian Hunter College professor turned adventurer at the centre. Indy outran all kinds of harrows to ensure the ancient artifacts he chased ended up where he thought they belonged: “in a museum.” (Another now famous line is from <em>Black Panther</em> when Erik Killmonger asks a museum curator: “How do you think your ancestors got these?”)</p>
<h2>Guilty pleasure or irredeemable Orientalism?</h2>
<p>Well, the final Indiana Jones movie, <em>Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny</em> is coming out tomorrow, 42 years after the first movie was released. </p>
<p>As the series comes to an end, we explore Indy’s complicated legacy — and his famous line: “it belongs in a museum.” </p>
<p>Will <em>Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny</em> reflect the changes in anthropology departments and <a href="https://theconversation.com/museums-are-returning-indigenous-human-remains-but-progress-on-repatriating-objects-is-slow-67378">the growing movements from Indigenous</a> and Global South communities to return <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-accurately-portray-histories-museums-need-to-do-more-than-reimagine-galleries-189109">stolen objects and ancestors from western museums</a>? Will it consider that <a href="https://theconversation.com/protecting-heritage-is-a-human-right-99501">Eurocentric notions of what holds heritage has finally expanded beyond the artifact</a>?</p>
<p>Will this new movie be full of highly problematic stories? Or a guilty pleasure? Or, can it be both?</p>
<p>Historian Christopher Heaney has spent a lot of time thinking about this. He’s written a book <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780230112049/cradleofgold">about the “original” Indiana Jones</a> and wrote <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/burying-indiana-jones">“Burying Indiana Jones” for <em>The New Yorker</em></a>. He’s a professor of Latin American History at Penn State University and he joined me on <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/indiana-joness-last-ride-a-legacy-to-celebrate-or-bury"><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a> — our last episode of the season, and just in time for summer blockbuster season — to unpack everything Indiana Jones.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rcN_InsZCKY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘How do you think your ancestors got these?’ ‘Black Panther’ offers a response to ‘it belongs in a museum.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Read more</h2>
<p><a href="https://mronline.org/2023/05/04/indiana-jones-hollywoods-chief-colonial-pilferer-is-back/">“Indiana Jones, Hollywood’s chief colonial pilferer, is back”</a> (<em>Monthly Review</em>)</p>
<p><em><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/empires-of-the-dead-9780197542552?cc=ca&lang=en&">Empires of the Dead</a></em> by Christopher Heaney (Oxford University Press)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/how-to-fake-an-alien-mummy/535251/">“The Racism Behind Alien Mummy Hoaxes”</a> (<em>The Atlantic</em>)</p>
<p><a href="https://blackgirlnerds.com/it-does-not-belong-in-a-museum-indiana-jones-colonizer-legacy/">“It does not belong in a museum”</a> (<em>Black Girl Nerds</em>)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.newarab.com/features/can-indiana-jones-overcome-its-orientalist-past">“Can Indiana Jones overcome its Orientalist past?”</a> (<em>The New Arab</em>)</p>
<p><em><a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807837153/decolonizing-museums/">Decolonizing Museums</a></em> by Amy Lonetree (UNC Press)</p>
<h2>From The Conversation</h2>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-accurately-portray-histories-museums-need-to-do-more-than-reimagine-galleries-189109">To accurately portray histories, museums need to do more than ‘reimagine’ galleries</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/benin-bronzes-what-is-the-significance-of-their-repatriation-to-nigeria-171444">Benin bronzes: What is the significance of their repatriation to Nigeria?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/protecting-heritage-is-a-human-right-99501">Protecting heritage is a human right</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/belize-shows-how-local-engagement-is-key-in-repatriating-cultural-artifacts-from-abroad-171363">Belize shows how local engagement is key in repatriating cultural artifacts from abroad</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/museums-are-returning-indigenous-human-remains-but-progress-on-repatriating-objects-is-slow-67378">Museums are returning indigenous human remains but progress on repatriating objects is slow</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Our recs: Kids adventure movies/shows</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUTtJjV852c&ab_channel=ParamountPictures"><em>Dora the Explorer and the Lost City of Gold</em></a></li>
<li><a href="https://animatedviews.com/2019/director-juan-antin-talks-about-pachamama-on-netflix/"><em>Pachamama</em></a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/81023618"><em>Finding Ohana</em></a></li>
<li><a href="https://etcanada.com/news/951562/mira-nair-on-the-non-white-america-in-national-treasure-edge-of-history-love-it/"><em>National Treasure: Edge of History</em></a></li>
</ul>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eQfMbSe7F2g?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Lucas Films) ‘You’ve taken your chances, made your mistakes, and now, a final triump,’ Phoebe Walter-Bridge says to Jones.</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208557/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The final Indiana Jones movie is coming out June 30. The fifth in a series over 42 years, many of its ideas are taken from 19th-century orientalist and racist archaeology.
Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195987
2022-12-27T07:56:44Z
2022-12-27T07:56:44Z
Afrobeats in 2022: global mobility, election songs, placemaking albums – and Tems
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499522/original/file-20221207-26-xvx42e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nigerian star Tems performs at the Glastonbury Festival in the UK in 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jim Dyson/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-nollywood-to-new-nollywood-the-story-of-nigerias-runaway-success-47959">Nollywood</a> films, <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-nigeria-to-the-world-afrobeats-is-having-a-global-moment-179910">Afrobeats</a> is arguably Nigeria’s strongest cultural export since the turn of the millennium. It is a hugely dynamic music category that incorporates a range of moods, languages, styles, and existing genres. To understand its impact, a cultural connoisseur has <a href="https://www.songtradr.com/olaolu.ladeinde">equated</a> good Afrobeats music with well-made, smoky Nigerian <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/story/nigerian-party-jollof-the-king-of-rice-pan-atlantic-university/FgVBNgJDD3KMJg?hl=en">party jollof rice</a>!</p>
<p>As suggested, the core of Afrobeats is celebratory pop music originating from Nigeria, West Africa and beyond. In 2022, Afrobeats artists were regular names on the global stage, winning awards, featuring on Hollywood soundtracks, packing out stadiums and even getting their own music charts in the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-62992689">UK</a> and <a href="https://www.billboard.com/charts/billboard-u-s-afrobeats-songs/">US</a>. The <a href="https://en.parisinfo.com/paris-show-exhibition/272799/fela-anikulapo-kuti-rebellion-afrobeat">exhibition</a> Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: Afrobeat Rebellion opened, with a pilgrimage of the Afrobeats community to Paris – to pay homage to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-provocateur-fela-kuti-who-used-sex-and-politics-to-confront-58599">Nigerian musician</a> who helped create <a href="https://www.masterclass.com/articles/afrobeat-music-guide#what-is-afrobeat">Afrobeat</a>, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/2022-grammys-what-fela-kuti-has-to-do-with-west-africas-growing-pop-fame-179899">ultimately spawned</a> Afrobeats. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/asake-the-breakout-pop-star-from-nigeria-who-owned-2022-194361">Asake, the breakout pop star from Nigeria who owned 2022</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>At home in Nigeria, some Afrobeats artists started to become more politically conscious while big names competed to release landmark albums. The Hollywood film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9114286/">Black Panther: Wakanda Forever</a> held its African <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/black-panther-wakanda-forever-lagos/">premiere</a> in Lagos with an Afrobeats-drenched <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/black-panther-soundtrack-wakanda-forever/">soundtrack</a> highlighting the talents of Nigerian singer-songwriter <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/tems-dazed-interview-1234638363/">Tems</a>.</p>
<h2>Election season</h2>
<p>In Nigeria in 2022, Afrobeats had an additional layer due to the run-up to the <a href="https://inecnigeria.org/timetable-and-schedule-of-activities-for-2023-general-election/">2023 general elections</a> in February. In <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00083968.2019.1598880">my study</a> on the relationship between pop music and electoral consciousness, I mapped a number of ways that popular musicians influence the electoral terrain – and how the electoral terrain influences popular music in Nigeria. Among these was the positive development of pop stars setting the campaign agenda for political parties and politicians by addressing challenges in society. </p>
<p>Take, for example, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhS0aKygDww">Electricity</a> by <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/node/8768">Pheelz</a> and <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/node/12436">Davido</a>, one of the year’s bigger singles. It addresses the burning subject that Nigeria is so poorly electrified. It subtly yet loudly sets the agenda for the political class to solve the problem and improve lives. It is a non-partisan electoral season hit that resonates with audiences while keeping politicians on their toes. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RhS0aKygDww?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In 2022, several Afrobeats stars were inspired by the political class whose attention they sought, or simply appropriated slogans and songs popularised by politicians. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_-R1JKCNrA">Asiwaju</a> by <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/directory/ruger">Ruger</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rgGvSZa54Y">Sweet Us</a> by <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/directory/timaya">Timaya</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWhd_0sURa0">Emi lo kan</a> by <a href="https://buzznigeria.com/qdot-biography-net-worth-and-songs-that-made-him-famous/">Qdot</a> are a few examples. None of these singles necessarily enriches electoral value nor prescribes solutions to societal problems. Each, however, offers mileage to the performing artists and to the referenced politicians.</p>
<p>On Sweet Us, Afrobeats veteran Timaya echoes a triumphant cry popularised by Governor Nyesom Wike. The song gained national momentum after the governor lost a bitter presidential primary. It resonated with disadvantaged audiences; expanding after Timaya made his version sensual. On the catchy but cheesy Asiwaju (Leader), rising sensation Ruger subtly references Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of Nigeria’s ruling party, almost yearning for the attention of the party’s campaign team.</p>
<p>Several Afrobeats and Nollywood personalities – like <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/node/9783">P-Square</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2099651/">Kenneth Okonkwo</a> – have endorsed presidential candidate <a href="https://mg.co.za/africa/2022-10-08-who-is-peter-obi-and-why-is-he-making-the-nigerian-establishment-so-nervous/">Peter Obi</a>, popular with young Nigerians. </p>
<p>But not all of the music out of Nigeria in 2022 is electorally or politically slanted. </p>
<h2>Stand-out stars: Kizz Daniel and Asake</h2>
<p>2022 is the year of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WykD3CKbJj8">Buga</a> – a viral hit by singer-songwriter <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/node/9696">Kizz Daniel</a> with its dance moves being <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xgcs_UOyj8">performed publicly</a> by notable figures including Liberian president <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Weah">George Weah</a>. </p>
<p>Daniel didn’t stop at that. He added <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN9TVKBVtrU">Cough</a> to an
already outstanding <a href="https://www.boomplay.com/albums/1905374">body of work</a>. Buga and Cough highlight the artist’s mastery in applying phrases from across the West African coast for pan-African effects. Buga is a Yoruba term meaning “flaunt it when you’ve got it”. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bLF90M96m2Q?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>2022 is undoubtedly also the year of breakout artist <a href="https://theconversation.com/asake-the-breakout-pop-star-from-nigeria-who-owned-2022-194361">Asake</a>, whose hit <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrIP_igi76U">Terminator</a> ignites memories of the Hollywood movie <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/">The Terminator</a>. Asake shows how trans-artistic and transnational Afrobeats gets. Some of Nigeria’s leading presidential candidates, while abroad, put out videos dancing to or working out to Asake’s crowd favourite <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u4_iWCvZ5c">Organise</a>.</p>
<p>“Queen of Afrobeats”, 42-year-old <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/node/10353">Tiwa Savage</a>, joined forces with Asake to pull off a hit single, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgeTnpTkzI0">Loaded</a>, addressing a leaked <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/entertainment/music/564234-loaded-tiwa-savage-recalls-sex-tape-shades-bloggers-in-new-song-with-asake.html">sex tape</a>. Rising singer <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/node/131106">Oxlade</a> captured the airwaves with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4qud199tQk">Ku lo sa</a>. Other notable mentions include <a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Ayra+Starr+music+in+africa&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8">Ayra Starr</a>’s career-defining <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crtQSTYWtqE">Rush</a> and <a href="https://buzznigeria.com/mohbad-biography-and-the-songs-that-made-him-famous/">MohBad</a>’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3DPxYbejFM">Peace</a>, which addresses unsatisfactory contracts with local labels. </p>
<h2>Year of the album</h2>
<p>More than these, 2022 was a year for Afrobeats stars seeking to cement their legacies with complete bodies of work.</p>
<p>With his first album as an artist, the producer and singer-songwriter <a href="https://www.ckay-music.com">CKay</a>’s <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/ckay-sad-romance-album-review/">Sad Romance</a> contained the hit <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY3B_XXmTYU">Love Nwantiti</a>, which went <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/ckay-love-nwantiti-trending-tiktok/">global</a> and lifted <a href="https://www.bellanaija.com/2022/10/tems-wizkid-ckay-bmi-london-awards/">awards</a>. Other celebrated releases include <a href="https://www.omahlay.com">Omah Lay</a>’s <a href="https://thenativemag.com/featured/review-omah-lay-boy-alone/">Boy Alone</a>, <a href="https://www.heisrema.com">Rema</a>’s <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/rema-rave-and-roses/">Rave and Roses</a>, <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/node/88851">Fireboy DML</a>’s <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/fireboy-dml-playboy/">Playboy</a>, <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/node/93364">Adekunle Gold</a>’s <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/adekunle-gold-catch-me-if-you-can/">Catch Me if You Can</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-burna-boy-set-the-world-alight-with-his-mixed-brew-of-influences-188080">Burna Boy</a>’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jul/10/burna-boy-love-damini-review-heartfelt-sixth-album">Love, Damini</a> (the <a href="https://medianaija.com.ng/2022-year-end-statistics-burna-boy-is-the-most-streamed-nigerian-act-love-damini-claims-no-1-album-on-apple-music-spotify-and-boomplay-burna-crowns-2022-with-2-mobo-awards/">most streamed</a> album in Nigeria in 2022).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_u4_iWCvZ5c?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Afrobeats trailblazer <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-nigerian-music-star-wizkid-and-why-is-he-taking-over-the-world-179775">Wizkid</a> presented <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/wizkid-more-love-less-ego-review/">More Love Less Ego</a> in a year that confirmed his transition into <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/og/">OG</a> status as he increasingly relies on the breaths of fresh air that are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jipQpjUA_o8">Tems</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_oenl2Be-w">Ayra Starr</a>. There is, of course, also Asake’s debut <a href="https://www.complex.com/music/asake-mr-money-with-the-vibe-album-stream">Mr Money with the Vibe</a>. </p>
<h2>Embracing rap</h2>
<p>There is evidence of the impact of rap music as it gets increasingly subsumed within Afrobeats – almost every successful Nigerian rapper has learnt to make pop music. </p>
<p>In 2022, the duo <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/node/10108">Show Dem Camp</a> managed the release of <a href="https://www.pulse.ng/entertainment/music/pulse-review-of-show-dem-camps-palmwine-music-3-album/nwj4cww">Palmwine Music Vol. 3</a>. <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/directory/mi-abaga">MI Abaga</a> put out <a href="https://www.pulse.ng/entertainment/music/a-pulse-review-of-mi-abagas-the-guy-album/gkz2vzg">The Guy</a> and fellow veteran Vector released <a href="https://remixdmagazine.com/nigerian-rap-icon-vector-shares-new-album-the-energy-still-lives-in-me/">The Energy Still Lives In Me</a>, invoking Afrobeats as a mirror of the untiring Nigerian spirit.</p>
<h2>Tems: face of the future</h2>
<p>A monumental year for Afrobeats was also the year of the Wakanda Forever <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/black-panther-wakanda-forever-album-review-1234624328/">soundtrack</a> featuring CKay, Fireboy DML, Rema, Burna Boy and Tems. </p>
<p>Alongside her rendition of Bob Marley’s <a href="https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/tems-interview-2022">No Woman, No Cry</a>,
2022 belongs to producer and R&B fusion singer-songwriter Tems. At home she won two <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/awards/2022-headies-awards-full-winners-list-1235134815/">Headies Awards</a> for her EP <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/tems-if-orange-was-a-place-1229515/">If Orange Was A Place</a> and then stormed the US, picking up a <a href="https://www.bet.com/article/femd2g/bet-awards-2022-best-international-artist-winner-tems">BET Award</a>, Best New Artist at the <a href="https://www.bet.com/article/vm6yuz/soul-train-awards-2022-three-songs-tems-helped-write">Soul Train Music Awards</a> and two <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/wizkid-and-tems-triumph-american-music-awards-2022">American Music Awards</a>. She is nominated in three categories for the <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/grammys-2023-nominations-burna-boy/">2023 Grammy Awards</a>. Tems performed at some of the most significant music festivals on the planet in 2022 and adorns the cover of the winter 2022 <a href="https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/57549/1/tems-alte-interview-dazed-winter-2022">Dazed Magazine</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8H4nU6i7IZM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The future of Afrobeats may not lie in Afrobeats. Afrobeats will progressively draw from western styles and, in many respects, Tems is a poster child of this future. Her association with Afrobeats is largely to do with her identity as a Nigerian rather than with the music itself. The rigour required of listeners to characterise her style is central to her growth. She reflects the coming together of Nigerian music margins with an amalgam of external influences. Before her, similar artists like <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/node/10507">Asa</a> and <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/directory/nneka">Nneka</a> had a go at the international market, but not with Tems’s impact.</p>
<p>Tems represents a year in which the Afrobeats ecosystem experienced unprecedented mobility. Some analysts reckon the US will eventually move away from Afrobeats, but this is immaterial as Afrobeats can do no wrong for the time being – and this will spill deep into 2023.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195987/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Garhe Osiebe 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>
Afrobeats truly conquered the globe, influencing music styles, packing out stadiums and lifting awards.
Garhe Osiebe, Research Fellow, Rhodes University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195307
2022-12-01T16:00:38Z
2022-12-01T16:00:38Z
Black Panther 2: why the death of someone young can be harder to handle
<p>The Marvel Studios’ film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever addresses themes of grief and the injustice of dying young, connected to the death of the lead actor, Chadwick Boseman, in 2020. Boseman died from colorectal cancer at the age of 43, throwing the original trajectory of his character’s script off the rails, forcing Marvel to revise the film’s plot. </p>
<p>As Boseman’s character, T’Challa, is dying, his sister Shuri is in her lab, desperately trying to save his life. She refuses to give up and misses his passing. Without an outlet for her grief, she delves deeper into technology, rejecting her mother’s Wakandan rituals and the process of mourning. </p>
<p>The death of T’Challa at the beginning of the film is heart-breaking, both on- and off-screen. In the book <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Superhero-Grief-The-Transformative-Power-of-Loss/Harrington-Neimeyer/p/book/9780367145590">Superhero Grief</a>, psychologists Jill Harrington and Robert Niemeyer acknowledge that “Chadwick embodied the superhero – personifying the beauty, the character, and the strength of the Black Panther.” The grief associated with the death of such youthful virtues can be particularly challenging.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&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><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/moving-back-home-doesnt-mean-youve-failed-in-life-heres-why-187300?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Moving back home doesn’t mean you’ve failed in life – here’s why</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/five-things-to-do-in-your-20s-and-30s-to-reduce-your-risk-of-preventable-cancer-191283?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Five things to do in your 20s and 30s to reduce your risk of preventable cancer</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/stroke-young-people-can-have-them-too-heres-how-to-know-if-youre-at-risk-and-what-to-look-out-for-189272?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Stroke: young people can have them too – here’s how to know if you’re at risk and what to look out for</a></em></p>
<hr>
<h2>A dream of the future lost</h2>
<p>The death of a younger person, like T'Challa, is often experienced differently to the death of an older person. Medical ethicists <a href="https://academic.oup.com/gerontologist/article-abstract/34/1/66/597172?login=false">Nancy Jecker and Lawrence Schneiderman</a> have argued that there is often an increased intensity of injustice, sorrow, anger and despair in the grief associated with the death of the young. They point to common descriptors that are more often used to describe younger people’s deaths, such as “senseless” or “tragic”.</p>
<p>The American philosopher <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Setting_Limits.html?id=NH1T-sVvEw4C&redir_esc=y">Daniel Callahan</a> pointed out that we often believe that those who die in old age “have lived a full life, done what they could, and are not victims of the malevolence of divinity or nature”. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Z3QKkl1WyM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In contrast, a younger person’s death means that they forgo parts of life that a future promises, such as falling in love, fulfilling ambition and making contributions to society. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/gerontologist/article-abstract/34/1/66/597172?login=false">There is a perception</a> that death has been greedier and taken more from us, giving rise to intensified feelings of cruelty, brutality and senselessness.</p>
<p>Psychiatrist <a href="https://www.yalom.com/loves-executioner">Irvin Yalom</a> noted that the particular “sting” in the loss of the young is connected to projection. The lives of our younger relatives and loved ones are intimately connected to the future we project for ourselves. </p>
<p>In losing someone young, we often lose a life that imbued our own with meaning. Yalom argues that it’s not the same when we lose an elderly parent. In such circumstances, although we grieve, the idea we have for our future remains viable and in some cases is even enlivened – our grief is typically more about the past than the future. </p>
<p>In Black Panther, there is a sense that experiences of grief around King T'Challa’s death are significantly associated with such “unfinished business” and an “incomplete mission”. The grief is most palpable in those who saw their futures including him the most, like his sister and mother.</p>
<h2>Grieving the young</h2>
<p>The unique injustices associated with dying young can complicate patterns of grief. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953613001044">Research</a> has suggested that some of the most common experiences young people report following the death of a young friend are emptiness and disbelief at the senselessness of the loss and anger at the perceived injustice. It is particularly difficult for young people to make sense of the harsh reality that life can be so brutally unkind.</p>
<p>Symptoms of <a href="https://www.cruse.org.uk/understanding-grief/effects-of-grief/complicated-grief/">complicated grief</a> have been considered in relation to the diagnosis of mental disorders by the <a href="https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm">American Psychiatric Association</a>. The complexities of such grief include feelings of persistent yearning and longing, a preoccupation with the circumstances of the death, severe difficulty accepting it and exaggerated and prolonged feelings of anger and bitterness. Its prolonged and intensified nature distinguishes it from more typical patterns of grief.</p>
<p>Psychiatrist <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/da.22068">Holly Herberman and her colleagues</a> have identified a high prevalence (21%) of complicated grief responses in young adults grieving the loss of a close young friend or sibling. Almost 40% of the young adults reported symptoms of depression that persisted up to three years after the loss of their friend or sibling. </p>
<p>One of the challenges facing grieving young adults is the painful realisation that close others will not be around in the future. The effect of such grief can persist. Psychologists <a href="https://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40359-022-00717-8">Iren Johnsen and Ane Tømmeraas</a> argued that adolescence and young adulthood is a period of significant identity formation, “with increased responsibility, maturity, independence, separation, autonomy and freedom”. When young people experience loss during this critical period, they are often profoundly affected, and “their lives may change forever”.</p>
<p>Grieving the young is challenging, and so too is facing grief at a young age. Given the enduring disruptions that grief can create for young adults, it is important to support them in coping with their grief. Unlike Shuri, who stubbornly refuses the passing of T’Challa, young adults need an outlet to voice their feelings and make sense of such losses.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195307/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>
When someone dies young, the grieving process can be more complicated.
Sam Carr, Reader in Education with Psychology and Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath
Chao Fang, Research Fellow, Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/194506
2022-12-01T13:39:12Z
2022-12-01T13:39:12Z
Resounding success of ‘Black Panther’ franchise says little about the dubious state of Black film
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498066/original/file-20221129-20-p656p4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C8%2C2982%2C2029&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' is one of only three Black films since 2018 to have a production budget exceeding $100 million.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-handout-image-provided-by-disneyland-resort-in-news-photo/1244803203?phrase=black panther wakanda&adppopup=true">Christian Thompson/Disneyland Resort via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Marvel Studios released “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683">Black Panther</a>” in February 2018, it marked the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film to feature a Black superhero and star a predominantly Black cast. </p>
<p>Its estimated production budget was <a href="https://bamsmackpow.com/2018/02/14/black-panther-movie-budget/">US$200 million</a>, making it the first <a href="https://books.apple.com/us/book/entertainment-weekly-a-celebration-of-black-film/id1552725693">Black film</a> – conventionally defined as a film that is directed by a Black director, features a Black cast, and focuses on some aspect of the Black experience – ever to receive that level of financial support.</p>
<p>As a scholar of media and Black popular culture, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS5U4ax6Cu4">I was often asked</a> to respond to the resounding success of that first “Black Panther” film, which had shattered expectations of its box office performance. </p>
<p>Would it lead to more big-budget Black films? Was its popularity an indication that the global marketplace – the real <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/robcain/2018/01/17/can-disney-possibly-succeed-with-black-panther-in-china/#3c8ad4727e8e">source of trepidation</a> about the film’s potential – was finally ready to embrace Black-cast films?</p>
<p>With the release of the <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/e2-80-98black-panther-wakanda-forever-e2-80-99-box-office-leaps-past-24400m-globally/ar-AA14fas6">massively successful</a> “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9114286">Black Panther: Wakanda Forever</a>” in November 2022, I expect those questions to reemerge. </p>
<p>Yet as I review the cinematic landscape between the original and its sequel, I am inclined to restate the answer I gave back in 2018: Assumptions should not be made about the state of Black film based on the success of the “Black Panther” franchise.</p>
<h2>Reason for optimism</h2>
<p>Prior to its release, the producers of <a href="https://deadline.com/2018/02/black-panther-african-american-films-foreign-box-office-1202286475/">“Black Panther” faced questions</a> about whether there was a market for a Black blockbuster film, even one ensconced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.</p>
<p>After all, since the Wesley Snipes-led “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120611/">Blade</a>” trilogy, which came out in the late-1990s and early 2000s, Black superhero films had experienced diminishing returns. There was one notable exception: the commercially successful, though heavily panned “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448157/">Hancock</a>” (2008), starring Will Smith. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498285/original/file-20221130-18-nzih42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man with red sunglasses pumps his first in front of a movie poster." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498285/original/file-20221130-18-nzih42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498285/original/file-20221130-18-nzih42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498285/original/file-20221130-18-nzih42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498285/original/file-20221130-18-nzih42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498285/original/file-20221130-18-nzih42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498285/original/file-20221130-18-nzih42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498285/original/file-20221130-18-nzih42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wesley Snipes attends the premiere of ‘Blade 2’ in March 2002.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/actor-wesley-snipes-attends-the-premiere-of-the-film-blade-news-photo/705528?phrase=blade%20wesley%20snipes&adppopup=true">Vince Bucci/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Otherwise, Black superhero films such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327554/">Catwoman</a>” (2004) and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4573516/">Sleight</a>” (2016) either flopped or had a limited release.</p>
<p>Furthermore, until “Black Panther,” no Black film exceeded a $100 million budget, <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0611/why-movies-cost-so-much-to-make.aspx">the average benchmark</a> for modern Hollywood blockbusters. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, despite these early concerns, “Black Panther” earned the highest domestic gross, <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl2992866817/">$700 million</a>, of all films released in 2018, while earning $1.3 billion in worldwide gross, second only to “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154756">Avengers: Infinity War</a>.”</p>
<p>“Black Panther” emerged at the tail end of what many industry experts considered to be a surprisingly <a href="https://www.glamour.com/story/girls-trip-is-killing-it-right-now-why-that-matters">successful</a> run of Black films, which included the biopic “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4846340">Hidden Figures</a>” (2016) and the raunchy comedy “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3564472">Girls Trip</a>” (2017). Despite their modest budgets, they earned over $100 million apiece at the box office – <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt4846340">$235 million</a> and <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt3564472">$140 million</a>, respectively. </p>
<p>However, both films were mostly reliant on the domestic box office, especially the R-rated “Girls Trip,” which was only released in a handful of foreign markets. <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-black-movies-global-audience-myth-20170324-story.html">Conventional wisdom</a> has long held that Black films will fail abroad. International distributors and studios typically ignore them during the presale process or at film festivals and markets, <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/are-black-movies-being-shut-by-global-buyers-1138916/">reasoning</a> that Black films are too culturally specific – not only in terms of their Blackness, but also their Americanness. </p>
<p>Films like “Black Panther” and the Oscar winning “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4975722">Moonlight</a>” (2016), <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt4975722">which earned more on the international market</a> than the domestic market, certainly challenged those assumptions. It has yet to upend them. </p>
<h2>Black films after ‘Black Panther’</h2>
<p>What do those Black films released in theaters in the nearly five years between “Black Panther” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” tell us about the former’s impact? </p>
<p>The simple answer is that the original “Black Panther” has had no discernible influence on industry practices whatsoever.</p>
<p>Since 2018, no other Black blockbuster has emerged, save for the sequel itself. Granted, Black filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s remake of “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1620680">A Wrinkle in Time</a>” (2018) reportedly cost an estimated $100 million; however, while Black actors portrayed the protagonist and a few other characters, the film features a multicultural ensemble cast – which, as scholars such as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3661094">Mary Beltran</a> have pointed out, has become the primary strategy for achieving diversity in film. </p>
<p>Even if one were to include “A Wrinkle in Time,” the grand total of Black films with budgets exceeding $100 million is three, with the two “Black Panther” films being the others – all during an era in which there <a href="https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/budgets/all">have been hundreds</a> of mainstream films with budgets exceeding $100 million.</p>
<p>Otherwise, most of the Black films released in theaters between 2018 and 2022 typically were low budget by Hollywood standards – $3 million to $20 million in most cases – with only a handful, such as the 2021 Aretha Franklin biopic “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2452150/">Respect</a>,” costing $50 million to 60 million.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most notable change has been the medium. Many Black films now appear on either cable networks that cater to a Black audience – namely Black Entertainment Television and, more recently, Lifetime – or on streaming services such as Netflix. Tyler Perry, the most popular and prolific Black filmmaker of the modern era, has released his latest films – “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14307536">A Jazzman’s Blues</a>” (2022), “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14813966">A Madea Homecoming</a>” (2022) and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11390036">A Fall from Grace</a>” (2020) – directly to Netflix.</p>
<p>Furthermore, no other Black film has approached the financial success of “Black Panther.” Granted, several Black films have fared well at the box office, especially relative to their production costs. Foremost among them is Jordan Peele’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6857112/">Us</a>” (2019), which cost an estimated $20 million, yet earned approximately $256 million worldwide despite its R rating and the fact that it was never released in China.</p>
<h2>Whither Black film</h2>
<p>Without question, large budgets and commercial success are not the only measures of a film’s value and significance. </p>
<p>As has historically been the case, Black film has managed to do more with less. The critical acclaim afforded to films such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7349662">BlackKlansman</a>” (2018), “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7125860">If Beale Street Could Talk</a>” (2019) and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9620288">King Richard</a>” (2021) reflect this fact. All reflect trends in contemporary Black filmmaking – comedies, historical dramas and biopics abound, for instance – and were made for a fraction of the cost of both “Black Panther” films.</p>
<p>In truth, the zeal with which some cast “Black Panther” as a bellwether for Black films is part of continued haranguing over their viability, particularly after the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/movies/oscarssowhite-history.html">#OscarsSoWhite</a> movement that drew attention to the lack of diversity at the 2016 Academy Awards. </p>
<p>However, its positioning as a Disney property within Marvel’s transmedia storytelling effort makes it so atypical that its success — and that of its sequel — portends little about Black film.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194506/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phillip Lamarr Cunningham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
After the first ‘Black Panther’ shattered box office expectations, some critics wondered if it marked the dawn of a new era of big-budget Black films.
Phillip Lamarr Cunningham, Assistant Professor, Media Studies, Wake Forest University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195157
2022-11-25T12:33:37Z
2022-11-25T12:33:37Z
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever reclaims the myth of an African utopia
<p>Black Panther is set in the fictional country of Wakanda. The creation of the Wakandan African identity has been a contentious issue. Borrowing aspects of cultures from around Africa, it presents the world with a confusing sense of “Africaness”. </p>
<p>Wakanda is an amalgamation of African ethnic groups, with its “indigenous” outfits and symbols: cowry shells adornments, grass skirts, decorative scarring and lip plates. The average viewer won’t know that the language being spoken is <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/xhosa">Xhosa</a>, a South African language, or that some of the garments are made with <a href="https://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/a33670853/what-is-kente-cloth/">Ghanaian Kente cloth</a> and designs. </p>
<p>Africa is a continent of 54 countries that are diverse culturally and geographically. But this “borrowing” could suggest that they were one and the same, their cultural markers shared and interchangeable. </p>
<p>So I was ready to be critical of Wakanda Forever and how it returns to stereotypes of Africa, collapsing different civilisations (many of which have fought each other) into digestible but erroneous “myths” of a homogenous Africa. </p>
<p>And yet, I was mesmerised.</p>
<h2>An African ‘homeland’</h2>
<p>Wakanda Forever is a powerful meditation on grief and power. King T'Challa is dead and his family must pick up where he left off. Wakanda, previously believed to be a small weak nation, has made the true extent of its power known to the world, which also opens it up to foreign aggression. </p>
<p>It made me reconsider the importance of the myth of Africa as a place of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41819054">harmony and welcome</a> – an idealised Black space – for people across the African diaspora, especially for <a href="http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/freedom/1917beyond/essays/harlem.htm">Black people in the US</a>. The dream of returning to Africa for many colonised Black people in the Americas, even in death, was pervasive and could be heard in the rhetoric of Black leaders such as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/garvey_marcus.shtml">Marcus Garvey</a>.</p>
<p>My own grandfather, born on a plantation in colonial Martinique, took his family to live in Senegal as he felt a calling from his “homeland”. He wanted to be embraced by his “African brothers and sisters”. The reality was very different and it took time for him to be accepted.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Z3QKkl1WyM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The US has historically been less connected to African cultures than many Caribbean nations. The lifespan of enslaved people in the Caribbean during the plantation period, due to horrific conditions, was very short. This meant there were <a href="https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teacher-resources/historical-context-facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery">low birth rates among the enslaved population</a>.</p>
<p>New African captives were brought to keep the workforce stable, renewing African cultural connections. Wakanda is then, perhaps, a reflection of Black America’s lost connections, their dreams of a Black African utopia.</p>
<p>Wakanda evokes an Africa free of western colonial destruction. It’s resources and traditions have not been eroded. Its sense of culture is strong. And, left to develop at its own speed without foreign intervention, it’s a technologically advanced and superior nation. </p>
<p>In the film, the Wakandans are positioned a people who avoided colonisation by turning inwards. They become the smallest but most powerful kingdom in existence, refusing to share their precious materials with the rest of the world or take part in global affairs. In the first Black Panther, after seeing what life was like for the formerly enslaved Africans in the US, T'Challa decides to open up and let people know about his country’s powerful metal resource, vibrainium. </p>
<p>Elements of a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/black-nationalism">Black nationalist philosophy</a>, based on the idea of empowering and uniting Black people who share a history of oppression and exploitation drive the kingdom of Wakanda as a Black utopia. This is symbolised by the “African” marketplace scenes in which food is in abundance and people dressed in traditional “African” clothing (with a futuristic twist) smile and shop in intergenerational harmony. </p>
<p>Some Black nationalists also advocated the establishment of a Black society separate from white people, a Black nation which flourishes in economical and cultural independence. Where Wakanda moves away from this ideology is in its lack of real interest in supporting Black people outside of Wakanda and reaching out to unite the disenfranchised Black diaspora. </p>
<h2>Reclaiming ritual</h2>
<p>The film celebrates the reclamation of an African identity through references to creation myths and diasporic storytelling traditions where ancestral wisdom is passed down through the generations. </p>
<p>Actor Chadwick Boseman, the Black Panther star who died of colon cancer aged 43, looms large in Wakanda Forever. The narrative itself centres around Princess Shuri coming to terms with her the death of her brother T'Challa, her feelings of inadequacy and her need for revenge.</p>
<p>If you don’t connect with your ancestors, we are told, you will remain in a state of spiritual stasis. Wakandan funerals draw from <a href="https://www.instyle.com/black-panther-wakanda-forever-mourning-6828920">Yoruba Orisha ceremonies</a> with mourners dressed in white and pouring of libations for the ancestors.</p>
<p>The queen mother processes her grief in “the bush”, sitting with her pain and performing ancestral rituals. She tells her daughter she has found her son “on the breeze, pushing her like a hand on her shoulder”. Shuri rejects this and the rituals, and her lack of faith is the main barrier to her success in leadership.</p>
<p>A popular counter-narrative to discrimination for people of African descent is the insistence that all our African ancestors were the “<a href="https://www.theroot.com/maybe-my-ancestors-were-kings-and-queens-but-more-than-1822038353">kings and queens</a>” of great <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2020/09/beyond-african-royalty">kingdoms and empires</a>. </p>
<p>Yet at the heart of any kingdom is an uneven distribution of power and wealth and successful empires often rely on exploitation, theft and slavery. Thankfully, Wakanda Forever avoids the complete romanticisation of powerful monarchies, revealing the corrosive nature of the desire for control, the problem with unchallenged hierarchies and the stupidity of war.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195157/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Zobel Marshall 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>
The film sees myths created by the Black diaspora come alive as Wakanda is presented as a Black utopia.
Emily Zobel Marshall, Reader in Postcolonial Literature, Leeds Beckett University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/194646
2022-11-23T14:03:47Z
2022-11-23T14:03:47Z
Black Panther in the classroom: how Afrofuturism in a film helped trainee teachers in South Africa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495637/original/file-20221116-145-s91scs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Letitia Wright in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios/Disney</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Back in 2018 I joined the millions of people who flocked to cinemas worldwide to watch Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther. The story of an ultra modern African society not shaped by colonialism was celebrated by critics and audiences alike as “<a href="https://time.com/black-panther/">revolutionary</a>”. It won three Oscars. Now its sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, is dominating box office returns and delighting critics.</p>
<p>While I enjoyed and was entertained by the first film, I was also struck by its potential as a teaching tool. Its Afrofuturistic approach – using the past to imagine futures that differ from existing historical narratives – could, I thought, be a catalyst for dispelling myths about African history, culture and tradition. It might be a way to help my students – trainee teachers at a South African institution – overcome cognitive injustice. This is the idea that some forms of knowledge are more significant than others.</p>
<p>Eurocentrism, which is based on a biased view of western or European knowledge at the expense of knowledge from the global south, leads to cognitive injustice. </p>
<p>As I’ve <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.20853/32-4-2922">explored</a> in <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/ersc/v7nspe/06.pdf">my research</a>, students at a university in the global south might experience cognitive injustice when the curriculum is dominated by western thought and knowledge.</p>
<p>Overcoming their own sense of cognitive injustice is a powerful way for educators to enable their students to question and transform society’s unbalanced power relations. This is especially urgent in a South African society troubled by <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/ramaphosa-says-number-of-women-murdered-in-south-africa-up-50-percent/6818242.html">gender-based violence</a>, <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-06-27-the-rise-of-xenophobia-is-south-africas-road-to-ruin/">xenophobia</a>, <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sunday-tribune/news/parents-slam-christian-primary-school-over-monkey-jibe-64c628e1-0b42-460c-a547-1d1a2295acf6">racism</a> and <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/03/09/new-world-bank-report-assesses-sources-of-inequality-in-five-countries-in-southern-africa">social inequality</a>. </p>
<p>So I conducted <a href="https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/ctl_00080_1">a study</a> in which I examined whether seeing Black Panther influenced future teachers to think differently about their identities and relationships with others. I used the film to introduce them to the concept of Afrofuturism. I found that Black Panther made a significant contribution to the students’ awareness by reinforcing the idea that people should be proud of how they look, and that beauty is not tied to a grand, western or global standard, but is, rather, fluid and different for each person.</p>
<p>By understanding the importance of identity and using teaching methods that are sensitive to different cultures, these teachers will be better able to promote diversity in their future classrooms.</p>
<h2>Varying messages</h2>
<p>Fifty-two trainee teachers were involved in the study. They were asked to see the film in cinemas and we then discussed what they learned from it.</p>
<p>The students identified with several aspects of Black Panther, often depending on their own place in society. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/afrofuturism-and-its-possibility-of-elsewhere-the-power-of-political-imagination-166002">Afrofuturism and its possibility of elsewhere: The power of political imagination</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For instance, some of the female students found the film’s message of gender equality to be the most interesting aspect. These students perceived a connection between the many roles portrayed by the black actresses in the film and their capacity for both physical and emotional expression. They further seemed to have had the insight that a society’s power dynamics may be shaken up when women are given equal status within that society.</p>
<p>Most of the female students held the belief that the way women are treated in their communities or society renders them helpless. However, several of them felt inspired by the film to take a stand against the many forms of discrimination that, in today’s culture, make it difficult for roles to be shared equitably.</p>
<p>Several students felt the systems and structures of many modern African communities demonstrated that the continent was still subject to the policies of globalisation rather than developing its own policies, tailored to its requirements. </p>
<h2>Challenging norms</h2>
<p>A few other students expressed their views on the importance of challenging political norms, as well as resisting orthodox ways of thinking. They were firmly on the side of decolonisation – pulling entirely away from global north influence, theories and knowledge systems.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/black-panther-wakanda-forever-continues-the-series-quest-to-recover-and-celebrate-lost-cultures-193508">'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' continues the series' quest to recover and celebrate lost cultures</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Others, though, insisted that it was essential to collaborate with others from across the globe rather than to operate in isolation. They argued that western and European knowledge had value but that African knowledge and policies ought to be at the centre of learning and teaching on the continent.</p>
<p>In my opinion, schools in South Africa are lacking a social justice curriculum that would teach students about the concept of cognitive injustice. Students should constantly be immersed in a welcoming learning environment that acknowledges and appreciates their individuality, while also fostering a feeling of community among their peers. Black Panther’s Afrofuturistic perspective, in my opinion, encourages students to reflect on what makes them unique and to be receptive to discussions on the impact of gender stereotypes and racism on their experiences in the classroom and beyond.</p>
<p>Using Black Panther as a way into exploring Afrofuturism led to decolonial ideas. That, in turn, could alter the students’ future classrooms if they take up these ideas in teaching and learning. Those classrooms would be fairer and more inclusive, giving pupils a chance to speak up and challenge society’s norms, values and attitudes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zayd Waghid 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 and its sequel are more than just good movies: they can be used as teaching tools.
Zayd Waghid, Associate professor, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/193508
2022-11-11T13:14:02Z
2022-11-11T13:14:02Z
‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ continues the series’ quest to recover and celebrate lost cultures
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494547/original/file-20221109-11077-dnjqha.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=109%2C2%2C791%2C523&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Talokan is inspired by Mesoamerica, a vast area that encompasses Central America and parts of Mexico.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://boundingintocomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/2022.10.04-09.56-boundingintocomics-633cac0bc8998.png">Marvel Studios</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UlX5LEoAAAAJ&hl=en">As someone who teaches and writes about Afrofuturism</a>, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9114286/">Black Panther: Wakanda Forever</a>.” I’m particularly excited about the introduction of Namor and the hidden kingdom of Talokan, which he leads.</p>
<p>The first “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/">Black Panther</a>” film adhered to a longstanding practice in Afrofuturist stories and art by engaging in what I call “acts of recovery” – the process of reviving and celebrating elements of Black culture that were destroyed or suppressed by colonization. This practice is often linked to “<a href="https://www.berea.edu/cgwc/the-power-of-sankofa/">Sankofa</a>,” an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana that roughly translates to “it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.”</p>
<p>“Wakanda Forever” pulls from the past in the same way, but with a twist: Talokan is inspired not by African cultures, but by <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/resource-library-mesoamerica">Mesoamerica</a>, a vast area that covers most of Central America and part of Mexico.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Z3QKkl1WyM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A theory of time</h2>
<p>The idea that African knowledge and contributions to science and culture have been erased and must be recovered is central to Afrofuturism. The term, which was <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-afrofuturism-an-english-professor-explains-183707">coined in 1994</a>, describes a cultural movement that pulls from elements of science fiction, magical realism, speculative fiction and African history.</p>
<p>On its home page, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160411045955/https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/afrofuturism/info">the Afrofurist listserv</a>, an email list organized by social scientist <a href="http://www.alondranelson.com/">Alondra Nelson</a> in 1998, pointed to this process of recovery as a central tenet of the genre:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Once upon a time, in the not-so-distant past, cultural producers of the African diaspora composed unique visions on the world at hand and the world to come. This speculation has been called AfroFuturism – cultural production that simultaneously references a past of abduction, displacement and alien-nation; celebrates the unique aesthetic perspectives inspired by these fractured histories; and imagines the possible futures of black life and ever-widening definitions of ‘blackness.’” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This fascination with uncovering the ways in which Black contributions have been erased and suppressed means that Afrofuturist works often mine the past as a first step toward creating visions of the future. </p>
<p>Afrofuturist scholars such as <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kinitra-Brooks">Kinitra Brooks</a> even describe Afrofuturism as <a href="https://d.lib.msu.edu/vbi/7">a theory of time</a>. For her, the “present, past, and future” exist together, creating the opportunity to push against the systemic devaluation of Black people that occurred during slavery and Jim Crow segregation, and persists in contemporary anti-Black violence.</p>
<h2>Looking back to see tomorrow</h2>
<p>This recovery can take many forms. </p>
<p>Several Black writers published serialized novels of speculative fiction, such as Martin R. Delany’s “<a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/blake-or-the-huts-of-america-1859-1861/">Blake: Or the Huts of America</a>,” a slave revolt story written between 1859 and 1861. Pauline Hopkins’ “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69255">Of One Blood: Or, the Hidden Self</a>,” published in 1903, tells the story of mixed-race Harvard medical students who discover Telassar, a hidden city in Ethiopia, home to an advanced society possessing technology and mystical powers.</p>
<p>Both narratives refuse to depict Black culture as backwards or impotent, and instead celebrate Black empowerment and the rich cultural legacies of Black people.</p>
<p>Curator <a href="https://www.ingridlafleur.com/">Ingrid Lafleur</a> has long talked about how Afrofuturist visual aesthetics relies on recovering ancient <a href="https://youtu.be/x7bCaSzk9Zc">African cosmology</a>. You can see this practice in the work of musical artists such as <a href="https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/sun-ra">Sun Ra</a>, who used Egyptian symbolism throughout his work, and visual artists such as <a href="https://youtu.be/IktCTXffjIc">Kevin Sipp</a>, who remixes and reimagines African cultural symbolism to create sculptures and visual work that fuse past styles and symbols with contemporary practices.</p>
<p>Simply put, a reverence for ancestral knowledge and culture is the beating heart of Afrofuturism, and has become an integral part of Afrofuturism’s mission to forge a better future.</p>
<h2>Mesoamerica takes center stage</h2>
<p>The first “Black Panther” film celebrated an array of African cultures. </p>
<p>Costume designer Ruth Carter deliberately infused elements from across the continent <a href="https://youtu.be/mmP1aHJjJ-U">in every scene</a>. For example, the headdress worn by Queen Ramonda, played by Angela Bassett, was inspired by the <a href="https://collections.mfa.org/objects/533926">isicholo</a>, a South African hat traditionally associated with married women. And Lupita Nyong'o’s Nakia wore clothing inspired by <a href="https://www.atlasofhumanity.com/suri">the Suri tribe</a>. </p>
<p>And so the film highlighted African cultures not by depicting them as fragile or foundering, but as paragons of artistry and sophistication.</p>
<p>In “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” these themes are explored both in the way the mantle of Black Panther presumably passes to Princess Shuri, and in the depiction of Namor and the kingdom of Talokan. </p>
<p>While Talokan is an underwater society inspired by <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/classical-literature-mythology-and-folklore/folklore-and-mythology/atlantis">the myth of Atlantis</a>, Marvel Studios has signaled that the people of Talokan sought refuge underwater in response to colonial invasion. </p>
<p>By invoking the complexities of this history – and seemingly leaning heavily on parallels to Mayan culture – the film celebrates a society that scholarship has long noted for its <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/kislak/tortuguerobox/index.html">achievements</a> in <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/webcast-6326/">architecture</a>, <a href="https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016ASPC..501..265V/abstract">mathematics</a>, <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/exploring-the-early-americas/the-heavens-and-time.html">astronomy</a> and <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/exploring-the-early-americas/language-and-context.html">language</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman with feathered hat stands next to soldiers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494508/original/file-20221109-2908-9qjgqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494508/original/file-20221109-2908-9qjgqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494508/original/file-20221109-2908-9qjgqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494508/original/file-20221109-2908-9qjgqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494508/original/file-20221109-2908-9qjgqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494508/original/file-20221109-2908-9qjgqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494508/original/file-20221109-2908-9qjgqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The costumes of Talokan soldiers were inspired by Mesoamerican culture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nme.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wakanda_Forever_Talokan.jpg">Marvel Studios</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>History books <a href="https://www.americanyawp.com/text/01-the-new-world/">reference these accomplishments</a>. But in popular culture, there’s little attention given to this cultural landscape.</p>
<p>Namor and the kingdom he leads are poised to remind a global audience of the rich world of Mesoamerica that thrived – until European <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/exploring-the-early-americas/explorations-and-encounters.html">contact</a> beginning in 1502 led to conquest, decline and eradication. </p>
<p>Today, immigration, trade and drug trafficking dominate discussions of Central America and Mexico in the U.S. media. This film, on the other hand, invites the viewer to appreciate the profound cultural legacy of Mexican and Central American civilizations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193508/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian C. Chambliss does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Whereas the first ‘Black Panther’ film celebrated an array of African cultures, the follow-up seeks to also highlight the rich legacy of Mesoamerican cultures destroyed by colonial conquest.
Julian C. Chambliss, Professor of English, Michigan State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/193443
2022-11-03T19:00:23Z
2022-11-03T19:00:23Z
Black Panther and Brown Power – how Wakanda Forever celebrates pre-Columbian culture
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493155/original/file-20221102-12-y5vob9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C2%2C1592%2C893&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Wakanda is back in cinemas, promising to deliver high-voltage action and trigger new discussions about how Hollywood represents other races and cultures. On November 10 Marvel’s Black Panther will receive its long-awaited sequel, Wakanda Forever. </p>
<p>The first film was considered a landmark in how Black culture is represented in mainstream movies, breaking box office records and earning a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Now there are hopes that Wakanda Forever will have a similar impact in its depiction of <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pre-Columbian">pre-Columbian</a> culture. </p>
<p>Directed by Ryan Coogler, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-afrofuturism-gives-black-people-the-confidence-to-survive-doubt-and-anti-blackness-130974">first Black Panther</a> became an exemplar of ethnic diversity in mainstream cinema, as well as a watershed moment for how film interacts with everyday racial politics. </p>
<p>NBA icon and cultural commentator Kareem Abdul-Jabbar described Black Panther as a “cultural spearhead disguised as a thrilling action adventure”.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>if you’re white, you’ll leave with an anti-‘shithole’ appreciation for Africa and African-American cultural origins. If you’re black, you’ll leave with a straighter walk, a gratitude for your African heritage and a superhero whom black children can relate to. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>At last, global Black culture was imagined by Hollywood as empowered and proud, and immune to the lasting effects of colonialism and forced migration. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Z3QKkl1WyM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Reimagining pre-Columbian culture</h2>
<p>After Black Panther’s original star Chadwick Boseman tragically died in 2020, Marvel Studios had to reframe the future of the franchise, with Coogler deciding not to recast the lead role of T’Challa. </p>
<p>The story of Wakanda Forever centres around the political turmoil within the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-afrofuturism-gives-black-people-the-confidence-to-survive-doubt-and-anti-blackness-130974">Afrofuturistic</a> nation of Wakanda after the death of its king. Different factions must band together to repel the advances of a new enemy, the hidden undersea civilisation of Talokan, led by Namor (played by Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta).</p>
<p>In ancient Aztec culture, Talokan was the home of Tlaloc and his consort Chalchiuhtlicue, deities associated with rain and fertility. Marvel Studios has borrowed from pre-Columbian mythology to create a visually lush underwater civilisation based, in turn, on the character of Namor created by Bill Everett for 1939’s Marvel Comics #1. </p>
<p>The combination of an Aztec worldview and an old Marvel antihero could prompt concerns regarding cultural appropriation. However, given how Ryan Coogler and Marvel celebrated Afro culture in Black Panther, there is an expectation that this new Marvel movie will subvert stereotypes and expand wider understanding of the often misunderstood ancient cultures of what is now the Americas (known as the Kuna term <a href="https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/abya-yala">Abya Yala</a> by Indigenous activists and organisations). </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-afrofuturism-gives-black-people-the-confidence-to-survive-doubt-and-anti-blackness-130974">How afrofuturism gives Black people the confidence to survive doubt and anti-Blackness</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How Black Panther unleashed a wave of non-white heroes</h2>
<p>Coogler’s first film proved that inclusivity can also be profitable in Hollywood. Since Black Panther, a wave of blockbusters have been released featuring non-white heroes and challenge Western-centric conventions of action-adventure cinema. </p>
<p>In the past year alone, films such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-bruce-lee-to-shang-chi-a-short-history-of-the-kung-fu-film-in-cinema-168273">Shang-Chi</a> (based on Chinese mythology), <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6443346/">Black Adam</a> (set in a fictional Middle Eastern country), and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8093700/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Woman King</a> (about a group of 19th century African female warriors) have provided a corrective to the historical disservice that Hollywood has done to so-called minorities. </p>
<p>Examples of mainstream cinema depicting pre-Columbian civilisations have been rare, and tend to cater to the tourist gaze by oversimplifying the history and richness of the Mesoamerican region. Films such as Mel Gibson’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472043/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Apocalypto</a>, Steven Spielberg’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367882/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</a>, or the more recent live-action version of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7547410/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_4">Dora the Explorer</a> reduce complex civilisations later vanquished by European colonial forces to a handful of cliches.</p>
<p>These depictions misconstrue the history of civilisations that were highly advanced in science and technology compared to their European counterparts. They also have a negative impact on how millions of Latin Americans and Latinx individuals are represented onscreen and perceived in everyday life.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493171/original/file-20221102-13-i6k5pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493171/original/file-20221102-13-i6k5pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493171/original/file-20221102-13-i6k5pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493171/original/file-20221102-13-i6k5pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493171/original/file-20221102-13-i6k5pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493171/original/file-20221102-13-i6k5pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493171/original/file-20221102-13-i6k5pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493171/original/file-20221102-13-i6k5pm.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Black Panther (2018) was considered a landmark in how Black culture is represented in mainstream movies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Namor reframed as an Aztec-inspired antihero</h2>
<p>First appearing in comic books in 1939, Namor has traditionally been depicted as the sometimes-villainous king of Atlantis. Wakanda Forever repositions Namor’s underwater home to the Pacific Ocean and draws on Aztec and other pre-Columbian culture to realise this new Marvel hero. </p>
<p>The new Namor wears an Aztec-inspired headdress and armour, as well as facial piercings, and his underwater kingdom features buildings resembling Mesoamerican pyramids. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493168/original/file-20221102-22-r6iys1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493168/original/file-20221102-22-r6iys1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493168/original/file-20221102-22-r6iys1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493168/original/file-20221102-22-r6iys1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493168/original/file-20221102-22-r6iys1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493168/original/file-20221102-22-r6iys1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493168/original/file-20221102-22-r6iys1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493168/original/file-20221102-22-r6iys1.jpg?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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Namor in his underwater realm in Wakanda Forever.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta, who stars as Namor, is one of the main voices of a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-10-20/mexico-anti-racism-movement-protests-colorism">social media campaign</a>, #PoderPrieto (“Brown Power”), which fights against the white washing of the Mexican screen industry. </p>
<p>Contrary to fellow male Mexican actors who have been given diverse opportunities, up until now, the darker skinned Huerta has been typecast as a criminal and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-mexico-racism-trfn-idUSKBN23I3DW">faced discrimination </a>in the Mexican screen industry. Mexican film and television generally favours European-looking talent and systematically under-represents Indigenous Mexicans.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-bruce-lee-to-shang-chi-a-short-history-of-the-kung-fu-film-in-cinema-168273">From Bruce Lee to Shang-Chi: a short history of the kung fu film in cinema</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The release of Wakanda Forever coincides with renewed efforts by the incumbent Mexican government and activists to revisit the Indigenous and colonial histories of the country, and address systematic racism on and off-screen. For example, the federal government <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-47701876">has demanded Spain and the Vatican apologise</a> to Indigenous Mexicans over human rights abuses during the conquest over 500 years ago. </p>
<p>Huerta has spoken about the importance of inclusivity and representation of non-white characters in superhero movies. <a href="https://remezcla.com/film/tenoch-huerta-confirms-role-origin-black-panther-wakanda-forever-trailer/">When Huerta was first unveiled</a> to be playing the iconic character at San Diego Comic-Con he explained to the thousands of fans in attendance “I wouldn’t be here without inclusion”, and then switching to Spanish said “Thank you to all the Latin Americans – you guys crossed the river, and you all left everything you love behind. Thanks to that, I’m here.”</p>
<p>The first Black Panther film was a milestone in Black representation on-screen, now it is hoped Wakanda Forever will be both a mirror and a spotlight for millions of Latin Americans, as well as for the vast Latinx diaspora around the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193443/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>
The first Black Panther film was a milestone in Black representation on-screen – now it is hoped Wakanda Forever will be both a mirror and a spotlight for millions of Latin Americans.
César Albarrán-Torres, Senior Lecturer, Department of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of Technology
Liam Burke, Associate Professor and Cinema and Screen Studies Discipline Leader, Swinburne University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/174485
2022-01-12T14:33:51Z
2022-01-12T14:33:51Z
Africans and African-Americans would honour Martin Luther King by rekindling their bonds
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440415/original/file-20220112-13-fulvzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bernice A. King, daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, at a recent press conference preview the King Holiday observance in Atlanta, Georgia.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Erik S. Lesser</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During an official visit to Washington DC in 1962, Cameroon’s founding President Ahmadou Ahidjo informed President John F. Kennedy of his <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/abs/equality-noninterference-and-sovereignty-president-ahmadou-ahidjo-and-the-making-of-cameroonus-relations/20C7C112F4588FFA414E0E0572ECFCA7">displeasure over anti-black racism in the US</a>. Ahidjo met and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/abs/equality-noninterference-and-sovereignty-president-ahmadou-ahidjo-and-the-making-of-cameroonus-relations/20C7C112F4588FFA414E0E0572ECFCA7">praised</a> the leadership of the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lift-Every-Voice-Making-Movement/dp/B0096EQTG0">National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)</a>, the oldest African American civil rights organisation, for its willingness to unite with Africa “in a world-wide movement to fight against the evils of racial discrimination, injustice, racial prejudices, and hatred”.</p>
<p>He later <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Contribution-national-construction-African-political/dp/B0007K7TL6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2Q1HLGGZVNUVF&keywords=ahmadou+ahidjo%2C+contributions+to+national+construction&qid=1639875012&sprefix=ahmadou+ahidjo%2C+contributions+to+national+construction%2Caps%2C75&sr=8-1">wrote that</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Each time a black man [and woman] is humiliated anywhere in the world, all Negroes the world over are hurt. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>President Ahidjo called for a united front between Africans and African-Americans to confront anti-black racism. </p>
<p>He was not the first postcolonial African leader to make such a request. Ghana’s founding President Kwame Nkrumah’s <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313574089_Kwame_Nkrumah_and_the_panafrican_vision_Between_acceptance_and_rebuttal">Pan-Africanism</a> was a message about black upliftment and unity, and his close ally, Sekou Touré of Guinea, <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/ahmed-s%C3%A9kou-tour%C3%A9-1922-1984">advocated similar objectives</a>.</p>
<p>Those calls for a crusade against anti-black racism were deeply rooted in the best of African nationalism. </p>
<p>On the other side of the Atlantic, calls for collaboration to end racism were also taking place. A leading proponent of that message was the <a href="https://www.grandcentralpublishing.com/titles/clayborne-carson/a-call-to-conscience/9780759520080/">Rev. Martin Luther King Jr</a>. He and many in his generation rejected the negative proscriptions of Africa, and called for Africans and African Americans to join forces in the anti-racism crusade.</p>
<p>They <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53360.A_Testament_of_Hope">spoke fondly</a> of their roots in Africa: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>we are descendants of the Africans…“our heritage is Africa. We should never seek to break the ties, nor should the Africans.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Africans and African-Americans must rekindle the spirit of collaboration and cooperation which existed among black nationalists over half a century ago to counter the rising tide of anti-black racism in the US. It was a relationship which came with mutual political, economic, and cultural benefits. </p>
<p>I am a scholar of modern African history with particular emphasis on Africa-US relations and have <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498502375/African-Immersion-American-College-Studen">published extensively in the field</a>. My <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/abs/equality-noninterference-and-sovereignty-president-ahmadou-ahidjo-and-the-making-of-cameroonus-relations/20C7C112F4588FFA414E0E0572ECFCA7">latest publication</a>, on Cameroon-US relations, among other things, addresses the importance of the collaboration between Africans and African Americans to uplift Black people. </p>
<h2>King’s eyeopening visit to Ghana</h2>
<p>King’s knowledge of Africa evolved slowly, and was initially peppered with the usual beliefs of African backwardness. But a trip to Ghana was transformative. In 1957, President Kwame Nkrumah <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trip-newly-independent-ghana-inspired-074416217.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall">invited him to his country’s independence ceremony</a>. </p>
<p>King honoured the invitation. During the ceremony King ”<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trip-newly-independent-ghana-inspired-074416217.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjb252ZXJzYXRpb24uY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIaZb_DR4jGxK6EFPgOGI9NAxQlgNssgDR1Urqw_22DKWDTH4oAwgLKZi3XDKQ8oeNxxG2BJHmkTuYPo5lJS8i79BcdCPlLceLsaiKj6syRmfTPgGwLugTIUkBOO_ABBsxQXXVcgUo4yFnCFViPTo31rBpDUaaZJ0kNuhVwpvVgL">started weeping… crying for joy</a>“ when the British flag was replaced with the Ghanaian flag. He spoke endlessly about the endurance, determination, and courage of the African people. The anti-colonial struggle in Ghana mirrored what was taking place all over Africa.</p>
<p>Later, King <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/birth-new-nation-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church">noted</a> that Ghana’s independence </p>
<blockquote>
<p>will have worldwide implication and repercussions — not only for Asia and Africa, but also for America. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This gave African Americans new insights about the anti-colonial struggle. </p>
<p>Increasingly, King saw parallels between the anti-colonial movement in Africa and the civil rights struggle in the US. In his sermon, ”<a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/birth-new-nation-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church">The Birth of a new nation</a>“, he stated that the Ghana example reinforced his belief that an</p>
<blockquote>
<p>oppressor never voluntarily gives freedom to the oppressed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He added that nonviolence was an effective tactic against oppression.
European colonialism of Africa and segregation in America were both "systems of evil”, he wrote, and <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/birth-new-nation-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church">summoned all to work to defeat them</a>. </p>
<h2>African nationalism meets US civil rights movement</h2>
<p>While racial segregation remained entrenched in America, the tide of independence was changing quickly in Africa. In 1960, 17 African <a href="https://www.macmillanexplorers.com/national-and-regional-histories/history-of-africa/17078210">nations gained independence</a>. They took their anti-racism message to the United Nations, where they chastised the US for its failure to stop anti-black racism. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Marchers carry a poster demanding justice for George Floyd and another bearing his face." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440420/original/file-20220112-17-nryl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440420/original/file-20220112-17-nryl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440420/original/file-20220112-17-nryl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440420/original/file-20220112-17-nryl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440420/original/file-20220112-17-nryl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440420/original/file-20220112-17-nryl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440420/original/file-20220112-17-nryl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The murder of George Floyd by policeman Derek Chauvin angered the African Union.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/ Craig Lassig</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>African representatives in the US were often victims of American racism. Given the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/strategies-of-containment-9780195174472?cc=us&lang=en&">Cold War</a>, US Secretary of State Dean Rusk stated that one of America’s major Cold War problems was the continuous anti-black racism in the country.</p>
<p>After Nigeria, King increasingly spoke of a sense of urgency. In his article, “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1961/09/10/archives/the-time-for-freedom-has-come-this-belief-dr-king-asserts.html#:%7E:text=%27The%20Time%20for%20Freedom%20Has%20Come%27%3B%20This%20belief%2C,By%20Martin%20Luther%20King%20Jr.%20Sept.%2010%2C%201961">The Time for Freedom has Come</a>”, he praised the independence movement in Africa while blasting the slow pace of change in the US. He referred to the independence movement in Africa as the </p>
<blockquote>
<p>greatest single international influence on American Negro students.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>African nationalists such as Nnamdi Azikiwe, Tom Mboya, Hastings Banda were “popular heroes on most Negro college campuses”, King stated. He <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53360.A_Testament_of_Hope">urged</a> African governments to do more to support the civil rights struggle of “their brothers [and sisters] in the US”. </p>
<p>In addition, newspapers in several African nations used the treatment of African Americans to question the role of America as the <a href="https://www.kentstateuniversitypress.com/2010/the-peace-corps-in-cameroon/">leader of the “free world”</a>.</p>
<h2>Ebb and flow</h2>
<p>King and his contemporaries took seriously the partnership with Africa. African American leaders, activists, and scholars alike turned to Africa for inspiration. For example, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/W_E_B_Du_Bois.html?id=-KkRAQAAMAAJ">WEB Du Bois</a>, whose credentials included being co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Pan-African movement, relocated to Ghana. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/16/us/stokely-carmichael-rights-leader-who-coined-black-power-dies-at-57.html">Stokely Carmichael</a> (Kwame Ture), who introduced the Black Power concept in the civil rights movement settled in Guinea. Many others immigrated to Africa. </p>
<p>Poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou was transformed by the African experience. <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/7921/maya-angelous-meeting-with-africa/">She wrote</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>For it is Africa that struts around in our rounded calves, wiggles around in our protruding butts, and crackles in our wide and frank laugh. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The 1960s and 1970s were decades of remarkable collaboration and cooperation between Africans and African-Americans.</p>
<p>American political leaders took note of the collaboration between Africans and African-Americans. President John F. Kennedy, the first American president to treat Africa with respect, created a more informed US foreign policy towards African nations – in part <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cold-War-Black-Liberation-1948-1968/dp/0826204589/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1C1CIDK16G45D&keywords=Thomas+noer&qid=1639886835&sprefix=thomas+noer%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-1">to woo the support of African-Americans in elections</a>.</p>
<p>Kennedy’s policy was later abandoned by his successors – some of whom reverted to referring to Africans as “<a href="https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=WsIIDJlKm6sC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=Lyndon+Johnson+Africa+cannibals&source=bl&ots=bQBLUppsTF&sig=yZPq5JA4MdgbQH2LsdCke68rt3M&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Lyndon%20Johnson%20Africa%20cannibals&f=false">cannibals</a>” and “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Enchanting-Darkness-American-Twentieth-Century/dp/0870133217/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LS3NS1GALRTI&keywords=an+enchanting+darkness%3A+the+american+vision+of+africa+in+the+twentieth+century&qid=1639879403&sprefix=an+enchanting+darkness+the+american+vision+of+africa+in+the+twentieth+century%2Caps%2C81&sr=8-1">genetically inferior</a>”.</p>
<p>Those new policies coincided with a deep level of ignorance about Africans by African-Americans and vice-versa. And little effort was made by each side to bridge the gap. African Americans increasingly saw Africans through a stereotypical lens invented by the western society to justify colonialism and slavery. </p>
<p>In turn, Africans accepted uncritically America’s <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498502375/African-Immersion-American-College-Students-in-Cameroon">mainstream society’s labels of African Americans</a>. The type of relations and advocacy forged by King’s generation had evaporated.</p>
<h2>Looking ahead</h2>
<p>But the tide may be changing. There was renewed interest following the release of the movie Black Panther which showed blacks as capable, determined, and <a href="https://apercu.web.unc.edu/2018/04/the-black-panther-to-african-american-society/">possessed civilisation</a>. Following the murder of <a href="https://theconversation.com/george-floyd-why-the-sight-of-these-brave-exhausted-protesters-gives-me-hope-139804">George Floyd</a> in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the African Union publicly condemned America for its continuous racism against blacks. </p>
<p>The spokesperson Ebba Kalondo <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20200529/statement-chairperson-following-murder-george-floyd-usa">issued</a> a strong condemnation of</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the continuing discriminatory practices against Black citizens of the United States of America.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Kalondo demanded a full investigation of the killing. </p>
<p>This new position may rekindle the spirit of cooperation and collaboration which characterised the King era. A major part of ending anti-black racism in the US is to learn about the role Africa played in shaping the idea of the west and <a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Born-Blackness-Howard-W-French/9781631495823">Africa’s contributions to global civilizations</a>. </p>
<p>That knowledge will implode centuries-old myths of Africa’s backwardness and incapability. It is up to African Americans to champion that conversation in university classrooms and many other public spaces. </p>
<p>Finally, what King said about Africa as full of “rich opportunities”, inviting African Americans to “lend their technical assistance” to a rising continent remains as true today as it was when he said it nearly 60 years ago. </p>
<p>The failure to do so has increasingly ceded the ground to other actors <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/03/07/the-new-scramble-for-africa">who continue to exploit the continent</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174485/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julius A. Amin 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>
King saw parallels between the anti-colonial movement in Africa and the civil rights struggle in the US.
Julius A. Amin, Professor, Department of History, University of Dayton
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/166002
2021-10-06T12:30:40Z
2021-10-06T12:30:40Z
Afrofuturism and its possibility of elsewhere: The power of political imagination
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423661/original/file-20210928-20-lsm24a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C27%2C2020%2C1201&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Afrofuturist's work is rooted in the desire to transform the present for Black people. Here actor Mouna Traoré in 'Brown Girl Begins' (2017) directed by Sharon Lewis set in a post-apocalyptic version of Toronto.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Urbansoul Inc</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pay attention to the visions for the future put forward in today’s world by politicians, intellectuals and scientists: </p>
<p>The development of technologies to <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/planting-an-ecosystem-on-mars">sustain human life on other planets</a>; <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/12/10/artificial-intelligence-and-the-future-of-humans/">new digital realities</a>; the <a href="https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2018winter/CRISPR-for-gene-editing-is-revolutionary-but-it-comes-with-risks.html">altering of human DNA</a>. </p>
<p>Who is this future for? </p>
<p>What is not recognized as possible in our future is equally telling: No substantial strategy to tackle climate change; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/world/europe/coronavirus-inequality.html">few equitable responses to the COVID-19 pandemic</a>; no end to the ongoing <a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-land-defenders-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-6-156632">dispossession of Indigenous lands</a> from <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/06/17/733497808/25-years-after-apartheid-ended-south-africas-land-rights-problem-is-boiling-over">South Africa</a> to Canada to <a href="https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2021/05/21/canada-and-israel-partners-in-the-settler-colonial-contract/">Palestine</a>; no basic services to those who live daily without food or clean drinking water, even in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23898-z">world’s richest countries</a>. </p>
<p>Progress, it seems, is measured by technological breakthroughs and not social uplift. Many of the “big visions” on offer for our future overlook those who wear the persistent wounds of slavery, genocide, colonialism and capitalist exploitation. </p>
<h2>Political potential</h2>
<p>Of course, there are those who have been doing the work of imagining revolutionary futures. Speculative fiction and philosophy, especially those works coming from Afrofuturists, focus on this imbalance of future propositions. Afrofuturists powerfully imagine “elsewhere” beyond our present alienation. Their work is rooted in the desire to transform the present for Black people. To do so, they imagine a reality in which Black people are the agents of their own story, countering those histories that discount and dismiss their contributions. </p>
<p>Cultural theorist Kodwo Eshun <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2003.0021">defines Afrofuturism</a> as a practice to establish the historical character of Black culture by bringing African peoples into a global history denied to them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423672/original/file-20210928-15-15zhbwi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Selwyn Hinds wrote the script for ‘Replay’ an episode for Jordan Peele’s ‘The Twilight Zone,’ starring Sanaa Lathan and Damson Idris (2019). He is a guest on our podcast, Don’t Call Me Resilient, EP 7 about Afro and Indigenous futurism.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The recent mainstreaming of Afrofuturistic stories like <em>Black Panther</em> and those by science fiction writers like N. K. Jemisin and Nnedi Okorafor have garnered critical praise for their inclusive and creative content. Yet the mainstreaming of Afrofuturism has, for the most part, glossed over its political potential. </p>
<p>Today, questions of agency and who exactly the future is built for are urgent political matters. In Canada, the federal government’s recent acknowledgement of historic atrocities committed against <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/emancipation-day.html">Black</a> and <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/maple-leaf/defence/2021/07/federal-statutory-holiday-national-day-for-truth-and-reconciliation.html">Indigenous</a> peoples is testament to the growing political dissent against the present and historical narratives on offer. </p>
<h2>Looking back to move forward</h2>
<p>The work of imagining alternate futures is also about imagining alternate pasts. Pasts in which Black and Indigenous people feature as more than just passive observers. It is about rewriting the narrative on agency and action and it is deeply political. </p>
<p>This desire to uncover the past is increasingly necessary today, particularly as a means of challenging systems of capitalism and white supremacy. The idea of an “elsewhere” represents possible histories as possible futures, those that <em>could have</em> been. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cover of the book Fledgling by Octavia Butler." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423063/original/file-20210924-21-2xzjvu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Octavia Butler’s books grapple with the legacies of slavery in America.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200317-why-octavia-e-butlers-novels-are-so-relevant-today">Octavia Butler’s dystopian novels</a> like <em>Parable of the Sower</em> written in 1993, she grapples with legacies of slavery in America as well as with misogyny and class struggle. But beyond this, she built new worlds. She imagined different ways of relating to others. Her work explored the undesirable possibilities for the future, those that disrupt the narrative of our historical progress. She imagined not simply what was possible in the future, but <em>who</em> was possible. </p>
<p>Butler’s work demonstrates the power of creative re-imagining. Her body of work reminds us that the untold stories of the marginalized represent new possibilities for liberation.</p>
<h2>New possibilities</h2>
<p>In Canada, growing political dissent has called for <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/protest-ottawa-arrests-day-of-action-for-anishinabeg-1.5811276">solidarity among oppressed groups</a>. This dissent represents a shift in what is considered possible today. </p>
<p>Polls conducted in 2020, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder found that 67 per cent of Canadian respondents had <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7356841/black-lives-matter-canada-poll/">a favourable view of the Black Lives Matter</a> movement. That same year, 51 per cent of Canadians were in favour of <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/news-and-polls/Canadians-Divided-On-Whether-To-Defund-Police">defunding the police</a>, with younger people voicing even stronger support. </p>
<p>This year, 89 per cent of Canadians said they <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/08/05/canadians-want-a-wealth-tax-and-are-willing-to-vote-for-it.html">want a wealth tax</a> because they are increasingly dismayed by the gap between rich and poor as evidenced throughout the pandemic. </p>
<p>After the mass graves of Indigenous children on residential school grounds were uncovered this summer, a <a href="https://www.afn.ca/years-after-release-of-trc-report-most-canadians-want-accelerated-action-to-remedy-damage-done-by-residential-school-system-says-poll/">majority of Canadians want to see immediate action on First Nations priorities</a>. </p>
<p>But despite these shifts in public consciousness, conversations of what comes next are few and far between. The work of visualising alternate futures, and possibilities beyond our present conditions requires moving beyond the current way of seeing struggle and trauma — as a source of the strength of one’s character, invoking the language of “resilience” to explain the survival of marginalized populations. Instead, our aim should be to recognize the work of the historically neglected to imagine elsewhere both in their past and present.</p>
<h2>Finding elsewhere</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://theconversation.com/ca/podcasts">Click here to listen to Don’t Call Me Resilient</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Those who continue to be deliberately neglected in the present are constantly generating new possibilities for our collective future through creative dissent. These are communities who have always attempted find an “elsewhere” by revisiting the past and imagining new futures in what was forgotten. </p>
<p>Through their creative imaginings, the lesson we should glean from Afrofuturists is the aim to shift our understanding of what is possible; to help us build worlds from the seeds of our own social, political and philosophical traditions.</p>
<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/add6ca9a-00ee-4443-b95b-e20204f36a6f?dark=true"></iframe>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-572" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/572/661898416fdc21fc4fdef6a5379efd7cac19d9d5/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166002/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lina Nasr El Hag Ali 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>
Afrofuturist’s work is rooted in the desire to transform the present for Black people. To do so, they imagine a reality in which Black people are the agents of their own story, countering histories that discount and dismiss them.
Lina Nasr El Hag Ali, Lecturer, OCAD University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/160917
2021-05-31T04:13:40Z
2021-05-31T04:13:40Z
‘I didn’t have a superhero that looked like me’: Marvel’s new female, culturally diverse and queer protagonists mirror our times
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402802/original/file-20210526-21-1nkmgmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C4%2C1657%2C1319&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Simu Liu plays the title character in the upcoming film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel/Disney</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last week, the trailer dropped for what will be the 26th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise: Eternals, directed by Chloé Zhao. Opening with a dreamy, misty shoreline, we hear Skeeter Davis’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSTHOqO6A7Q">The End of the World</a>. An ominous spaceship appears over the ocean, and the Eternals begin to prepare for the impending battle. </p>
<p>This year, Zhao was only the second woman (and first woman of colour) to win <a href="https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a36221619/chloe-zhao-best-director-oscars-win-history-first-woman-of-color/">Best Director at the Academy Awards</a>: a reminder of Hollywood’s entrenched gender and race biases. The cinematic world of Marvel, which began with Iron Man in 2008, has been similarly male and white.</p>
<p>Of the 23 Marvel films released so far, just one has been directed by a woman (Anna Boden, who co-directed Captain Marvel with Ryan Fleck) and two by people of colour (Ryan Coogler for Black Panther, and Taika Waititi for Thor: Ragnarok).</p>
<p>But things are changing.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pWfjJ6bOy7w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In July, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) — one of the original Avengers — will finally get her own film in Black Widow, directed by Australian Cate Shortland.</p>
<p>In September, Destin Daniel Cretton’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will showcase a predominantly Asian cast, where superhero Shang-Chi (Simu Liu in the character’s film debut) encounters the terrorist group Ten Rings.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/oscar-winners-how-the-pandemic-led-to-a-record-breaking-year-of-diversity-159102">Oscar winners: how the pandemic led to a record-breaking year of diversity</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Zhao’s Eternals, to be released in November, will see an immortal alien race forced out of hiding after thousands of years in a quest to save humanity. Starring a multicultural, ensemble cast including Gemma Chan, Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie, Eternals will feature Marvel’s first openly queer superhero — Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) — and deaf superhero — Makkari (Lauren Ridloff).</p>
<p>Asian American <a href="https://observer.com/2019/09/marvel-shang-chi-details-destin-daniel-cretton-tiff-interview/">Cretton has said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Growing up, I didn’t have a superhero that looked like me and it’s really exciting to give a new generation something I did not have.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Owned by Disney, Marvel Studios is an entertainment giant, which has grossed over <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/31/the-13-highest-grossing-film-franchises-at-the-box-office.html">US$22.5 billion</a> (A$29 billion) at the global box office. Its investment in more diverse stories, characters and directors is clever marketing. But it is also an indication of the dynamic relationship between one of the world’s biggest film franchises and its fan base, and how they both sit within the broader culture.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QdpxoFcdORI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Marvel, like all film studios, has found itself creating popular culture during a period of great social and political upheaval. Global movements such as #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter and #StopAsianHate have been a clarion call for social justice. </p>
<p>These movements have exposed and challenged discrimination and violence against marginalised groups, including exclusion from representation on screen and behind the scenes. </p>
<p>Pressure from #MeToo activists has seen <a href="https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/has-metoo-changed-how-hollywood-hires">Hollywood hire more female filmmakers</a> since 2018. In the wake of #BlackLivesMatter’s growth in 2014 came #OscarsSoWhite in 2015, a movement which led to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/movies/oscarssowhite-history.html">remarkable change</a> in the diversity of filmmakers — and the recognition they received.</p>
<h2>Knowing their audience</h2>
<p>2018’s <a href="https://time.com/black-panther/">Black Panther</a> broke new ground with its all Black lead cast and Coogler as the franchise’s first African American director. Making US$1.34 billion (A$1.72 billion) at the box office, it is the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbean/2020/04/24/all-23-marvel-cinematic-universe-films-ranked-at-the-box-office-including-black-widow/?sh=23494e21494e">second highest grossing</a> Marvel film in the US.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-i-marvelled-at-black-panthers-reimagining-of-africa-91703">How I marvelled at Black Panther’s reimagining of Africa</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>2019’s <a href="https://www.antithesisjournal.com.au/blog/2019/4/18/feminism-as-a-super-power-why-captain-marvel-is-the-ultimate-female-superhero">Captain Marvel</a>, the franchise’s first standalone female superhero film, with its first female director, made US$1.13 billion (A$1.45 billion) at the box office.</p>
<p>This year we had a <a href="https://tv.avclub.com/what-does-it-mean-for-a-black-man-to-be-captain-america-1846744340">Black Captain America</a> for the first time in the Disney+ spin-off series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Directed by Kari Skogland, the series was the streaming service’s <a href="https://screenrant.com/falcon-winter-soldier-series-premiere-views-disney-plus/">most watched premiere ever</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IWBsDaFWyTE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>This casting, and the story the series told about race, <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/falcon-and-the-winter-soldier-reckons-with-an-american-burden-4167996/">resonated with viewers</a> who were frustrated and angry at the criminalisation and disempowerment of Black men playing out time and again in the news media. </p>
<p>This is not to suggest Marvel is radically undoing the biases of society and the film industry, smashing stereotypes shored up by centuries of <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2019/04/avengers-endgame-female-representation-black-widow.html">patriarchal</a> or <a href="https://variety.com/2021/film/news/doctor-strange-whitewash-tilda-swinton-kevin-feige-1234977525/">colonial domination</a>. That would be an insurmountable challenge even for the Avengers. </p>
<p>Rather, Marvel’s increasingly liberal steps stem from an understanding of the power of the people. The franchise’s continued success depends on remaining culturally relevant and, crucially, not underestimating what its audiences want — and who its audiences are. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/giWIr7U1deA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Familiar tropes of Asian-ness will appear in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Shang-Chi’s powers are, of course, martial arts skills). But by handing over the keys to Cretton and his culturally diverse creative team, we can expect Marvel’s first standalone Asian superhero film to be a nuanced, multifaceted depiction of Asian cultures and identities not seen before in the genre.</p>
<p>As an immigrant female director and Marvel enthusiast, Zhao perhaps epitomises the future — and logical endpoint — of Marvel’s quest for inclusion and diversity. </p>
<p>“I’m not just making [Eternals] as a director,” <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/director-chloe-zhao-arrives-with-hot-oscar-contender-nomadland-and-next-years-eternals-4053382/">she said</a>. “I’m making the film as a fan.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160917/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christina Lee 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>
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is becoming increasingly diverse, on and off screen. The franchise’s continued success depends on remaining culturally relevant.
Christina Lee, Senior Lecturer in Literary and Cultural Studies, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/154661
2021-02-14T09:13:45Z
2021-02-14T09:13:45Z
Aliens in Lagos: sci-fi novel Lagoon offers a bold new future
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383710/original/file-20210211-21-1doro3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from the cover of Lagoon, a novel by Nnedi Okorafor.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Joey Hi-Fi/Hodder & Stoughton</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In his satirical essay <a href="https://granta.com/how-to-write-about-africa/"><em>How to Write About Africa</em></a>, the late Kenyan writer and journalist <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa-has-lost-binyavanga-wainaina-but-his-spirit-will-continue-to-inspire-117608">Binyavanga Wainaina</a> advocated for a rethinking of clichéd and stereotypical representations of the continent. Wainaina was in favour of looking beyond the despair that has plagued and continues to plague Africa. </p>
<p><a href="https://lithub.com/please-stop-talking-about-the-rise-of-african-science-fiction/">African science fiction</a> is a literary <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/F956C83CE2971E9296142530A2AE9B7B/S2052261416000283a.pdf/div-class-title-introduction-african-science-fiction-div.pdf">genre</a> which tries to imagine utopic futures of the continent. Nigerian-American novelist <a href="https://nnedi.com">Nnedi Okorafor</a> calls her brand of sci-fi “Africanfuturism”. She explains in her <a href="http://nnedi.blogspot.com/">blog</a> that Africanfuturism is “concerned with visions of the future” and that “it’s less concerned with ‘what could have been’ and more concerned with what can/will be.” </p>
<p>Okorafor is on an upward global sci-fi trajectory, especially with the adaption of her acclaimed novella <em><a href="https://nnedi.com/books/binti.html">Binti</a></em> into a major <a href="https://brittlepaper.com/2020/01/hulu-orders-tv-adaptation-of-nnedi-okorafors-binti-to-be-co-written-by-her-watchmen-screenwriter-stacy-osei-kuffour/">TV series</a> – among several <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CByjmsilPqD/">proposed projects</a> involving her African protagonists. Considered especially against the background of the phenomenal success of the sci-fi blockbuster movie <em><a href="https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/marvels-black-panther/">Black Panther</a></em>, Okorafor’s rich body of work matters when it comes to the representation of black lives.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383735/original/file-20210211-21-4wbr7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover in green, black and white reading, 'Nnedi Okorafor Lagoon' with a quote from Ursula la Guin and an illustration of a human form swimming through sea creatures and tentacles towards the light." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383735/original/file-20210211-21-4wbr7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383735/original/file-20210211-21-4wbr7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383735/original/file-20210211-21-4wbr7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383735/original/file-20210211-21-4wbr7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383735/original/file-20210211-21-4wbr7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383735/original/file-20210211-21-4wbr7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383735/original/file-20210211-21-4wbr7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joey Hi-Fi/Hodder & Stoughton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Her 2014 novel <a href="https://www.litnet.co.za/african-library-lagoon-by-nnedi-okorafor/"><em>Lagoon</em></a> recounts the story of the arrival of aliens in Nigeria. The aliens make their landing in the ocean, in the lagoon close to the city of Lagos. The novel focuses on Ayodele, the alien ambassador, and her interactions with three humans: a marine biologist named Adaora, a musician from Ghana named Anthony and a military man named Agu. Ayodele has <a href="https://bestsciencefictionbooks.com/shapeshifting-science-fiction.php">shapeshifting</a> capabilities that allow her to change her form. She transforms fluidly between human, animal and inanimate forms.</p>
<p>As I have observed in my <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/18125441.2020.1826568">analysis</a>, <em>Lagoon</em>, through its shapeshifting alien protagonist, challenges long held ideas of how gender and sexual identities are considered in Africa. </p>
<h2>That which does not resemble us</h2>
<p><em>Lagoon</em> cheerfully disregards many literary norms. A mythical spider called Udide Okwanka, for example, recounts the story – which is also told from multiple perspectives. But particularly innovative is how <em>Lagoon</em> imagines a bold alternative future in which there is a liberation of identities and desires from rigid norms. </p>
<p>In Ayodele’s interactions with humans, she questions how they live and think. Through her shapeshifting capabilities, she defies what humans consider the “normal” ways of being. </p>
<p>Ayodele is portrayed as queer. By queer I mean that her identity defies established gender identity categories. In the novel, she is referred to as “a woman … man … whatever” and as a “woman, thing, whatever she was”. This fluid identity blurs the boundaries of what has been normalised as “correct”.</p>
<p>The narrator of <em>Lagoon</em> explains that Ayodele’s fluid identity makes her dangerous. The danger lies in that Ayodele dismantles a well established system that denigrates ways of being that are different or stray from what is considered normal. Ayodele’s identity makes humans uncomfortable. In the novel, Ayodele states</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Human beings have a hard time relating to that which does not resemble them. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is when humans are made uncomfortable that it becomes possible to start imagining different futures. The familiar is defamiliarised and stereotypes are disregarded.</p>
<h2>Becoming visible</h2>
<p>In <em>Lagoon</em>, Ayodele’s difference compels a queer student organisation called Black Nexus to come out of hiding and to confront societal stereotypes. Before the arrival of Ayodele and the aliens, Black Nexus only met clandestinely once a month. Ayodele’s presence emboldens them to come out of the closet and confront their own insecurities.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383740/original/file-20210211-19-13071wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman with a wry smile and large hairstyle sits in front of a museum display of insects." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383740/original/file-20210211-19-13071wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383740/original/file-20210211-19-13071wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=680&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383740/original/file-20210211-19-13071wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=680&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383740/original/file-20210211-19-13071wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=680&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383740/original/file-20210211-19-13071wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383740/original/file-20210211-19-13071wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383740/original/file-20210211-19-13071wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Nnedi Okorafor with insects.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cheetah Witch/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of particular interest, the group is encouraged by how Ayodele challenges Father Oke, a bishop in a local diocese. Father Oke is known to speak out against queer individuals and for equating queer relations to bestiality. The Black Nexus group see in Ayodele a possible ally and a radical force that could change how they are viewed in Nigeria – a country where same-sex relations are <a href="https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/52f4d9cc4.pdf">criminalised</a>.</p>
<p>By becoming visible, the members of Black Nexus defy the ways of thinking that marginalise them and render them invisible in Nigeria.</p>
<h2>What if?</h2>
<p>In my reading, Ayodele’s shapeshifting capabilities represent a need to rethink identities so that they are liberated from the limiting ways in which humans consider them. The novel imagines a future in which different forms of otherness are granted space to be and to flourish. Ayodele hints at this future, saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Last night, Lagos burned. But like a phoenix, it will rise from the ashes – a greater creature than before.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Lagoon</em>’s Africanfuturist vision requires a reader who is actively engaged in co-creating the alternative future that the novel is constructing: one in which identities are freed from restrictive thinking that refuses to recognise difference and diversity. </p>
<p>The reader is a central participant in this process because the writer, the reader and the text are engaged in a creative conversation. This conversation involves challenging the present and past misrepresentations of Africa. And it involves striving to envision counter-futures that contrast the present and past. The reader is required to be an active participant in meaning making. </p>
<p>I conclude by quoting Okorafor, who explains in a 2017 <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/nnedi_okorafor_sci_fi_stories_that_imagine_a_future_africa?language=en">talk</a> that sci-fi plays an important role in imagining possible futures. She tells her audience:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>So much of science fiction speculates about technologies, societies, social issues, what’s beyond our planet, what’s within our planet. Science fiction is one of the greatest and most effective forms of political writing. It’s all about the question, “What if?”.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154661/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gibson Ncube 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>
Aliens arrive in Lagos in Nnedi Okorafor’s celebrated sci-fi novel Lagoon – and with them they bring a future free of restrictive gender norms.
Gibson Ncube, Associate Professor, University of Zimbabwe
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/151680
2021-01-28T14:11:29Z
2021-01-28T14:11:29Z
Hip hop and Pan Africanism: from Blitz the Ambassador to Beyoncé
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373944/original/file-20201209-19-4bf5nl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zambia-born, Botswana-raised hip hop artist Sampa the Great.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marc Grimwade/WireImage</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hip hop is many things. Most recently is has become more of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/korihale/2019/02/06/goldman-sachs-bets-on-hip-hop-and-millennials-for-music-revival/?sh=2b3ab2a46f17">commodity</a>, a commercial venture, but it has always been and remains a global culture that represents local realities. It speaks about where one is from – through rap lyrics, DJing, graffiti or breakdancing – by incorporating local slang, references, neighbourhood tales, sounds and styles.</p>
<p>Hip hop <a href="https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/how-the-burning-of-the-bronx-led-to-the-birth-of-hip-hop/">emerged</a> in the 1970s in the South Bronx, in New York City in the US, among young, working class African Americans as well as Caribbean and Latino immigrants. </p>
<p>Hip hop culture’s connection to African musical and social traditions would be well <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739193297/Hip-Hop-and-Social-Change-in-Africa-Ni-Wakati">documented</a>, including in my <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Hip-Hop+in+Africa">book</a> <em>Hip Hop in Africa: Prophets of the City and Dustyfoot Philosophers</em>. </p>
<p>In its roots and manifestations, I argue, hip hop has also proven to be a powerful vehicle for spreading and shaping Pan Africanism.</p>
<h2>Moving beyond borders</h2>
<p>Pan Africanism is an acknowledgement of the social, cultural and historical bonds that unite people of African descent. It’s an understanding of shared struggles and, as a result, shared destinies. It’s also an understanding of the importance of dismantling the divisions among African people in order to work towards greater social, cultural and political solidarity. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-319-77030-7_134-1">work</a> has focused on hip hop as a soundtrack for the transnationalisation – the spreading beyond national borders – of African communities and identities. </p>
<p>This includes the increased and diversified migration of Africans to countries around the world. Today, an increasing number of Africans have lived in more than two countries. There have also been increased migrations to Africa from the African diaspora – people of African descent who are spread across the world. Some of these diaspora migrants are also Africans migrating to countries in Africa other than their own. </p>
<p>One artist whose work is both an articulation of these transnational trends and of an advancing Pan Africanism is Ghanaian-born, New York-based hip hop star <a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/11/27/247481464/blitz-the-ambassador-fighting-against-invisibility">Blitz the Ambassador</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man plays African drums and sings into a microphone, behind him a row of trumpeters and saxophonists." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Blitz the Ambassador in New York in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We see this throughout his entire catalogue, from songs like <em><a href="https://blitzemmetstill.bandcamp.com">Emmet Still</a></em> and <em>Sankofa</em> on his 2005 album <em>Double Consciousness</em> to <em><a href="https://youtu.be/zyQNUGMBhLY">Hello Africa</a></em> on his 2016 release <a href="https://jakartarecords-label.bandcamp.com/album/diasporadical"><em>Diasporadical</em></a>. </p>
<p>In <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmqvguxPvu4">Hello Africa</a></em> he raps: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just touched down, Ecowas passport. Internationally known, I give ’em what they ask for. From Accra city all the way outta Marrakech…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He proceeds to take us on a journey across Africa in a way that acknowledges his identity as an African belonging to the continent, and also his transnational relationship with the continent. He throws in different languages – Arabic, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Wolof – as he moves through different cities.</p>
<h2>The new Pan Africanism</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/pan-africanism">Pan Africanism</a> is not a new idea, or movement. Its roots are pre-colonial. There continues to be serious investment in a Pan African agenda set by intellectuals like <a href="https://www.lincoln.edu/departments/langston-hughes-memorial-library/kwame-nkrumah-digital-information-site">Kwame Nkrumah</a> of Ghana, <a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/pan-africanism/nyerere-nationalism-and-pan-africanism">Julius Nyerere</a> of Tanzania, <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/biograph.htm">C.L.R. James</a> of Trinidad and <a href="https://www.naacp.org/naacp-history-w-e-b-dubois/">W.E.B. DuBois</a> of the US.</p>
<p>While we see growth in hip hop’s Pan African voice through artists like Blitz the Ambassador, we do also see movement away from a United States of Africa under a socialist state as a primary goal of Pan Africanists. What then are some of the primary objectives of Pan Africanism today? African music, especially hip hop, has always given us clues.</p>
<p>Hip hop is an important <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Hip-Hop+in+Africa">catalyst</a> for Pan Africanism today. We are seeing a major cultural shift through collaborations between African and African diaspora artists, as well as the inclusion of Pan African elements in their music. </p>
<p>Some of these songs are significant in bringing together artists known for making social statements, such as <em>Opps</em> (2018) with Vince Staples (US) and Yugen Blakrok (South Africa) for the <em>Black Panther</em> <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2018/02/a-guide-to-black-panther-soundtracks-south-african-artists.html">soundtrack</a>. There are many more, like the remix to <em><a href="https://sampathegreat.bandcamp.com/album/time-s-up-remix-feat-junglepussy-3">Times Up</a></em> (2020) with Sampa the Great and Junglepussy.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H2lvgKDpiSA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Sampa the Great’s work embodies Pan Africanism today.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Zambia-born, Botswana-raised hip hop artist Sampa The Great spends her time between Australia and Botswana. Her album <em><a href="https://sampathegreat.bandcamp.com/album/the-return">The Return</a></em> (2019) was an important work that received much <a href="https://www.metacritic.com/music/the-return/sampa-the-great">praise</a>. From it, the songs <em><a href="https://youtu.be/H2lvgKDpiSA">Final Form</a></em> and <em><a href="https://youtu.be/dDubhAKSeB0">Energy</a></em> are representations of hip hop’s Pan African voice. </p>
<p>In the songs’ music videos, for example, we see dance styles found in diaspora and African communities. We see facial paint designs like those seen in South Africa and masks like those found in Mali. In <a href="http://pilerats.com/music/rap/sampa-the-great-energy/"><em>Energy</em></a> she features British-Sierra Leonean artist <a href="https://www.radicalartreview.org/post/black-visual-frequency-interview-with-nadeem-din-gabisi">Nadeem Din-Gabisi</a> performing poetry in <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-west-africas-pidgins-deserve-full-recognition-as-official-languages-101844">Pidgin English</a>.</p>
<h2>Collaborations</h2>
<p>We’ve seen important collaborations between hip hop artists across Africa and in the diaspora that go back to the early 1990s. But we see an increase after 2010. When African artists started using social media and file sharing they were able to increase their collaborations. </p>
<p>In 2011, Senegalese hip hop pioneer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/feb/15/worldmusic.urban">Didier Awadi</a> released the major collaborative project, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/1fWlrQsVTwZo9avHCeZDzF?autoplay=true">Présidents d'Afrique</a> (Presidents of Africa) featuring collaborations with artists from Burkina Faso, DRC, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, France and the US. It also sampled speeches from past leaders like Aimé Césaire, Nyerere, Nkrumah, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.</p>
<p>And the growing presence of Africans in important positions in the US entertainment industry has meant these collaborations are beginning to happen in more mainstream platforms. </p>
<p>Two big budget projects that have attracted significant attention are the US film <em>Black Panther</em> (2018) and US pop star Beyoncé’s <em>Black is King</em> visual album (2020). </p>
<p>There are many important <a href="https://culture-review.co.za/black-america-is-king?fbclid=IwAR2aBSKryCvXuX1blBwJz7sFhViOestuSHNLtexPM6Npyzs4EQ6b6v3WTgU">criticisms</a> of these projects. Major labels prefer proven (profitable) formulas over artist innovation. There is a tendency towards a homogenisation – a lumping together – of Africa and a marginalisation of African artists’ voices. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nLm8MMmkqeQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Beyoncé is criticised for her representations of Africa.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But we also need to understand that both projects are products of the transnationalisation of African communities and identities. They exist in part because of the increased mobility of African communities around the world. We also must recognise their impact on helping to cultivate Pan African identities. </p>
<p>In <em>Black is King</em>, we see the prominent influence of West African culture. The project was the product of the creative vision of Beyoncé, Ghanaian creative director <a href="https://www.essence.com/entertainment/only-essence/black-is-king-director-kwasi-fordjour/">Kwasi Fordjour</a> and Ghanaian creatives Blitz Bazawule (Blitz the Ambassador) and <a href="https://www.emmanueladjei.com">Emmanuel Adjei</a>. Also on the project were Nigerian creative directors <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/ibra-ake-mission-show-african-creatives-value-ownership-childish-gambino/">Ibra Ake</a> and <a href="https://100women.okayafrica.com/editorial/jennnkiru">Jenn Nkiru</a>. </p>
<h2>Pan Africanism is hip hop</h2>
<p>There will be more of these projects produced. There will also continue to be these projects produced on smaller budgets. But imagine if Sampa the Great’s <em>Final Form</em> had a <em>Black is King</em> budget? Would there be criticism of this artist if she incorrectly used a particular African symbol?</p>
<p>Songs like <em>Final Form</em> and <em>Hello Africa</em> are celebrations of Blackness, in global spaces. This Pan Africanism is recognition that African peoples are transnational and multicultural. It is an understanding that African peoples must stand together. It is also a call to understand and respect the differences in our struggles and to resist the temptation of imposing “universal” models of liberation. Pan Africanism is also feminist, anti-homophobic and anti-imperialist. </p>
<p>The importance of African music and hip hop is that it also clues us in on what is going on with Pan Africanism. Pan Africanism is not a movement that faded away or only lives on among a small minority. It is dynamic, and has adjusted to new realities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Msia Kibona Clark 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>
The increased migration of Africans and the global growth of hip hop culture has seen a dynamic new generation of Pan Africanism emerge.
Msia Kibona Clark, Associate professor, Howard University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/151983
2021-01-08T13:28:13Z
2021-01-08T13:28:13Z
Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther gives a boost to diversity in STEM – a Black engineer’s take on personal and professional inspiration
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377068/original/file-20210104-13-1npvp4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=41%2C0%2C4608%2C3062&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chadwick Boseman's portrayal of the Black Panther was an inspiration to people of color in science, technology, engineering and math fields.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BritainBlackPantherPremiere/6bc8cfbc168e4a4ea0dd9bf62848b497/photo?boardId=6576eeb175bb4623a6e17828de4a73e8&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=3&currentItemNo=0">Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Chadwick Boseman played a superhero on the big screen, but he had a real-life superpower – the ability to inspire the next generation of underrepresented scientists, engineers and innovators. He was one of many people <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/aug/29/chadwick-boseman-obituary">lost too soon</a> in 2020, but his legacy will live on.</p>
<p>I’m biracial – Black and white – but primarily identify as Black, in part because that’s how other people have always identified me. I’m also an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TRhLepIAAAAJ&hl=en">engineer, scientist, educator, inventor and entrepreneur</a> who has drawn great inspiration from Boseman. </p>
<p>On and off the screen, he championed Black representation and embodied Black excellence. From the scientists of the fictional country of Wakanda to the supersuit he wore as the superhero Black Panther, the cinematic world he brought to life mirrors my own vision: a world of increased inclusion and diversity in STEM, one where real-life exosuits are commonplace and empower people of all abilities.</p>
<h2>Faces like mine</h2>
<p>I grew up in a community with few other faces like mine. I don’t recall having any Black teachers in school or any Black professors I took classes from in college. Fortunately I had an older brother who looked like me to admire and who blazed a trail, becoming an engineer a few years before me. But for most of my life, I rarely saw Black engineers or scientists in the real world or popular culture except in an occasional article, poster or TV segment in February, Black History Month. In retrospect those were mostly about George Washington Carver, a science rock star, but it became a bit repetitive.</p>
<p>Against this backdrop, the world of Wakanda that Boseman helped bring to life in the movie “Black Panther” was something out of this world for me. It was a portrayal of a society where being <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ent-chadwick-boseman-speech-young-figted-black-20200829-opng6nt455a6rcdodbylw7mp4e-story.html">young, Black and gifted</a> was the norm, and these individuals were implicitly accepted and respected as scientists, engineers, innovators and intellectuals. </p>
<p>It was the kind of portrayal in a blockbuster movie that I do not recall seeing, ever. I believe that everyone, particularly the next generation of Black, biracial and other underrepresented science, technology, engineering and math students, will draw inspiration from this portrayal, either consciously or subconsciously.</p>
<p>On Twitter, <a href="https://twitter.com/blkinengineerng">Black in Engineering</a> was launched in the week leading up to Boseman’s passing in August 2020, and <a href="https://twitter.com/BlkInComputing">Black in Computing</a> was launched two months earlier. The same cathartic experience of seeing Wakandan scientists and engineers on the big screen is how I felt reading all the posts tagged #BiERollCall – Black engineers and scientists across STEM disciplines introduced themselves and their work, their passions and their expertise. And a sea of allies and advocates amplified these voices – including MC Hammer, who was throwing out <a href="https://twitter.com/mchammer/status/1298270020732981257?lang=en">retweets</a> the way he used to throw out dance moves.</p>
<h2>Role models</h2>
<p>Representation matters, and the <a href="http://scienceandentertainmentexchange.org/">entertainment industry provides a powerful influence</a> on societal norms that inspire young people to pursue career paths that they might not have otherwise considered. Beyond the silver screen, Boseman carried himself as a role model, too. He was <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/chadwick-boseman-black-panther-star-was-superhero-screen-ncna1238928">an advocate for Black excellence</a>, aspiration and inclusion. He was willing and able to use his platform to bring attention to problems of opportunities, resources and underrepresentation that exist in two quite different industries: <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90545625/these-5-chadwick-boseman-quotes-prove-he-was-a-hero-offscreen-too">film</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/27/after-black-panther-success-disney-donates-money-to-youth-stem-educational-programs.html">STEM</a>.</p>
<p>I aim to live up to his legacy by being a more vocal advocate for inclusion and a role model for young scientists, engineers and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-iconic-american-inventor-is-still-a-white-male-and-thats-an-obstacle-to-race-and-gender-inclusion-145372">inventors of all races, ethnicities and genders</a> – even the ones who don’t yet know the STEM field is their calling. </p>
<h2>Bringing supersuits to life</h2>
<p>Professionally, I’ve long had my eye on bringing wearable technology like Black Panther’s vibranium supersuit <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-2019-wheres-my-supersuit-115679">off the screen and into real life</a>. I’ve spent the past 13 years developing bionic limbs for individuals with amputations, exoskeletons for those with disabilities and exosuits for people who do backbreaking work for a living.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman wearing an elaborate harness around her back and thighs squatting while lifting a box." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377630/original/file-20210107-20-18bk2q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377630/original/file-20210107-20-18bk2q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377630/original/file-20210107-20-18bk2q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377630/original/file-20210107-20-18bk2q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377630/original/file-20210107-20-18bk2q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377630/original/file-20210107-20-18bk2q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377630/original/file-20210107-20-18bk2q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The flexible exoskeleton developed by Zelik’s lab at Vanderbilt University is now a product sold by the company HeroWear.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://herowearexo.com/epki/herowear-action-3.jpg">courtesy HeroWear</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the Marvel cinematic universe, vibranium is the metal used for Black Panther’s supersuit because of its ability to manipulate energy. With the suit, Black Panther can absorb, store and release kinetic energy, making the suit both protective and assistive. </p>
<p>Interestingly, much of the kinetic energy people encounter in daily life comes from inside their own body, not from the outside world. This is because muscles generate huge forces. For instance, if you lift a 25-pound box, your back muscles generate over 500 pounds of force – 20 times the weight of the box – to impart kinetic energy to your torso and the box. The same goes for walking, running and jumping. </p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>When my students, colleagues and I build exosuits in our <a href="https://engineering.vanderbilt.edu/create/">biomechanics lab</a> using elastomers, textiles and alloys, we’re essentially designing real-life vibranium supersuits that generate, alter and absorb kinetic energy. For instance, we invented a <a href="https://herowearexo.com/">3-pound exosuit that takes 50 pounds of strain off back muscles</a> each time the wearer bends or lifts, which amounts to tens of thousands of pounds of back relief each day for people in strenuous jobs like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhPD8WyXLsk">construction</a>, logistics and agriculture. </p>
<p>Just as importantly, our textile-based design fits like clothing, and assistance can be turned off so the exosuit stays out of the way when the wearer doesn’t need it. Our goal is to improve lives by keeping people healthy, safe and physically active, whether it’s <a href="https://engineering.vanderbilt.edu/news/2016/fda-approves-vanderbilt-designed-indego-exoskeleton-for-clinical-and-personal-use/">helping a paralyzed person walk</a> or <a href="https://interestingengineering.com/new-exosuit-against-muscle-fatigue-is-set-to-change-work-habits">reducing physical overexertion experienced by an essential worker</a>.</p>
<p>We are taking what was once science fiction and transforming it into a tangible impact on society and, in the process, encouraging inclusion and diversity throughout STEM. This is what Boseman did for so many, and this is the legacy I hope we all can emulate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151983/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karl Zelik is the Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of HeroWear, and has equity in this university spin-off company that develops human augmentation exosuits to reduce fatigue and musculoskeletal strain on workers. He receives funding from the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies to perform research and development on wearable tech to enhance human health and performance.</span></em></p>
The late Hollywood star celebrated being young, Black and gifted, both on screen and off.
Karl Zelik, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Vanderbilt University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/151392
2021-01-05T17:34:00Z
2021-01-05T17:34:00Z
Curious Kids: Could someone become a superhero in real life?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373988/original/file-20201209-15-195ccnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C0%2C7036%2C3973&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/superheroes-kids-friends-playing-togetherness-fun-422791240">Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong>Could someone become a superhero in real life? – Emma, aged six, Tonbridge, UK</strong></p>
<p>Do you know the difference between these two groups of superheroes? </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Dr Strange, Scarlet Witch, Superman. </p></li>
<li><p>Black Panther, Black Widow, Iron Man.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The answer is that the superheroes in the first group all have personal superpowers that means they can do things that no ordinary human can: Dr Strange can teleport from one place to another, for example, and Scarlet Witch can move things with the power of her mind. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the people in the second group are all ordinary humans who use their skills to achieve what most of us would find impossible. In many cases, they also use advanced or secret technologies. </p>
<p>These technologies are made up, and in the main they were invented by comic writers like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/obituaries/stan-lee-dead.html">Stan Lee</a> over 50 years ago. Now we are in the 21st century, the technologies that exist today are catching up with the inventions from the comics of the 1960s – so maybe someone could become a superhero like Black Panther or Iron Man in real life in the future. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282267/original/file-20190702-126345-1np1y7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282267/original/file-20190702-126345-1np1y7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282267/original/file-20190702-126345-1np1y7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282267/original/file-20190702-126345-1np1y7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282267/original/file-20190702-126345-1np1y7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282267/original/file-20190702-126345-1np1y7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282267/original/file-20190702-126345-1np1y7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&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><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/curious-kids-36782">Curious Kids</a> is a series by <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk">The Conversation</a> that gives children the chance to have their questions about the world answered by experts. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskids@theconversation.com">curiouskids@theconversation.com</a>. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we’ll do our very best.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Let’s start with Iron Man. He is able to fly using a personal jet pack. The real-life problem is being able to carry enough fuel to go far enough for it to be worthwhile.</p>
<p>In October 2019, a <a href="https://nerdist.com/article/irl-iron-man-sets-jet-engine-powered-suit-speed-record/">new speed record</a> for flying with a jet pack was set by <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/real-life-iron-man-richard-browning">Richard Browning</a> in the UK. Browning was wearing a suit powered by six gas turbine engines. Like Iron Man, he used his hands to provide the steering, with two small motors on each hand, and then two larger turbines on the back to get him off the ground and keep him in the air. </p>
<p>He reached a speed of 85mph (135km/h), flying over the sea in Brighton, UK, (guaranteeing a soft landing if things went wrong). Browning also tested out using the jet pack to rescue people stranded on a mountain. In a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/test-paramedic-jet-suit-lake-district-save-lives-b692442.html">practice rescue scenario</a> in the Lake District, Browning was able to reach a casualty in 90 seconds. A normal rescue team would expect to take 25 minutes. Tony Stark would approve.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1310949096199532548"}"></div></p>
<p>Superheroes often rely on fictional materials. Black Panther’s suit is made with the element “<a href="https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Vibranium">vibranium</a>”, which absorbs energy and can release it later when desired. In reality, all the elements – the atoms that make up all the materials in the world around us – have been discovered: there aren’t any “super-elements” like vibranium waiting to be found. Scientists have been making new “heavy” elements in particle accelerators by smashing atoms together, but they are unstable and last seconds or less before splitting apart.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/four-new-elements-named-heres-how-the-periodic-table-evolved-60276">Four new elements named – here's how the periodic table evolved</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But that hasn’t stopped engineers from making innovations in materials using the elements that we already have. Paralympians use “blade” <a href="https://www.paralympicheritage.org.uk/running-blades-and-their-evolution">prosthetic legs</a> to ski, run and jump. These blades are made using the element carbon, which is found throughout nature and is amazingly versatile. In different forms it makes diamonds – the hardest substance on Earth – and graphite, which can be used in oils as a lubricant. </p>
<p>In the blades, the carbon is in the form of fibres, woven like cloth and then sealed with a resin that acts as a glue to bind them together. The blades store energy and then return the energy to the athlete. This allows the athletes to run at high speeds, to the extent that Paralympic runners are now faster than the Olympians of the last century.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man in sportswear at running track with prosthetic blade." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373994/original/file-20201209-24-10yxude.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373994/original/file-20201209-24-10yxude.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373994/original/file-20201209-24-10yxude.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373994/original/file-20201209-24-10yxude.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373994/original/file-20201209-24-10yxude.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373994/original/file-20201209-24-10yxude.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373994/original/file-20201209-24-10yxude.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">Prosthetic running blades help Para-Olympians run at super speeds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/full-length-portrait-young-amputee-sportsman-1007318179">SeventyFour/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other superheroes use technologies to help them manage their powers. In the Incredibles, Baby Jack-Jack can light up on fire, so he needs a suit made of material that won’t burn. We have developed materials like this in real life. </p>
<p>At the Bahrain Grand Prix in November 2020, driver <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/crash-science-romaine-grosjean/">Romain Grosjean crashed</a> into a barrier at 140 mph. His car broke into two pieces and caught fire so fiercely that it appeared to have exploded. Grosjean not only survived the crash but quite literally walked away. </p>
<p>This was because of the energy absorbing properties of the crash protection systems in his car, and because of his racing suit. The suit is made of a fireproof fibre called <a href="https://www.explainthatstuff.com/nomex.html">Nomex</a>. It is engineered so when it is exposed to flames it does not melt, combust, or conduct heat through to the wearer.</p>
<p>So year-on-year, the technologies that set apart the superheroes of the 1960s are becoming the tools of real heroes today. Teleportation, telekinesis, and telepathy remain in the realms of fantasy for now, but there are researchers working on linking our brains <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/24/mind-reading-tech-private-companies-access-brains">directly with computers</a>, so who knows what the future holds?</p>
<hr>
<p><em>When sending in questions to Curious Kids, make sure you include the asker’s first name, age and town or city. You can:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><em>email <a href="mailto:curiouskids@theconversation.com">curiouskids@theconversation.com</a></em></li>
<li><em>tweet us <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationUK">@ConversationUK</a> with #curiouskids</em></li>
<li><em>DM us on Instagram <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">@theconversationdotcom</a></em></li>
</ul>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151392/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Fitzpatrick receives funding from the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a charitable foundation helping to protect life and property by supporting engineering-related education, public engagement and the application of research.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Hainsworth 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>
Technology can give superhero abilities to people in real life.
Sarah Hainsworth, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean and Professor of Materials and Forensic Engineering, Aston University
Michael Fitzpatrick, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Lloyd's Register Foundation Chair in Structural Integrity and Systems Performance, Coventry University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/145359
2020-09-21T18:57:12Z
2020-09-21T18:57:12Z
Why Chadwick Boseman is more of a hero than Hollywood’s Black Panther
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357961/original/file-20200914-24-hy9eqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C84%2C4699%2C3142&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A man photographs a mural of late actor Chadwick Boseman's character T'Challa (Black Panther) from the 2018 film 'Black Panther,' on Sept. 8, 2020, in Los Angeles. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The public condolences offered for Chadwick Boseman, such as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/08/chadwick-boseman/615868/">David Sims’ piece in <em>The Atlantic</em>, frequently refer to the actor as “heroic</a>.” </p>
<p>For many, Boseman crafted his personal life with the same regal comportment he used when playing the role of T’Challa, the beloved king-cum-chief-warrior and Black Panther.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xjDjIWPwcPU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for ‘Black Panther.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To illustrate their mirrored qualities, consider that both Boseman and Boseman’s T’Challa are not only <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/02/why-fashion-is-key-to-understanding-the-world-of-black-panther/553157/">well-dressed</a> but distinctly <a href="https://www.prestigeonline.com/th/people-events/people/chadwick-boseman-fashion/">fashionable</a>. </p>
<p>Both not only <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZwDQ2r5bf8">command international audiences</a> with their rhetorical skills, but offer speeches that are <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/sag-awards-chadwick-boseman-black-panther-acceptance-speech-goosebumps">inspiring</a>. And when both faced imminent death, they did so with uncommon bravery and grace: T’Challa in a ritual battle for Wakanda’s throne when his nemesis-cousin Erik Killmonger throws him over a cliff, vis-à-vis Boseman, as he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2020/08/28/chadwick-boseman-dies-after-cancer-battle/">battled colon cancer</a>.</p>
<p>But, if truth be told, Boseman’s everyday valour exceeds the heroism depicted in <em>Black Panther</em>, because Boseman’s heroism emanates from an ethical understanding of Black humanity. The same can’t be unequivocally said for Hollywood’s film, particularly in how it relied on stereotypes to both exalt a hero and demonize a villain.</p>
<h2>Enactments of Black manhood</h2>
<p>Indeed, Boseman displayed remarkable enactments of Black manhood in his personal life — enactments that honour, respect and buttress a kaleidoscope of other Black masculinities. </p>
<p>To put it another way, Boseman’s real-life Black masculine performance exceeds the gallantry of Hollywood’s attempt at a Black superhero. Representations of various other <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-hollywoods-alien-and-predator-movies-reinforce-anti-black-racism-127088">Black masculinities are either absent from or vilified within fictions emanating from Hollywood</a>; these movie portrayals are what inform perceptions of Black men.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357965/original/file-20200914-14-80qzpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357965/original/file-20200914-14-80qzpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357965/original/file-20200914-14-80qzpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357965/original/file-20200914-14-80qzpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357965/original/file-20200914-14-80qzpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357965/original/file-20200914-14-80qzpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357965/original/file-20200914-14-80qzpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357965/original/file-20200914-14-80qzpq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actor Chadwick Boseman poses for a photo before the start of the NBA All-Star basketball game, February 2018, in Los Angeles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Compare, for example, the masculinity of T’challa with that of <a href="https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Erik_Killmonger">Erik Killmonger</a> (portrayed by Michael B. Jordan). He is a former United States Navy SEAL and veritable modern-day Black <a href="https://www.historyextra.com/period/viking/the-truth-about-viking-berserkers/">berserker</a>.</p>
<p>Killmonger offers a brand of African American manhood that calls to mind many racist stereotypes used to create and justify fear of Black men. However, Killmonger challenges these stale stereotypes with his unapologetic <a href="https://theconversation.com/it-dont-be-like-that-now-the-english-history-of-african-american-english-129611">use of African American English</a> and his exceptionally rugged swagger.</p>
<p>To illustrate, Killmonger delivers a strong denunciation — dripping with Black English and masculinity — when he defeats T’Challa: <a href="https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/black-panther-killmonger-meme/">“Is this your king?” he asks loudly</a>. “Huh? … He’s supposed to protect you! To lead Wakanda into the future! Nah, I’m your king!”</p>
<h2>Villainizing urban Black masculinity</h2>
<p>Making urban Black masculinity the extreme antagonist, the object of scorn, is too easy, perhaps expected. This is where, to my mind, <em>Black Panther</em> as a film fails in depicting Black manhood.</p>
<p>The logic of the movie renders Killmonger’s urban masculinity anomalous, deviant; for there is no other Wakandan that shares Killmonger’s masculine characteristics, displaying his same language, demeanor and style. Killmonger’s urban atypicality makes him seem more villainous. </p>
<p>What’s more, Killmonger is pitted against the other male figures because his actions are viewed as despicable, fuelled by desperate hopes to be Wakandan, the nation’s king and to root out injustice against Blacks all over the world by creating tyranny with Wakandan technology.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Characters Killmonger and Black Panther face each other." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358250/original/file-20200915-14-1aw4xcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358250/original/file-20200915-14-1aw4xcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358250/original/file-20200915-14-1aw4xcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358250/original/file-20200915-14-1aw4xcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358250/original/file-20200915-14-1aw4xcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358250/original/file-20200915-14-1aw4xcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358250/original/file-20200915-14-1aw4xcx.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">The character Killmonger’s urban Black masculinity is depicted as deviant, and he’s pitted against the other male figures because his actions are viewed as despicable. Here, Killmonger (Michael T. Jordan) faces T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Disney/Marvel Studios)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The practice of negatively comparing African American men to their African brothers, with the effort to devalue the African American, is not <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/woke/#:%7E:text=Woke%20means%20being%20conscious%20of,as%20being%20%22with%20it.%22">lost on the “woke”</a> consumer. </p>
<p>There are long-standing distinctions amplified in cultural practices or sentiments that pit one kind of acceptable brown or Black person against another type that’s despised. During legal segregation in America (circa 1896 to 1954) Africans and other dark-hued men were not subject to the same level of discrimination and racism in America as their African American brothers: As I have previously argued, <a href="https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/bourgeois-boojie">in order to benefit from the rights guaranteed them as citizens and to be treated fairly, some dark-skinned African Americans passed, ironically, as dark-skinned <em>non-citizens</em></a>. These individuals, of course, also had to disassociate themselves from other American Blacks. </p>
<h2>Despising the Black underclass</h2>
<p>Booker T. Washington provides examples of this circumstance in his critical 1901 memoir <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2376/2376-h/2376-h.htm"><em>Up From Slavery</em></a>. Washington reports that an angry white mob set to hang an African from Morocco because the Moroccan was lodging at a racially exclusive hotel. The man escaped the lynching by speaking Arabic and proving he was not an American-born Black man. </p>
<p>Distinctions of pitting one kind of “acceptable” brown or Black person against another did not end with desegregation. Currently it’s the Black urban underclass that’s despised.</p>
<p>Thus, notwithstanding the pyrotechnics within the Hollywood blockbuster, Black Panther is a rather flat hero, even if he is also the kind Hollywood audiences want to love. The character is flat and probably beloved because he fully participates in the mundane narrative that urban Black masculinities are in need of saving, and their saviours are either white or romanticized African or both, as depicted in the movie.</p>
<h2>Boseman advanced real stories</h2>
<p>Where Black Panther fails, however, on Black masculinities, Boseman himself prevails. Boseman did not pit and privilege one type of masculine performance against and over another. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/08/29/chadwick-boseman-praised-student-protesters-2018-commencement-speech-howard-university-watch-video/">In his 2018 commencement address at Howard University</a>, Boseman recalls playing an urban “young man in his formative years with a violent streak pulled into the allure of gang involvement.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RIHZypMyQ2s?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Chadwick Boseman’s Howard University 2018 commencement address.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But Boseman asked the producers for more about the character’s background. He says: “That’s somebody’s real story. Never judge the characters you play. That’s what we were always taught.… [B]ut I was conflicted because this role seemed to be wrapped up in assumptions about us as Black folk.” Boseman <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chadwick-boseman-fired-tv-show-question-black-stereotypes-2018-5">was fired for asking questions about the humanity of his character</a>, his agents telling him there was now a stigma and he was seen as “difficult.”</p>
<p>And who could forget Boseman giving away the MTV award he received for his role in <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4282816/chadwick-boseman-waffle-house-hero-james-shaw-jr-mtv-awards/">Black Panther to James Shaw Jr., a Black man who took down a shooter at a Waffle House</a>. Boseman said, “Receiving an award for playing a superhero is amazing, but it’s even greater to acknowledge the heroes that we have in real life.”</p>
<p>For me, the lesson of Boseman’s legacy isn’t how similar he was to Black Panther the superhero, but rather how much better he was than T'Challa of Hollywood, especially in creating positive space for other black masculinities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145359/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>
Unlike the Hollywood hero he portrayed, Boseman created space for a kaleidoscope of Black masculinities and challenged the narrative that urban Black men are in need of saving.
Vershawn Ashanti Young, Professor, Department of Drama and Speech Communication, University of Waterloo
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/145300
2020-08-31T05:54:53Z
2020-08-31T05:54:53Z
Towards Wakanda – Chadwick Boseman’s passing and the power and limits of Afrofuturism
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355448/original/file-20200831-22-ygmn6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C21%2C1763%2C893&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNjE4Mjk0MjY1MF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzg2NjI5MzI@._V1_SX1777_CR0,0,1777,937_AL_.jpg">Black Panther/IMDB</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’re not a comics fan, you may have been surprised at the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/29/us/most-liked-tweet-of-all-time-chadwick-boseman-trnd/index.html?fbclid=IwAR1gOLYtIbL-5KIldoR779qme0B0_SVX39v8IsQp6HT8GHsVMYFxsQmevz8">extent</a> of the <a href="https://twitter.com/amjoyshow/status/1299715220445843457?s=20.">heartfelt</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/29/chadwick-boseman-helped-us-understand-our-history-his-death-shatters-our-hearts/">grief</a> expressed following the death of actor Chadwick Boseman. </p>
<p>One explanation lies in the extraordinary power of the 2018 movie <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/?ref_=ttmi_tt">Black Panther</a>, in which Boseman starred as T’Challa/Black Panther, to address racist stereotypes about Africa and Africans. </p>
<p>Boseman’s character was heir to the hidden kingdom of Wakanda, a mythical African nation free of European colonisation. The film’s subtext explores African Americans’ varying identifications, past and present, with Africa and a global Black diaspora. </p>
<h2>Dark continent</h2>
<p>Westerners’ ideas about Africa are steeped in myth. The United States, <a href="https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hi/introduction-lectures.htm#q">wrote German philosopher Georg Hegel in 1830</a>, was “the land of the future”. Africa, by contrast, was “the land of childhood” where history was meaningless. European powers dubbed it the “Dark Continent”, as if its people could never make progress.</p>
<p><a href="https://pages.vassar.edu/realarchaeology/2017/03/05/phrenology-and-scientific-racism-in-the-19th-century/">Fields of science emerged to classify human beings</a>, relying on simplistic notions of evolution and psychology. They all agreed “black” people inhabited the ladder’s bottom rung.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4VSx2E7WE50?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘We must find a way to look after one another … as if we were one single tribe.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From explorer <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/henry-morton-stanleys-unbreakable-will-99405/">Henry Morton Stanley</a>’s tales of impenetrable jungles to the <a href="https://www.historybyday.com/pop-culture/the-men-behind-tarzan-the-real-life-jungle-man-and-the-troubled-author-who-brought-him-to-life/">Tarzan</a> novels and early “talkie” films, entertainment portrayed Africa as irredeemably backward.</p>
<p>These (pseudo) scientific and cultural stereotypes underpinned colonisation. They served Western extraction of Africa’s natural resources, enslavement of Africans and of their descendants all over the Americas.</p>
<h2>Breaking chains and forging links</h2>
<p>Such ideas meant that when Black Americans broke slavery’s chains, starting in the 1820s in northern US states and ending in 1865, it was not straightforward to claim African allegiance. The Atlantic and internal slave trades had devastated ties between families and communities on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. </p>
<p>Black Americans had, instead, forged ties between themselves in the United States. This meant few people (roughly 12,000) were keen to migrate to Liberia, established by the <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/american-colonization-society-1816-1964/">American Colonization Society</a> in 1816. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-louisiana-to-queensland-how-american-slave-owners-started-again-in-australia-140725">From Louisiana to Queensland: how American slave owners started again in Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>By the 1920s, with memories of enslavement the preserve of older people, Black Americans began once again to forge links to Africa. Marcus Garvey’s <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/garvey/">Universal Negro Improvement Association</a> suggested a global black United States of Africa. When Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, African Americans were incensed. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="African American woman with afro hairstyle" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Colourised portrait of activist and academic Angela Davis. Original black and white negative by Bernard Gotfryd (1974).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1597954088261-4dc20374af14?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=1268&q=80">US Library of Congress/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 1960s–70s era of <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/black-power#:%7E:text=Black%20Power%20was%20a%20revolutionary,of%20political%20and%20cultural%20institutions.">Black Power</a>, accelerated by film and television, ties to Africa became more prominent again. </p>
<p>Activists changed their names: Stokely Carmichael became Kwame Ture; Cassius Clay chose Muhammad Ali; and JoAnne Byron’s rebirth was as Assata Shakur. More widespread was the adoption of <a href="https://timeline.com/harlem-couple-afrocentric-fashion-dashiki-2e806f792794">dashikis</a> and “natural” <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1343885">hairstyles</a>. </p>
<p>Interest in Africa spiked dramatically with Alex Haley’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/546018.Roots">Roots: the Saga of an American Family</a>. The book (1976) and the miniseries (1977) told the story of Haley’s “furtherest-back ancestor”, Kunta Kinte, and his generations of American descendants.</p>
<p>In more recent decades, Black American <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/africa/black-americans-are-going-to-west-africa-in-search-of-roots/">tourism to Africa</a> has soared as people seek out their own roots. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/growing-up-african-in-australia-racism-resilience-and-the-right-to-belong-113121">Growing Up African in Australia: racism, resilience and the right to belong</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A different world</h2>
<p>In Black Panther, Chadwick Boseman – along with a host of other wonderful actors, and director and screenwriters Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole – brought to life a “<a href="https://time.com/black-panther/">splendidly black</a>” utopian vision. The film, which reverses stereotypes about Africa, <a href="https://twitter.com/FallonTonight/status/1299709632752033798?s=20">delighted</a> many African American fans.</p>
<p>In Wakanda, the fictional metal vibranium is the bedrock of a society in which wealth is distributed so justly that both men and women thrive and King T’Challa can stroll the city streets unnoticed.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black Panther Marvel Comic books." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Comics from the Black Panther series.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1574959540245-2a2a574a0375?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=1575&q=80">Alicia Quan/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Vibranium represents the resources of the 54 countries of Africa, whose extraction has not, on the whole, benefited Africans. It is mahogany, ivory, rubber, diamonds, salt, gold, copper, and uranium. </p>
<p>Black Panther draws on an artistic movement known as <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/afrofuturism">Afrofuturism</a>, in which knowledge about past violence and injustice inform an imagined future built on equality. Afrofuturists have included <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/zama18740">novelists</a> Sutton E. Griggs and George Schuyler in the early days, and later Octavia Butler, Samuel Delaney, and Ishmael Reed, and now N. K. Jemisin and Colson Whitehead. </p>
<p>Afrofuturist musicians include <a href="https://www.treblezine.com/beginners-guide-sun-ra-music/">Sun Ra</a>, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/how-george-clinton-made-funk-a-world-view">George Clinton and P-Funk</a>, and recently <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/5/16/17318242/janelle-monae-science-fiction-influences-afrofuturism">Janelle Monáe</a>.</p>
<h2>Black is King</h2>
<p>Beyoncé’s new visual album <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12607910/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Black Is King</a> also draws on the Afrofuturist tradition. </p>
<p>It <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/08/07/899421948/opinion-we-are-africans-heres-our-view-of-beyonc-s-black-is-king">has been criticised</a> for prioritising aesthetics over politics. In particular, Beyoncé’s effort to reclaim colonial stereotypes linking Africans to flora and fauna by donning couture animal prints has drawn mixed responses. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Singer Beyonce in leopard print on car with suited men" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Beyoncé’s Black is King is a lush aesthetic exploration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://photos-cdn.aap.com.au/Image/20200728001482142873?path=/aap_dev2/imagearc/2020/07-28/38/b0/e3/aapimage-7bmns8wcoo91j0glx9en_layout.jpg">Travis Matthews/Disney Plus via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dedicated to her son, Black Is King falls into a long tradition of romanticising black ancestors as kings and queens. Criticising this tendency, <a href="https://www.questia.com/library/117353615/we-can-t-go-home-again-an-argument-about-afrocentrism">historian Clarence Walker has asked</a>: “If Everybody Was a King, Who Built the Pyramids?” </p>
<p>But kingship is also a metaphor for the power of history, properly told. “History is your future,” Beyoncé tells the film’s young king. An exchange following the track Brown Skinned Girl starts with a male voice saying, “Systematically, we’ve had so much taken from us”. A second voice responds:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Being a king is taking what’s yours. But not just for selfish reasons, but to actually build up your community. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>King T’Challa comes to the same realisation and at the end of Black Panther, we see him leave his tech-whizz sister at the helm of a new Wakandan outreach centre in Oakland, California.</p>
<p>In both Black Is King and Black Panther, global connections underpin a reimagined future universe – a marvellous one, even – where disadvantage and injustice stemming from racism are overcome. Wakanda forever.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1299794910837694464"}"></div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clare Corbould has received funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Australian Greens.</span></em></p>
Both Black Panther and Beyoncé’s Black is King represent a utopian vision of empowerment and connection to Africa.
Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Deakin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/130974
2020-02-18T20:59:02Z
2020-02-18T20:59:02Z
How afrofuturism gives Black people the confidence to survive doubt and anti-Blackness
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315833/original/file-20200218-11017-uyt7sg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=77%2C8%2C1032%2C540&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Afrofuturism, like the kind seen in Marvel's Black Panther, allows Black people to imagine themselves into the future</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2018, Black people globally got a signal of hope when director Ryan Coogler and Marvel Studios released the critically acclaimed movie, <a href="https://time.com/black-panther/"><em>Black Panther</em></a>. While few knew of the Black Panther as a superhero despite the comic being released in the 1960s, millions now know of him because of <a href="https://variety.com/2018/film/box-office/black-panther-surpasses-avengers-highest-grossing-superhero-movie-1202735863/">the film’s overwhelming success</a>.</p>
<p>Its success can be due, in part, because of what it tells us about Black people’s futures. Many Black people — seeking belonging and better outcomes for their lives — have turned to afrofuturism as the source of optimism. According to <a href="https://www.decolonizemars.org/ytasha-womack">afrofuturist expert and author Ytasha Womack</a>, afrofuturism refers to “an intersection of imagination, technology, the future and liberation … <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=pTXVAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=afrofuturism+ytasha&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjm0rqC28fnAhVDiFkKHSCsBzUQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=afrofuturism%20ytasha&f=false">Afrofuturists redefine culture and notions of Blackness for today and the future</a> by combining elements of science fiction, historical fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, afrocentricity and magic realism with non-western beliefs.”</p>
<p><em>Black Panther</em> had Black people chanting “Wakanda Forever,” while many imagined that they too could put on the Black Panther suit to gain a sense of belonging. Black people, including Canadians, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vb5mjm/black-panthers-wakanda-is-real-and-its-in-chicago">believed that Wakanda, the utopian city where the Black Panther resides, is a real place</a>. For Black Canadians, Wakanda offers a place that exists outside the harsh reality of an anti-Black white settler narrative that is anti-Black.</p>
<p>Black legal scholar <a href="https://www.smu.edu/Law/Faculty/Profiles/Inniss-Lolita-Buckner">Lolita Buckner Inniss</a> says <a href="http://doi.org/10.15779/Z38J899">anti-Black racism is deeply enmeshed in the Canadian social fabric</a>. Anti-Black racism cuts deep enough so that many, if not all, Black Canadians feel there is no hope for a better future. </p>
<h2>Leaving family but not tradition</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315834/original/file-20200218-11011-14vg45i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315834/original/file-20200218-11011-14vg45i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315834/original/file-20200218-11011-14vg45i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315834/original/file-20200218-11011-14vg45i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315834/original/file-20200218-11011-14vg45i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1206&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315834/original/file-20200218-11011-14vg45i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1206&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315834/original/file-20200218-11011-14vg45i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1206&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti must deal with racism and isolation as she traverses a universe that does not value her people’s knowledge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Tor Books)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Afrofuturism in cinema is but one source. Writer Nnedi Okorafor’s 2015 science fiction novella, <em>Binti</em>, features a Black woman protagonist named Binti Ekeopara Zuzu Dambu Kaipka. Binti is an intelligent woman leader of the Himba tribe whose genius gets her into to the prestigious Oomza University, which floats about the galaxy. Binti is the first member of the Himba ethnic people to attend the school. Her decision to attend is met with ridicule, laughter and threats to her life due to the fear and insecurities of her people. </p>
<p>Her people have never been allowed to imagine futures beyond their traditional way of life and identification with the land. Binti states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We Himba don’t travel. We stay put. Our ancestral land is life; move away from it and you diminish. We even cover our bodies with it. Otjize is red land. Here in the launch port, most were Khoush and a few other non-Himba. Here, I was an outsider; I was outside.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She echoes the social challenges that Black people face when embarking upon new ways of living <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1521025119841030">after leaving traditional family and cultural contexts</a>. Often, their families and cultures pressure them to remain entrenched within the known confines of family, culture and community, rather than explore the new and unknown.</p>
<p>One of us, Anthony, was the first member of his immediate family to attend post-secondary education and graduate school. He wanted to apply to graduate school but had to fight internalized feelings of low self-worth that insisted he did not belong in academia. Indeed, a lack of self-confidence influenced the choice to avoid applying to programs that required a high grade-point average with a full scholarship because he did not believe he would be accepted. </p>
<h2>Blazing a trail to a Black future</h2>
<p>In her village, Binti had been one of the few who used knowledge to create peace in her tribe, so she had to overcome pressure to remain in the village in order to embrace new learning. On a spaceship, travelling from her village to the Oomza University, Binti as the only Himba at the university encounters another obstacle: the false assumption that people from her land are evil, dirty and primitive. </p>
<p>In one moment, one of the Khoush (a different lighter-skinned tribe) students touches Binti’s braids out of curiosity and without consent. Her hair is mixed with sweet smelling red clay and perfume called Otijze, which is connected to her cultural heritage. One of the Khoush students responds that it has a horrible smell, suggesting a passive discriminatory logic of sanitation. </p>
<p>One can observe strong echoes of the attitudes of privileged whites towards high-priority Black neighbourhoods whose inhabitants are stereotyped as criminal, irrational, impoverished and unintelligent. The book suggests that <a href="https://doi.org/10.2747/0272-3638.32.8.1238">there is no such thing as neutral space</a> and that structural inequities and racial inequalities make space and place difficult to navigate, <a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789463007351">especially in elitist environments</a>.</p>
<p>But Binti is gripped by the challenge of the new. Her journey of self-discovery begins when she decides to leave village life, defying her ancestors’ dedication to their land and cultural identity. Binti explains that tribal knowledge was handed down orally as her father had taught her 300 years of oral lessons “about astrolabes including how they worked, the art of them, the true negotiation of them, the lineage … circuits, wire, metals, oils, heat, electricity, math current and sand bar.” Her mother had also transmitted mathematical insights and gifts, but never in formal educational settings. Family unity and protection were paramount.</p>
<p>Binti symbolizes the trailblazer who encounters politics, racism, stereotypes, ignorance, systemic inequalities, gender inequities, classism and so on. Additionally, she faces the strong pull of past traditions since she is the first member of her family and tribe to attend a formal educational institute. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_NMLz042NHk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Afrofuturism offers a way for Black people to envision their futures, as Missy Elliot’s futuristic music videos exemplify.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some Black individuals living such stories will inevitably encounter <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2017.1394997">feelings of isolation, lack of belonging and self-doubt</a>. Their internal battles will pit self-trust and the drive towards the new against the safety and security of the past. They will have to develop a secure sense of self and an understanding that it does not matter how far they travel among the galaxies because everyone has unique gifts they can contribute to the universe.</p>
<p>Against the pull of anxieties and insecurities, Anthony graduated with a master’s degree and a PhD; he currently has a post-doctoral fellowship — yet is in another galaxy of his own among the stars.</p>
<p>Afro-Caribbean Black people living in white settler, colonized nations such as Canada face discrimination and negative stereotypes. Afrofuturism can enable Black communities to reimagine new possibilities, especially when the future trajectory for Black Canadians is at times uncertain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130974/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Q. Briggs PhD., is a Faculty Fellow at Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Warren Clarke is a Ph.D. candidate and a contract instructor for Carleton University </span></em></p>
Afrofuturism allows Black people to not only imagine their distant futures but also how to survive the anti-Black present.
Anthony Q. Briggs, Research Fellow, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Social Work and Criminal Justice, Oakland University
Warren Clarke, PhD student, Department of Sociology, Carleton University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/123550
2019-09-22T09:14:50Z
2019-09-22T09:14:50Z
Ghana’s copyright law for folklore hampers cultural growth
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292606/original/file-20190916-19083-1y62inm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ghana is very protective of its cultural heritage</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ghana has a rich folkloric tradition that includes <a href="http://www.adinkra.org/htmls/adinkra_index.htm">Adinkra symbols</a>, <a href="http://ultimatehistoryproject.com/kente-cloth-and-the-history-of-the-ashanti-people.html">Kente cloth</a>, traditional festivals, music and storytelling. Perhaps one of Ghana’s best known folk characters is Ananse, the spider god and trickster, after whom the Ghanaian storytelling tradition Anansesem is named. </p>
<p>Ghana also has some of the world’s most restrictive laws on the use of its folklore. The country’s 2005 <a href="https://www.aripo.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Ghana-Copyright-Act.pdf">Copyright Act</a> defines folklore as “the literary, artistic and scientific expressions belonging to the cultural heritage of Ghana which are created, preserved and developed by ethnic communities of Ghana or by an unidentified Ghanaian author”. </p>
<p>This suggests that the legislation, which is an update of a 1985 law, applies equally to traditional works where the author is unknown and new works derived from folklore where the author is known. </p>
<p>The rights in these works are “vested in the President on behalf of and in trust for the people of the republic”. These rights are also deemed to exist in perpetuity. This means that works which qualify as folkloric will never fall into the public domain – and will never be free to use.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/gh/gh006en.pdf">1985 Act</a> only restricted use of Ghana’s folklore by foreigners. The 2005 Act extended this to Ghanaian nationals. In principle, this means that a Ghanaian artist wishing to use Ananse stories, or a musician who wants to rework old folk songs or musical rhythms must first seek approval from the National Folklore Board and pay an undisclosed fee. </p>
<p>This is deeply problematic. Following independence in 1957, many artists have explicitly and habitually drawn on Ghana’s folk traditions to develop today’s creative industries. The 2005 Act means that the current generation of cultural practitioners must either seek permission to use and rework their cultural heritage, or look elsewhere for inspiration. </p>
<p>There is clearly a balance to be struck between safeguarding and access when it comes to the protection of a state’s cultural heritage. However, it is important to acknowledge that while Ghana’s legislation appears to tip towards protection at the expense of access, it restricts growth in the creative industries by discouraging artists from engaging with their national cultural heritage. </p>
<h2>History of protection</h2>
<p>Ethnomusicologist and musician John Collins has noted that the development of the 2005 Act was partly in response to US singer Paul Simon’s use of a melody taken from the song <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43561391?seq=7#metadata_info_tab_contents">‘Yaa Amponsah</a>’ for his 1990 album 'The Rhythm of the Saints’. </p>
<p>Simon attributed this melody to the Ghanaian musician Jacob Sam and his band the Kumasi Trio. But on further investigation the Ghanaian government asserted that the melody was a work of folklore and so, belonged to the state.</p>
<p>From this, two things are clear. Firstly, in Ghana folklore belongs to the state and not the originating communities that predate the modern state. Secondly, Jacob Sam received no recompense for Simon’s use of the work, with all royalties owed on the work flowing back the government. </p>
<p>There are a number of issues here that set Ghana apart from other African states. </p>
<p>Many states allow for the use of folklore by nationals and if a fee is applicable then it is paid as a royalty based on revenue raised. This is the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13696815.2016.1256121">case</a> in all three states bordering Ghana: Togo, Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire. Consequently, if an artist in one of these countries reworks folklore but makes no money, then no money is paid for that use. If the work becomes successful then the artist and the rights holder benefit. </p>
<p>However, in Ghana, the law states that payment is paid prior to use and so prior to any profits made. This potentially adds to the cost of production and so discourages use of folklore. </p>
<p>The other issue here is who owns the rights in national heritage. In many countries, such as <a href="http://pckamunya.co.ke/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Copyright-Act.pdf">Kenya</a>, the originating communities retain the rights to their expressions of cultural heritage. </p>
<p>However, in Ghana the rights are vested in the office of the president. This means that any moral or financial benefit that results from uses of folklore flow to the office of the president, rather than being used to support continued safeguarding and growth of cultural heritage within communities. </p>
<h2>Guarding against exploitation</h2>
<p>Though Ghana’s present regime may appear draconian, there are compelling reasons why such protective measures are required. </p>
<p>Firstly, Ghana’s cultural heritage – its traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions – have been and continue to be exploited by non-Ghanaians in international markets with no beneficial interest flowing either to the state or to the originating community. </p>
<p>To give this some context, Simon’s use of Yaa Amponsah was only one use of Ghana’s cultural heritage in the developing of a new, and commercially successful, work. More recently, there were a number of press reports in Ghana that the Ghana Folklore Board intended to <a href="https://www.graphic.com.gh/entertainment/showbiz-news/folklore-board-to-sue-producers-of-black-panther-movie-over-use-of-kente.html">sue</a> the producers of Marvel’s Black Panther for the unauthorised use of kente cloth in some of the characters’ costumes. </p>
<p>The Folklore Board clarified these reports in a press <a href="https://kuulpeeps.com/2019/05/the-national-folklore-board-say-they-have-not-expressed-any-intention-to-sue-the-the-producers-of-black-panther/">release</a>, saying it did not intend to sue – but rather, wished to discuss attribution. Kente is specifically named as an object of protection under the 2005 Act and the current proliferation of unauthorised cheap kente designs entering global markets from China presents a significant challenge. Attribution, in this case, would ensure that cinema goers across the world would associate kente with Ghana, bringing a traditional craft to a global audience. </p>
<p>The board faces a particularly complex challenge. It must balance safeguarding traditional heritage with allowing creative artists room to reuse and rework elements of that heritage in a way that does not add to the cost or complexity of production. </p>
<p>Though the threat of unfair exploitation is real, equally real is the potential threat to the creative industries and the future development of Ghana’s living heritage if the country’s artists move away from their cultural heritage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123550/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Collins has previously received funding from the Global Challenges Research Fund and Arts and Humanities Research Council to undertake various research projects connected to cultural heritage in Ghana. </span></em></p>
New regulations on the use of folklore are a hindrance to local artists.
Stephen Collins, Lecturer, University of the West of Scotland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/112268
2019-02-21T19:01:31Z
2019-02-21T19:01:31Z
‘Black Panther’ and its science role models inspire more than just movie awards
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260249/original/file-20190221-195873-1czfcxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=122%2C77%2C1252%2C694&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">King of a technologically advanced country, Black Panther is a scientific genius.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/mediaviewer/rm2447322112">© 2017 – Disney/Marvel Studios</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been said many times that the Marvel movie “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/">Black Panther</a>” is an important landmark. I’m not referring to its deserved critical and box office success worldwide, the many awards it has won, or the fact that it is the first film in the superhero genre to be <a href="https://oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2019">nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards</a>.</p>
<p>Instead, I’m focusing on a key aspect of its cultural impact that is less frequently discussed. Finally a feature film starring a black superhero character became part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – a successful run of intertwined movies that began with “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371746/">Iron Man</a>” in 2008. While there have been other superhero movies with a black lead character – “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448157/">Hancock</a>” (2008), “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120611/">Blade</a>” (1998), “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120177/">Spawn</a>” (1997) or even “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107563/">The Meteor Man</a>” (1993) – this film is significant because of the <a href="https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/the-rise-of-superhero-films/">recent remarkable rise of the superhero film</a> from the nerdish fringe to part of mainstream culture.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=marvel2017b.htm">Huge audiences</a> saw a black lead character – not a sidekick or part of a team – in a superhero movie by a major studio, with a black director (Ryan Coogler), black writers and a majority black cast. This is a significant step toward diversifying our culture by improving the <a href="http://annenberg.usc.edu/sites/default/files/Dr_Stacy_L_Smith-Inequality_in_900_Popular_Films.pdf">lackluster representation</a> of minorities in our major media. It’s also a <a href="http://annenberg.usc.edu/research/aii/research/raceethnicity">filmmaking landmark because black creators</a> have been given access to the resources and platforms needed to bring different storytelling perspectives into our mainstream culture.</p>
<p>2017’s “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451279/">Wonder Woman</a>” forged a similar path. In that case, a major studio finally decided to commit resources to a superhero film headlined by a female character and directed by a woman, Patty Jenkins. Female directors are <a href="http://annenberg.usc.edu/inclusion-directors-chair">a minority in the movie industry</a>. Jenkins brought a new perspective to this kind of action movie, and there was a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2017/05/31/why-women-are-crying-when-they-watch-wonder-woman-fight/102328772/">huge positive response from audiences</a> in theaters worldwide.</p>
<p>And beyond all this, “Black Panther” also broke additional ground in a way most people may not realize: In the comics, the character is actually a scientist and engineer. Moreover, in the inevitable (and somewhat ridiculous) ranking of scientific prowess that happens in the comic book world, he’s been portrayed as at least the equal of the two most famous “top scientists” in the Marvel universe: Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic). A black headlining superhero character written and directed by black artists is rare enough from a major studio. But making him – and his sister Shuri – successful scientists and engineers as well is another level of rarity.</p>
<h2>Scientists on screen</h2>
<p>I’m a scientist who cares about increased engagement with science by the general public. I’ve worked as <a href="http://www.laweekly.com/film/physicist-dr-clifford-v-johnson-is-a-consultant-on-superhero-movies-8232890">a science adviser on many film and TV projects</a> (though not “Black Panther”). When the opportunity arises, I’ve <a href="https://creativefuture.org/science-advisor-conversation-dr-clifford-johnson/">helped broaden the diversity of scientist characters</a> portrayed onscreen.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jason Wilkes is a black scientist on ‘Agent Carter,’ whose character emerged from the author’s talks with the show’s writers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC Television</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Panels from ‘The Dialogues,’ including a black female scientist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">'The Dialogues,' by Clifford V. Johnson (MIT Press 2017)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I’ve also recently published a <a href="http://thedialoguesbook.com/">nonfiction graphic book</a> for general audiences called “<a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/dialogues-0">The Dialogues: Conversations about the Nature of the Universe</a>.” Its characters include male and female black scientists, discussing aspects of my own field of theoretical physics – where black scientists are <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/data.cfm">unfortunately very rare</a>. So the opportunity that the “Black Panther” movie presents to inform and inspire vast audiences is of great interest to me.</p>
<p>The history and evolution of the Black Panther character and his scientific back story is a fascinating example of turning a problematic past into a positive opportunity.</p>
<p>Created in 1966 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, he’s the first black superhero character in mainstream comics, <a href="https://comicvine.gamespot.com/fantastic-four-52-introducing-the-sensational-blac/4000-8666/">originally appearing as a guest</a> in a “Fantastic Four” Marvel comic. As a black character created and initially written by nonblack authors, guest-starring in the pages of a book headlined by white characters, he had many of the classic attributes of what is now sometimes controversially known as the “<a href="https://www.salon.com/2010/09/14/magical_negro_trope/">magical negro</a>” in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934707307831">American cultural criticism</a>: He ranked extremely highly in every sphere that mattered, to the point of being almost too unreal even for the comics of the time.</p>
<p>Black Panther is T’Challa, king of the fictional African country Wakanda, which is fathomlessly wealthy and remarkably advanced, scientifically and technologically. Even Marvel’s legendary master scientist – Reed Richards of the superhero team Fantastic Four – is befuddled by and full of admiration for Wakanda’s scientific capabilities. T’Challa himself is portrayed as an extraordinary “genius” in physics and other scientific fields, a peerless tactician, a remarkable athlete and a master of numerous forms of martial arts. And he is noble to a fault. Of course, he grows to become a powerful ally of the Fantastic Four and other Marvel superheroes over many adventures.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While likening Black Panther to a ‘refugee from a Tarzan movie,’ the Fantastic Four marveled at his technological innovations in ‘Introducing the Sensational Black Panther.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fantastic Four #52 (July 1966). [Marvel Comics]</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The key point here is that the superlative scientific ability of our hero, and that of his country, has its origins in the well-meaning, but problematic, practice of inventing near or beyond perfect black characters to support stories starring primarily white protagonists. But this is a lemons-to-lemonade story.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Fantastic Four were amazed by the scientific ingenuity of Wakanda in ‘Whosoever Finds The Evil Eye.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fantastic Four #54 (September 1966). [Marvel Comics]</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Black Panther eventually got to star in his own series of comics. He was turned into a nuanced and complex character, moving well away from the tropes of his beginnings. Writer Don McGregor’s work started this development as early as 1973, but Black Panther’s journey to the multilayered character you see on screen was greatly advanced by the efforts of several writers with diverse perspectives. Perhaps most notably, in the context of the film, these include Christopher Priest (late 1990s) and Ta-Nehisi Coates (starting in 2016), along with Roxane Gay and Yona Harvey, writing in “World of Wakanda” (2016). Coates and Gay, already best-selling literary writers before coming to the character, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/books/black-panther-marvel-comics-roxane-gay-ta-nehisi-coates-wakanda.html?_r=0">helped bring him to wider attention</a> beyond normal comic book fandom, partly paving the way for the movie.</p>
<p>Through all of the improved writing of T'Challa and his world, his spectacular scientific ability has remained prominent. Wakanda continues to be a successful African nation with astonishing science and technology. Furthermore, and very importantly, T'Challa is not portrayed as an anomaly among his people in this regard. There are many great scientists and engineers in the Wakanda of the comics, including his sister Shuri. In some accounts, she (in the continued scientist-ranking business of comics) is an even greater intellect than he is. In the movie, T’Challa’s science and engineering abilities are referred to, but it is his sister Shuri who takes center stage in this role, having taken over to design the new tools and weapons he uses in the field. She also uses Wakandan science to heal wounds that would have been fatal elsewhere in the world.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Black Panther isn’t an isolated genius – his half-sister Shuri is a technological wiz herself.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://collider.com/black-panther-things-to-know/">Marvel Studios</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>If they can do it, then why not me?</h2>
<p>As a scientist who cares about inspiring more people – including underrepresented minorities and women – <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-ways-scientists-can-help-put-science-back-into-popular-culture-84955">to engage with science</a>, I think that showing a little of this scientific landscape in “Black Panther” potentially amplifies the movie’s cultural impact.</p>
<p>Vast audiences see black heroes – both men and women – using their scientific ability to solve problems and make their way in the world, at an unrivaled level. <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/daphna-oyserman/identity/">Research has shown</a> that such representation can have a positive effect on the interests, outlook and career trajectories of viewers.</p>
<p>Improving science education for all is a core endeavor in a nation’s competitiveness and overall health, but outcomes are limited if people aren’t inspired to take an interest in science in the first place. There simply are <a href="http://annenberg.usc.edu/research/aii/research/raceethnicity">not enough images of black scientists</a> – male or female – in our media and entertainment to help inspire. Many people from underrepresented groups end up genuinely believing that scientific investigation is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1949-8594.2002.tb18217.x">not a career path open to them</a>.</p>
<p>Moreover, many people still see the dedication and study needed to excel in science as “nerdy.” A cultural injection of Black Panther heroics helps continue to erode the crumbling tropes that science is <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-people-think-man-when-they-think-scientist-how-can-we-kill-the-stereotype-42393">only for white men</a> or reserved for <a href="https://theconversation.com/beliefs-about-innate-talent-may-dissuade-students-from-stem-42967">people with a special “science gene.”</a></p>
<p>The huge widespread success of the “Black Panther” movie, showcasing T'Challa, Shuri and other Wakandans as highly accomplished scientists, remains one of the most significant boosts for science engagement in recent times.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-hidden-superpower-of-black-panther-scientist-role-models-91042">an article originally published</a> on Feb. 8, 2018.</em></p>
<p>
<section class="inline-content">
<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248895/original/file-20181204-133100-t34yqm.png?w=128&h=128">
<div>
<header>Clifford V. Johnson is the author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/dialogues-1">The Dialogues: Conversations about the Nature of the Universe</a></p>
<footer>MIT Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</footer>
</div>
</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112268/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>MIT Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</span></em></p>
The film wowed critics and fans. But its hidden power may be black lead characters who are accomplished scientists – just the thing to help inspire future generations to follow in their footsteps.
Clifford Johnson, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/109066
2018-12-23T19:44:38Z
2018-12-23T19:44:38Z
The year in film: from witchy hits to a superhero miss
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251390/original/file-20181218-27755-dtqccc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dakota Johnson, Mia Goth, and Olivia Ancona in Suspiria (2018).</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Frenesy Film Company, Videa, First Sun</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Once again, the year in popular film has been a little underwhelming – with a few exceptions. 2018 has brought to our screens the usual plethora of biopics and films based on true stories, big-budget entries in seemingly endlessly proliferating franchise series, sophomoric indie comedy-dramas and some solid, if minor, genre films. And the year isn’t even over yet.</p>
<p>Probably the most notable thing about 2018 was the box-office success of big-budget franchise films and sequels, including films I have no intention of seeing (Deadpool 2, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom; Mama Mia! Here We Go Again, and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, to name a few) and some still to be seen that look a little more promising (Creed II, Mission: Impossible – Fallout and The Predator, for example).</p>
<p>Here, then, are my top five of the year, some of the more notable disappointments, and a few I am eagerly anticipating.</p>
<h2>Suspiria</h2>
<p>Luca Guadagnino directed <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-critical-guide-to-the-oscar-best-pic-nominees-and-why-call-me-by-your-name-is-the-standout-90848">one of the best films of 2017</a>, the elegant, beautifully realised, coming of age film Call Me By Your Name. His remake of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076786/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3">Dario Argento’s horror masterpiece of 1977</a> is similarly exceptional. As with Argento’s film, the setting is an elite German dance academy run by a coven of witches, but whereas Argento’s Germany is a phantasmagoric, expressionistic nightmare-scape, Guadagnino sets his film in a historically acute Berlin, against the backdrop of the actions of the Baader-Meinhof group. The narrative follows the descent of American dance ingenue Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson) as she realises things are not what they seem at the academy. The film is punctuated with genuinely terrifying moments – the witches are of the scary, rather than Charmed, variety – but it mostly burns along slowly, inviting the viewer to let its hypnotic images and sounds wash over her. The tension then explodes in the final section, and we are confronted with one of the most gruelling, and vibrant, horror sequences outside of Argento. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BY6QKRl56Ok?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Halloween</h2>
<p>Like Suspiria, this is a genre film done really well. Co-written by comedian Danny McBride (Pineapple Express, TV’s Eastbound and Down, etc.), and directed by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1502407/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_4">David Gordon Green</a>, whose filmography offers a striking balance between outrageous comedy and sombre melodrama, this is, arguably, the best film in the popular slasher series that features masked killer Michael Myers. (The best film in the series, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, is a bizarre and incisive critique of American consumer spectacle, but doesn’t feature Myers.) The plot for a slasher film, of course, is not the point – a guy walks around killing people – but the tone of Halloween, with its remarkable seriousness and intensity, effectively engages the viewer. Its sincerity is all the more striking in the context of a 21st century in which popular culture tends to be evaluated through its capacity for irony and cleverness. Kudos to Halloween for reinvigorating the slasher film as a serious genre after it was put to death by the Scream films in the 1990s.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251440/original/file-20181219-27752-13jdv24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251440/original/file-20181219-27752-13jdv24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251440/original/file-20181219-27752-13jdv24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251440/original/file-20181219-27752-13jdv24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251440/original/file-20181219-27752-13jdv24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251440/original/file-20181219-27752-13jdv24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251440/original/file-20181219-27752-13jdv24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251440/original/file-20181219-27752-13jdv24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andi Matichak in Halloween (2018).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">idmb</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Upgrade</h2>
<p>I have <a href="https://theconversation.com/upgrade-is-an-extremely-pleasurable-sci-fi-revenge-film-98007">written about Leigh Whanell’s Upgrade elsewhere</a> but I just can’t praise this Australian science-fiction/revenge/action film enough. It borrows styles and themes from key earlier works – Robocop, Cyborg, The Terminator – intensifying and extending these. Genre is never really about originality, so to critique a genre film on the basis that it is formulaic is senseless – the pleasure of a genre film comes through its repetition of earlier affects, sensations, and narratives. What makes Upgrade so successful is its ability to reimagine the old generic tropes so the film feels both pleasurably familiar and dynamic at the same time. There is nothing original about Upgrade’s premise – a technological implant malfunctions and the protagonist Grey (Logan Marshall-Green) battles an evil A.I. – but it is handled so skilfully, with compelling and charismatic actors, well-staged action scenes, spare yet visually splendid production design, and an immersive electronic score, that it doesn’t matter.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8o8j75gI8c0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>BlacKkKlansman</h2>
<p>BlacKkKlansman is Spike Lee’s best film in decades. It is funny, irreverent, and, at times, rather sweet. The true story on which it it based – an African-American policeman imitates a white redneck in order to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan via telephone – is infectiously outlandish, and Lee develops it in a typically stylish fashion. The film could certainly be criticised on the basis of its confused political and ideological configuration. Can a narrative really make a meaningful statement about structural racial oppression when it features a policeman as the sympathetic protagonist, given the role of the police is to preserve and protect structures as they are? But as a feel-good comedy, it is hard to beat.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251393/original/file-20181218-27773-jc3nfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251393/original/file-20181218-27773-jc3nfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251393/original/file-20181218-27773-jc3nfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251393/original/file-20181218-27773-jc3nfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251393/original/file-20181218-27773-jc3nfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251393/original/file-20181218-27773-jc3nfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251393/original/file-20181218-27773-jc3nfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251393/original/file-20181218-27773-jc3nfp.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John David Washington in BlacKkKlansman (2018).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks,Blumhouse Productions,Legendary Entertainment</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Skyscraper</h2>
<p>Many people, I’m sure, will roll their eyes when they see Skyscraper, a highly formulaic disaster film starring The Rock, in a top-five list, but this is one of the best films of its kind. It follows Will Sawyer, a one-legged security expert, as he tries to save the tallest building in the world and its inhabitants – including his family – from a gang of crooks. Every aspect of the film is extreme – it is extremely loud, mayhemic, silly, exciting and funny. It combines the heightened melodrama of The Towering Inferno with the hard-hitting action of Die Hard to create a viscerally charged cinematic experience. Each disaster film-cliché is amplified to the edge of parody, but the filmmakers manage to pull back enough for us to go along for the ride in good faith. Indeed, Skyscraper seems remarkably sincere. This is cinema as immersive spectacle at its finest.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t9QePUT-Yt8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Solid performers: from American Animals to Venom</h2>
<p>Solid (if less interesting) films released in 2018 include the wry mockumentary <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5580036/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">I, Tonya</a>, which, whilst a little heavy-handed in places, offers the viewer a comically wrought true-crime story anchored around charismatic actors and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6212478/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">American Animals</a>, another true crime docu-drama. The latter features the real-life criminals onscreen next to their fictionalised avatars and is similarly hilarious in its exploration of a bungled attempt to steal some rare books. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6108178/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Disobedience</a>, following a budding lesbian relationship in an Orthodox Jewish community in New York City, was one of the most controlled, economically realised films of the year. Its simplicity (and beauty) are quite astonishing. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6952960/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Kindergarten Teacher</a> is similarly well-made. An agonising, relentless (and hilarious) study of mediocrity, it stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as the eponymous teacher who becomes inappropriately obsessed with one of her talented students.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251394/original/file-20181218-27755-101es2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251394/original/file-20181218-27755-101es2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251394/original/file-20181218-27755-101es2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251394/original/file-20181218-27755-101es2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251394/original/file-20181218-27755-101es2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251394/original/file-20181218-27755-101es2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251394/original/file-20181218-27755-101es2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251394/original/file-20181218-27755-101es2d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maggie Gyllenhaal and Parker Sevak in The Kindergarten Teacher (2018).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pie Films, Farcaster Films, Imagination Park Entertainment</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other highlights were the thought-provoking, European-American documentary <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6862536/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Genesis 2.0</a>; the doleful German-French refugee thriller, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6675244/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Transit</a>; <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1270797/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Venom</a>, an enjoyably hard-boiled and unsentimental film that feels more like a minor 1950s science-fiction thriller than a Marvel product, and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7784604/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Hereditary</a>, an uneven but satisfying horror epic. The beautifully rendered <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3892172/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Leave No Trace</a>, which follows a father and daughter as they attempt to live off the grid, also deserves a mention.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251396/original/file-20181218-27746-17vdcik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251396/original/file-20181218-27746-17vdcik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251396/original/file-20181218-27746-17vdcik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251396/original/file-20181218-27746-17vdcik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251396/original/file-20181218-27746-17vdcik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251396/original/file-20181218-27746-17vdcik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251396/original/file-20181218-27746-17vdcik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251396/original/file-20181218-27746-17vdcik.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie in Leave No Trace (2018).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BRON Studios, Harrison Productions, Topic Studios</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The disappointments: yes, including Black Panther</h2>
<p>As a scholar specialising in action cinema, I was very excited about exploitation cinephile Eli Roth’s remake of Michael Winner’s seminal 1970s film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1137450/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Death Wish</a> - one of the great nasty films of the period. Starring Bruce Willis in the role originally played by Charles Bronson, this film promised to be spectacular. But Roth’s vision is much straighter and less challenging than the original and comes across as another mediocre revenge film.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1590193/?ref_=nv_sr_1">The Commuter</a> saw Liam Neeson reunited with director Jaume Collet-Serra for the third time. I had hoped for another tightly wrought thriller, with Neeson reprising his now signature role as regular guy turned action hero. This one, however, was confusing, tedious, and unconvincing.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WWexI9YiLSc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Equally disappointing was Lynne Ramsay’s, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5742374/?ref_=nv_sr_1">You Were Never Really Here</a>. While atmospheric (and starring Joaquin Phoenix at his bearded best), the narrative fails to cohere in fundamental ways.</p>
<p>The major disappointment of the year was <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Black Panther</a>. Touted as offering a fresh approach to the superhero genre, it is yet another American consumer-liberal fantasy pretending to be something more radical. The film offers a technocratic vision of the black rights movement, celebrating a racial equality and harmony expunged of all of the violence and messiness necessarily embedded in every struggle for equality.</p>
<p>It stages the decades-old conflict between liberal and radical versions of black activism as the clash between good hero (the liberal) and bad villain (the radical), and, given Hollywood’s history of offering liberal fantasy in place of actual social and political critique, this should hardly be surprising. Black Panther is, after all, a Marvel film, so what was I expecting?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251398/original/file-20181218-27752-dlqg6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251398/original/file-20181218-27752-dlqg6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251398/original/file-20181218-27752-dlqg6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251398/original/file-20181218-27752-dlqg6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251398/original/file-20181218-27752-dlqg6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251398/original/file-20181218-27752-dlqg6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251398/original/file-20181218-27752-dlqg6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251398/original/file-20181218-27752-dlqg6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Angela Bassett and Letitia Wright in Black Panther: yet another American consumer-liberal fantasy pretending to be something more radical. (2018):</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios, Moonlighting Films, Korean Film Council</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The hopefuls</h2>
<p>There are also several non-franchise films of 2018 that I am keen to see. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5883570/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Bodied</a>, a battle rap comedy produced by Eminem looks ecstatically outrageous, and the biopic <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1213641/?ref_=nv_sr_1">First Man</a>, starring Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong, may be eminently watchable. Boots Riley’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5688932/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Sorry to Bother You</a>, by all accounts is engagingly nutty, and I am also eager to see Yorgos Lanthimos’ <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5083738/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Favourite</a>, the Lizzie Borden biopic (!) <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5160938/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Lizzie</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3859310/?ref_=nv_sr_1">How to Talk to Girls at Parties</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6495770/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Action Point</a>, a true story starring Johnny Knoxville about the world’s strangest amusement park. </p>
<p>Two melancholic films of 2018 closed out the careers of two great American 1970s movie stars. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2837574/?ref_=nv_sr_1">The Old Man and the Gun</a> stars Robert Redford in his final role before retirement and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5836316/?ref_=nv_sr_1">The Last Movie Star</a> looks like an elegiac swan song for brilliant, epoch-defining Burt Reynolds.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/brjkpRBpFnc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Still to be released are the blockbusters <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5028340/?ref_=nv_sr_2">Mary Poppins Returns</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4701182/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Bumblebee</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1477834/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Aquaman</a>, and the new Sherlock Holmes comedy starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1255919/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Holmes & Watson</a> – this gets my vote for trailer of the year. I know what I’ll be doing on Boxing Day.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109066/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Mattes 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>
Suspiria was one of the best; Black Panther a disappointment. Our critical pick of the films of 2018.
Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Media Studies, University of Notre Dame Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/101432
2018-08-16T21:54:22Z
2018-08-16T21:54:22Z
‘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 Waterloo
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/95721
2018-05-23T11:21:17Z
2018-05-23T11:21:17Z
Simply putting women on screen won’t be enough to sustain Marvel post-Avengers
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219730/original/file-20180521-14960-u1khww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff in Avengers: Infinity War.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">©Marvel Studios 2018</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>From the <a href="https://humanitiesny.org/our-work/programs/scholars-catalog/giving-women-a-voice-in-silent-film-the-new-woman-and-the-politics-of-the-silent-american-serial/">New Woman</a> of the silent movie era – an archetype of bravery and beauty in the very first action and adventure films – to the more recent summer of the “<a href="https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2015/05/08/charlize-theron-in-mad-max-fury-road-embodies-the-new-alpha-female.html">Alpha Female</a>” in 2015 (think <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woHTUsl66BY">Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road</a>) the female action hero has never failed to excite and challenge. Proving to be a commercially lucrative success in her own right, she has broken social convention and been dynamic and powerful for more than 100 years. </p>
<p>For today’s action fan, few other film series have held as much potential as the movies of the Marvel cinematic universe (MCU). But with great power comes great responsibility, especially when it comes to diversity. This year, Black Panther offered <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-i-marvelled-at-black-panthers-reimagining-of-africa-91703">groundbreaking race representations</a> and did not disappoint when it came to its <a href="https://theconversation.com/search/result?sg=cc1eada9-46b6-4b89-baa1-9553b9e01d47&sp=1&sr=3&url=%2Fwomen-scientists-are-more-than-capable-of-leading-blockbuster-storylines-93779">portrayal of women</a> either. Now, as the initial Avengers-led saga starts to wind down, and with the anticipated release of both <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jan/17/black-widow-scarlett-johansson-marvel-superhero-movie">Black Widow</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154664/">Captain Marvel</a> solo films (the latter of which will be the MCU’s first female-led movie), it seems only right to ask, what can the future hold for the women of Marvel?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219728/original/file-20180521-14987-ro5as8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219728/original/file-20180521-14987-ro5as8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219728/original/file-20180521-14987-ro5as8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219728/original/file-20180521-14987-ro5as8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219728/original/file-20180521-14987-ro5as8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219728/original/file-20180521-14987-ro5as8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219728/original/file-20180521-14987-ro5as8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219728/original/file-20180521-14987-ro5as8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The MCU class of 2008-2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MARCO GROB/Hasselblad H5D</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The first 10 years</h2>
<p>Over the last decade, the films which brought Marvel comic books to life have been applauded for making a difference in true representations of diversity. That’s not to say filmmakers weren’t <a href="https://www.cinemablend.com/news/1668250/why-marvel-hasnt-given-more-diverse-characters-movies-yet">criticised at the beginning</a>, but in the latest instalment – <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154756/">Avengers: Infinity War</a> – characters and hybrid stories are quite literally brought together from the far reaches of the film galaxy. Heroes and sidekicks from all walks of life offer representations of enhanced mortals, celestial gods and intergalactic in-betweens.</p>
<p>However, looking to the female characters, any future opportunities will depend on Marvel’s willingness to acknowledge and not be limited by their own history. From the first MCU films, examples of pervasive, everyday sexism have been overlooked or dismissed in the name of history. Take, for example, the moment <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT2b5KzMoC0">Tony Stark meets an undercover Black Widow</a> in Iron Man 2, stating “I want one” after their <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyzU50vOofo">almost Weinstein-esque introduction</a>. </p>
<p>Even more recent films are occasionally marred with a sense of humour that tends toward displays of toxic masculinity and casual misogyny, denoting an air of sexism the films can no longer afford. From the way the women are spoken to, to the way they are spoken of, the men of the cohort consistently undermine the female action heroes. In <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3498820/">Captain America: Civil War</a>, Black Panther’s female security chief warns Black Widow to “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAxc4Dk7Vzg">move or you will be moved</a>”. The interaction is abated by Black Panther with the line “As entertaining as that would be…” – an all too common inference of woman on woman action to fulfil male fantasy. </p>
<p>In the case of 2015’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2395427/">Avengers: Age of Ultron</a>, a scene when the male Avengers each attempt to lift Thor’s hammer – an exercise in worthiness and not strength – Iron Man’s offhanded joke about reinstating prima nocta presents rape humour as permissible, in an age when it is anything but. The time is up for cheap efforts in entertainment of this nature. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/R6eMfej7zjo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Unnecessary romance</h2>
<p>Female Avengers are still constrained by emotional or romantic responsibility to their colleagues, too. Why is it Black Widow’s responsibility to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQDKTz9Rrqw">sooth the savage Hulk</a> when it’s time for him to return to the form of Bruce Banner? How convenient the two characters are also <a href="https://www.cbr.com/hulk-black-widow-mcu-relationship-bad/">possible love interests</a>, a role Black Widow has been written to play <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZY5O9b0e0g">in a number</a> of Marvel films.</p>
<p>The women are also pandered to, in contrived attempts to address the uncomfortable awareness the men are expected to have of the female action hero’s power. In <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3501632/">Thor: Ragnarok</a> the hero-god fumbles for words upon acknowledging Valkyrie as a member of his home planet’s royal military force. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s nothing wrong with women of course, I love women, sometimes a little too much. Not in a creepy way, just more of a respectful appreciation, I think it’s great, there’s an elite force of women warriors. It’s about time. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The awkwardness expressed followed by a patronising thumbs up can be easily read as Thor’s attempt to backtrack from saying the wrong thing. But it is indicative of the awkwardness often expressed when addressing women of independent authority, too.</p>
<p>Yet there is hope on the horizon for the MCU. Female action heroes have already successfully led other superhero films (DC Comic’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451279/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Wonder Woman</a> was a smash hit in 2017) so it won’t be hard for Marvel to replicate this success – but they can’t rely on tired old formulas. </p>
<p>Hollywood is changing – just look at recent calls for celebrity power to <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/susancheng/california-salary-history-ban-equal-pay-hollywood-actors?utm_term=.bj52wlpwBQ#.nyjzdEKd43">push for equal pay</a> for colleagues, or contractual <a href="https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/evm944/inclusion-rider-frances-mcdormand-oscars">inclusion riders for greater equality and diversity</a>. One hopes that the MCU does not miss the mark in recognising the power in these possibilities. Representations of female action heroes can be more than a reflection of our culture, they must be a vision of how we view each other and our place in the universe, cinematic or otherwise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95721/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Wright 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>
Marvel will need to look deeper than basic representation for its future success.
Rebecca Wright, PhD Researcher, Cardiff University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.