I saw “The Black Panther” at a Cinemark theater in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, March 14, 2018. On that same day thousands of American high school students walked out of school in protest against the endemic gun violence that is sweeping across the United States. “The Black Panther” is a Marvel Studios film rated PG-13. It’s a direct appeal to Black youth.
A lot of Black adults have flocked to see it, and they argue it features positive Black heroes and heroines for Black youth. It is no surprise that Black teenagers would eat popcorn, drink soda pop, laugh, clap, and scream at the top of their voices at this comic book movie. They are out to have a good time. The same is more or less true for the Black adults who don’t try to argue the film is anything more than a Sunday funny-paper cartoon on the silver screen. It is altogether different for full grown Black folks to try to defend it.
Most important, is there any empirical evidence that Black youth believe this film is anything more than just another hyper-action movie like Spiderman?
The Wynan Brothers’ animated satire “Thugaboo: Sneaker Madness” has a far more important political and economic message for Black youth and adults than The Panther film. Thugaboo is also very humorous. But Donald Trump and the international sneaker industry must despise it.
“The Black Panther” is the 18th film in Marvel’s Superheroes series. Captain America and Spiderman are in the series. The Panther is based squarely on the motion picture industry’s staple consumer product. That product is glorifying mass violence for mass entertainment and profit. Factor out the violence and the Black Panther has nothing to attract its audience.
Hollywood’s western, gangster, horror, and sci fi films have glorified every kind of violence imaginable. Rambo, and Freddie Krueger are two well-known examples of the countless violence-mongers that White America loves.
White America is searching frantically in every nook and cranny for the roots of the gun violence that killed 56 people in Nevada, 17 people in Florida, and many others elsewhere. This everyday real world “White-on White violence” terrifies, and allegedly confounds White America. White America blames violent video games, the National Rifle Association and so on. White America is right. The blame lies everywhere.
Hollywood is a major culprit. Hollywood’s “Cowboy and Indian” movies were made to justify and sanctify the genocide of the indigenous nations of the Americas. Mainstream America refuses to acknowledge that this genocide is directly related to the “White on White” gun violence that killed school students and staff members on February 14, 2018 at Parkland High School in Florida. But it is.
The Black Panther opened to overwhelming receptions in Black enclaves as far apart as Kenya and Chicago. Gun violence is a major problem in both locales and in many others where the Panther film glorifying mass violence has been targeting Black youth. This critical aspect of The Black Panther craze is being ignored by many prominent Black spokeswomen and men.
The film is so juvenile that it is very difficult not to be sarcastic in reply to the full-grown Black folks who try to defend it. National Urban League CEO Marc Morial praised the film as “a significant milestone.” He praised the image of Black women in the film. A lot of other Black people have also. The Panther’s Black female warriors are nothing but slightly revised replicas of the comic book super heroine Wonder Woman (A.K.A Diana Prince), this time killing African people. If the Panther’s Black cheering section argues on the one hand the film is just entertainment and should not be taken seriously, they have no grounds to argue, on the other, the Panther’s image of Black women can be taken seriously. Marvel Comics cannot establish the image of Black women on the motion picture screen or anywhere.
Independent Black cinema is repeat with images and portrayals of Black women that are light years ahead of the Marvel Comic Black women. The astounding captivating images of Black women in Julie Dash’s 1991 groundbreaking film “Daughters of the Dust” set new cinematic standards for African American women. This epic cinema also recognizes and cherishes indispensable cultural links between continental Africans and African Americans that stand autonomous of the European American cultural hierarchy. For this reason, the motion picture establishment has never sought Julie Dash for a full length theater film.
And in all of world cinema, there is no more powerful image of African women than Princess Doir Yacine in Ousman Sembene’s masterpiece “Ceddo.” Doir Yacine stands bold, rooted in the image of Yaa Santewaa of Ghana, Queen Nzinga of the Congo, and Africa’s real-world warriors.
Marvel Studios’ deep pockets purchased raves for the Panther in the mainstream US media. And it surely paid for some of the “unprecedented” high profile film-related parties that were widely reported in the media. This was to get-the-ball-rolling. It worked. Black folks who love to party, and will party at the drop of a hat, took the cue immediately. They dressed up in African-print outfits made in Hong Cong. They flocked in mass to the nearest screening of The Black Panther. They came eager to talk trash, drink Marvel’s liquor, and pose for the local TV station to spotlight them on the next news broadcast. They raved about how “Black” the film is when even from the on-line trailer, it is, at its very best, just another episode in the Marvel Comic’s Batman, and Spiderman fantasies.
In the final scene, the Black superhero T’Challa stands before, apparently, the United Nations and promises to work for world prosperity and peace. This is ballyhooed as the film’s closing Black liberation moment. After 2 hours and 15 minutes of comic book flying saucers, robot rhinos running wild, cartoon cinematography, super-duper iPhones, and endless nonsense, it does not work. T’Challa comes across like Daffy Duck standing before the UN General Assembly reading from the works of Frantz Fanon. T’Challa is Black, they argue. Well, Daffy is too.
Be clear on this point, Marvel Studios not Black folks produced “The Black Panther.” And Marvel not the Black community has raked in some $1 billion and is still making money.
Measured by that yardstick of capitalism, it’s a resounding unprecedented success for a “Black movie.” As one of my late friends loved to say, “Hey! It’s all about the money!” That’s the bottom line.
The media reports The Panther has been a box office hit in Kenya, Brazil and across the African diaspora. Now, the American film industry is gearing up for the “globalization” of films based on the Panther’s production and promotion template and it is ready to rake in billions from across the Black World. Marvel Studios heard Trump recently tell US capitalism to go and get rich by further exploitering Africa’s material resources and its peoples, and Marvel aims to do that.
In the Tarzan tradition, the White former CIA agent, who saves the African kingdom appeals to many White people. This is another audience for Marvel Studio’s box office receipts. So, get ready for “The Black Panther II,” the return of “Blacula” and “Blackenstein” and Blaxploitation films at large.
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Fred Logan is a member of the Sembene Film & Arts Festival based in Pittsburgh. This commentary does not reflect the views of this organization.
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