Let me start by saying that I had been looking forward to Black Panther for a very long time. In fact, as soon as I saw the first teaser I was excited.
I was ready for something we had never seen before. An African superhero?! The world was finally ready! But not just the world: I was finally ready.
To give context, I have to let you know that I come from a bit of a mixed background both ethnically and culturally. And no, those two things are not the same. See, my mom is African-American and my dad is African, so I have both those perspectives. And no, those two perspectives are not the same. But not only that, I spent most of my formative years living in Africa and only moved to the States about five years ago, so I’ve had this strange mixture of both cultures swirling around in my life.
That hasn’t always been easy, and I haven’t always loved it. In fact, to be entirely, gut-wrenchingly honest, I’ve spent some portions of my life hating my African heritage. There’s a lot behind that, and maybe I’ll get into it in a later article, but, suffice it to say that, thankfully, I have been reconnecting with my heritage in a much happier, healthier way. I’ve begun to enjoy my roots and look at my little mishmash culture as something beautiful rather than something fractured and incomplete.
So, that said, Black Panther seemed like it was just the movie I needed. It seemed to be a mixture of those two cultures, whole worlds really, that I had spent so long juggling alone in my head.
I went to the movie to see those worlds meet and, of course, enjoy some kickass action! And that is what I got. Yet when I walked out, as much as I loved the movie, I found myself disappointed just a bit.
The beginning of the movie was beautiful, in pretty much every sense of the word for me. It was visually stunning, yes, but it was just purely beautiful. As quite functionally an African, I was struck with a sense of pride I had almost never before experienced as I saw an African culture thriving and united. I felt so happy to be a part of, and to have grown up in, a place so rich with color and rhythm and vitality. What a shame that feeling left all too soon.
Very soon, it became apparent to me that this was not a film about Africans. It was in Africa, and yes, the characters were, for the most part, African. But this movie was not about Africans. This movie was essentially about African-Americans, and, as a person who has lived on both sides, those two things are not the same.
One is not better than the other. One is not more important than the other. One is not more deserving of care or attention than the other. But they are not the same.
Those are lessons I had to personally learn the very, very hard way. So, the movie about Africans essentially became the movie about African-Americans. I’m not going to lie: I feel cheated. Oh, of course, I understand. This is after all an American movie, is it not? What’s wrong with having an American movie be about Americans then? Nothing. Not a thing. I just think that if they wanted to make a movie about African-Americans and the issues they have faced and still do, they could have a picked an African-American hero. There certainly are some great ones.
But Africans have a different history, different concerns, and a different culture, and I would have loved to those more fully developed. To clarify though, Black Panther is a solid movie that I’d recommend to anyone who likes superhero movies. So go, watch it, and enjoy yourself! It’s a good movie, and there are never as many of those as there should be.