The whole Black Panther movie is exaggerated stereotypes of black culture, warriors throwing spears at their enemies, a tribe of mountain people that grunt like gorillas, and rap music playing in all the cut scenes. It's either a genius troll, or the most self unaware movie ever made.

What I don't understand is, why the Wakandans, who, as the story suggests, were never oppressed and colonised, call the Americans "colonisers" - they shouldn't have any preconceptions of them being evil, as they were never colonised. This shows the movie was written by Americans with american values in mind and African-American background - not indigenously African which they should have. Also, as a white Eastern-European Slavic person, I am constantly being dismissed in every conversation as an oppressor. This only shows how single-minded the discussion is. Black = Oppressed, White = Oppressor. Many white nations never colonised anyone. My nation was "oppressed" by the Germans and Austrians for hundreds of years, yet I don't feel any malice towards them today, as they are different people then before.

Agreed! At the end of the first film it shows TChalla in the USA where he's just purchased some buildings "It's a start" he says. I said "What about helping your impoverished African neighbours, who have far more problems than African Americans?"

5:09 I'd like to remind us that BP1 was about T'Challa learning the flaws of his people's isolationist mentality, and ends with him working with the outside world; opening outreach centers, sharing his country's vibranium with the world, HE was the one king who dared to say "we have the power to make things better, let's do something with it". BP2 opens with his mother literally undoing ALL that her son had worked and aspired for... That speaks REALLY loud about the direction future BP movies are going to be like.

I find it interesting when you see American filmmakers attempt to depict Africa on film. It often becomes a grab bag of African stereotypes and cliches of what Americans imagine Africa is.

As The Foundation for Ecnomic Education put it in their video on Wakanda: the idea of the most isolated country on earth also being the richest and most prosperous is ludicrous on its face. We have a word for countries that are more isolated, and have little to no personal property rights due to the government being a dictatorship. It's called "poor".

As a black man, I never vibed with Wakanda because of how I see it. They abandoned the world! Yet people write them like they're not this pocket of irony. They rather keep Wakanda as this ironic aspect then they did the same with Namor. These people are so caught up in giving the penance of long-dead men to the people of today. Ignoring the fact in that universe WAKANDA COULD HAVE STOPPED ALL OF IT. So Wakanda has no right to speak on issues of the people they abandoned.

This is honestly to me why they should have kept the character T’Challa and just recast him. People were saying it for quite some time, but T’Challa is more important than just one actor, especially in the context of the ending of the first movie. He brings about an integration of Wakanda to the world, sharing the burden of the world’s woes by offering the Technology and advancement of Wakanda to that world. As you said it doesn’t undo the unfortunate messaging, but it opened the door for a sequel to examine the faults of separatism in a more in-depth way. Much of T’Challa‘s arc is about coming to realize that the way that Wakanda had been doing things was toxic, coming to terms with the sins of the father, and how Killmonger was created from the very separatism that they claim made them great. It’s the reason why I feel like Killmonger is one of the best villains in the MCU. He is a political figure, his very existence is a political message, representing the anger of the left behind black man. Wakanda does not help its neighbors much less anyone else in the world when they have the power to do so, so how can they claim to be truly great if the only standard of their greatness is their own metric? Chadwick Boseman dying gave the MCU an out from having to tackle those complex subjects, and allowed them to continue instead just pushing the separatist narrative, which in many ways is a direct assault against T’Challa‘s whole arc in the first movie. They didn’t just replace T’Challa and his role as the Black Panther with his sister, they reversed everything that he stood for as a symbol of integration, cooperation, and growing from one’s mistakes. Much like Luke in the last Jedi, I can’t imagine a greater way to disgrace such an important icon.

My girl showed me the first movie recently and I was incredulous at the depiction of the nation. I hadn't seen a marvel movie since the first avengers, and she wanted to show me everything up to endgame. I had heard people say the word Wakanda but I had no idea the premise of the film was that there was a made up isolationist African nation, I just assumed wakanda was his bat cave or car or something. there are so many African nations that marvel could have done a deep dive on and had a good origin for his character. Its like having an Asian super hero and being like "let's just take a little bit of Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, and Indian Culture and just mix it up into one fake location". the whole movie felt like a stereotype of what a 12 year old imagines africa to be.

Dude straight up, you have the most nuanced and authentic criticism of the shift in media culture that I’ve ever had the pleasure of viewing. A truly legitimate argument in the spirit of finding truth and understanding art. Please keep making these.

People seriously overhyped the first movie...and used race as a way to shoot down any criticisms.

I'm the most represented in movies because I always relate most to the extras that run away screaming as they get bodied. I look at them and go "Yeah, that's me. I'd be dead."

We are told that the purpose of “representation” is that people, especially children, need to be able to “see themselves” in protagonists in order to appreciate a work. I don’t entirely agree, because I (a white male) have had no problem seeing myself in black or female protagonists who shared characteristics with me. If the heroine is a nerdy and awkward black girl, then the key takeaway for me isn’t that she is black or female, but that she is nerdy and awkward, as I was at her age. That makes me root for her, because I see myself in her, even across race-, gender-, and culture-boundaries. Nevertheless, let us acknowledge that there needs to be *some* similarity of experience for us to make that connection. Certainly, there are universally shared experiences, like love or loss, but there’s nothing wrong with creating a more specific shared experience, whether that is being nerdy and awkward, or growing up in Black American culture. Thus, the idea of representation makes sense if it provides that connection. It is understandable that some girls may be more able to identify with Tiana (from The Princess and the Frog) than with Cinderella, not because she is black, but because she is Black. That doesn’t mean they *can’t* identify with Cinderella - after all, most little girls have no trouble identifying with a fish-girl princess - but some of them will identify more strongly with a girl whose home life is familiar to them. With that in mind, who identifies with the Wakandans? They are black, true, but they share exactly zero markers with American Black culture. They don’t eat the same foods, listen to the same music, watch the same entertainments. Even the ridiculous “African” trappings of war rhinos, fur loincloths, and bongo-drum-controlled machinery don’t reflect any aspect of Black culture. Take away those ridiculous trappings and Wakanda essentially becomes Silicon Valley: a wealthy, socioculturally-homogeneous, technological meritocracy. Only, y’know, one that rejects any racial minorities. Yikes. I would submit that the real problem with Wakanda is not that it *is* representation, but that it is *not* .

“Art is the bloodletting of emotions.” That’s such a beautiful way to describe it.

Yeah the whole point of T'Challa being a different kind of leader was that he understood that Wakanda's isolationist policies had indirectly harmed the rest of the world. For all their talk of colonisers, where the hell was Wakanda when European powers invaded Africa en masse? Given how far ahead Wakanda is technologically, they would have had to be at least past the Industrial period by the time the rest of the world was barely beginning their colonial period. There's no possible way the Wakandans could not have easily fended off colonial powers if they had spread their technology and influence throughout Africa. But instead they stood by and did *nothing.* And now in the modern day they blame white people who never lived in the colonial period for the actions of their ancestors, while refusing to look at themselves in the same light. If all modern day white people are colonisers, then all Wakandans are elitists who will happily let the world burn so long as they are left alone (which the first film really doesn't make much of an effort to dispute, aside from maybe three characters). T'Challa was the one who could see past that, and act on it in a productive and peaceful way. He was capable of respecting tradition but identifying where his society had room to improve (such as when he ended the stigma and forced isolation of M'Baku's tribe). And yet the second film spits on that legacy.

The morbid comedy of Wakanda is that all of its unfortunate implications were largely retconned into it at a later date in the name of "making it better". As originally conceived, Wakanda was an advanced society, but in the sense of being equivalent to a First World nation in its cultural, technological and infrastructural aspects, and this largely centered from a long-running, forward thinking government policy of sending their best and brightest overseas to study at the most advanced scientific institutes before returning home to share the benefits of what they'd learned. Whilst they still had Vibranium, it was actually something they were largely just beginning to exploit now that their scientific base had advanced to the point of doing so, and it "merely" made them able to compete with the likes of the USA or Latveria.

"Criticising forced diversity does not make you a conservative or a Right-winger." Indeed. I'm neither; in fact, I'm liberal in many ways. And I detest the forced diversity in shows like The Rings of Power and The Witcher, which are based firmly in old European culture. And the argument that those worlds are fictional, and therefore subject to any kind of alternation that "modern audiences" demand, does not hold merit. Yes, they're fictional, but -- like all fictional worlds -- they have implicit rules that their authors created for a reason, and those rules should not be broken carelessly.

You mentioned how Black Panther's comics have largely been helmed by political extremists and separatists like Ta-Nehisi Coates. If you want an actually good Black Panther run, read Christopher Priest's series and work on the character, as it not only created most of the elements that defined the character long before the later work of Reginald Hudlin, Coates, or more recently John Ridley, but tackles pretty much every issue you've mentioned and was written by a guy (coincidentally the first Black comic writer/editor in a major comics corporation) who went out of his way to say he didn't want his work to be used as a political statement on race or isolationism, nor did he want to be looked upon as an explicitly Black writer, but a writer who wanted to tell a good story. It's fun, action packed, satirical, has great characters and story, and actually gives you reasons to like T'Challa and the world around him beyond his race or political ideals.

0:00 Nobody is gonna say it? Fine, I'll do it myself *GENERAL KENOBI!*

There is something else that perhaps should be pointed out. One of the things I've noticed in the media of recent years is a significant knowledge gap as far as how things, on a fundamental level, work. Two of the best examples came from the world of Star Trek. Star Trek Discovery has absolutely no idea of how wars work, to the point that they once had dialogue about the Federation losing the war followed by the revelation that all of their ships were in Klingon territory (meaning that they were in the middle of successful offensive warfare). It also had two high level command officers attempt to defuse an unexploded torpedo (which, in real life, would make the torpedo explode). Star Trek Picard had wildfires at the border of a city not creating a state of emergency and evacuation (suburbs being flammable and all) and a scene where a funding body somehow is empowered to take away a researcher's license to research (which, in turn, doesn't exist in the real world in the first place). I haven't seen either of the Black Panther movies, but the idea of Wakanda being the most powerful nation in the world betrays a massive ignorance on what that actually entails. You could make the argument that with their advanced technology they are a sleeping giant, and that would work, but a isolationist nation that until recently nobody knew existed is also, by definition, NOT powerful. And, I think that years ago, these fundamental mistakes on how things work were not being made, or at least, not being made as often.

I'm a white person with a Ghanaian grandmother, I lament the way things are going in both the United States and the UK. The CRT, Black Segregationist / Vengeful feelings I see among the black communities is one of the best recruiting tool for the growing White nationalists that are springing up (especially in Europe) and quite frankly given the storm clouds on the economic horizon I believe that the culture being introduced by films such as Black Panther is setting these communities for a world of hurt in the coming lean decades. Sadly I see this attitude in Africa as well, I like Ghana, having visited it for going on 20 years I've seen an exclusionary and hypocritical pan Africanism grow up over the past 8 years or so that spouts 'your European cultures must be diverse or your a racist, but diversity in our culture is a big no no'. Likewise all of Africa's problems are externalised, and blamed on the white man instead of corruption, ethnic feuding etc. Perhaps its an 'African American' import due to substantial numbers moving there ( basically if you're part of the diaspora immigration to Ghana is really easy). The result is that I have no plans to visit Ghana, or my cousins there in the near future, sticking to the Anglo-Scandinavian sides of my family as I no longer feel welcome there. My own problem with 'representation' is the shoehorning and / or mandated diversity into stories that are white in origin e.g. Jarl Estrid in Vikings Valhalla and the forthcoming little mermaid. This I think is a result of an inferiority complex that many people of African backgrounds have developed over the past 8 - 15 years resulting from the aforementioned externalisation of their ills. Put bluntly inside their heads they are still in chains, yet they have not the wit to see the corner into these attitudes inflame the backlash on the part of White Nationalists who see their culture as being under threat. I grew up in the 90s, in London so I had a number of black friends / relations, probably more than the average white person, whilst there were definitely problems back then, clearing up the last vestiges of racism of the national front variety, the general consensus was that we had more or less reached the point where skin colour didn't' matter, that the children of the windrush generation felt British and didn't hyphenate their identities. The fragile era of genuine enlightenment that we enjoyed in the past 2 decades, is it seems in the process of being wrecked by the activist class. phew... my 2 cents done

The number 1 complaint sub-saharan Africans have with their nations is certainly not colonialism or Western influence in general. I can certainly say in Ghana our number one complaint is our leadership and its not even close.

"No American today was ever a colonizer". That. Exactly that. So why is that so hard for people to understand that the people today are not guilty for the sins of the forefathers?

Technically Wakanda proves that colonisation may actually be a good thing for sharing technology and resources for the collective good rather than hording them and letting others suffer. Which I think we can assume is not what the writers planned

I have to disagree on the notion that representation is important in film. I have not been totally, completely, 100% represented in media. It would be impossible to do so. What is important is making your characters "human", with flaws and values and experiences that audiences with similar traits then gravitate toward out of familiarity and sympathy. I didn't relate to Eowyn because she's a fair-skinned princess who likes sword fighting. I didn't relate to Elisa Maza because she was a New York City cop who's best friends with a clan of gargoyles. I didn't relate to Hiccup because he's a Viking kid living on a small island in Norway. I love these characters because they have internal traits that I can relate to and admire in heroes. I guarantee the writers of these works didn't have me in mind when they wrote these characters; they were written because they were heroes that most people would root for in their respective stories.

Remember when people were lile, "if you dont like black panther your a racist" did anyone try to tell them, spear chucking, gorilla noise making, and tribalism isnt the best way to depict black culture

You ever get into an argument with people who act as if wakanda is a real place you can visit in the world? Them: superman's an alien so it doesn't matter what color he is he can and will be black in a future movie Me: okay in that case could we race swap the black panther to a white person then Them: um wakanda is apart of earth and him being black is integral to his character Me: both wakanda and krypton are fictional Them: one is a planet off in space and one is in Africa, they are not the same. Me: you can differentiate fiction from reality right?

Looking forward to tuning in later on. My personal pet peeve as far as myths go is the myth of the noble savage - which is prevalent in the country I live in. It's a destructive myth that holds everyone back - I have no problem admitting the evils of colonization, as long as we can also talk about its benefits too, and also have an honest look at the benefits and problems of indigenous societies, rather than gloss over them or pretend that they were egalitarian utopias before colonization.

I'm afraid while I enjoyed your critique, I am not sure to what extent I agree about "needing representation." I am a blind person, (I have some residual vision, but am registered as blind and use screen reading software). As not only a blind person, but the even rarer example of being born with a visual imparement, I was, and indeed am the only "person like me", in most situations. I did not in the main "see people like me", (ha ha), on television, and if I did they were either A: helpless tiny tim knockoffs who were utterly useless, or B, were given some magical form of getout which effectively negated any practical consequences that resulted from their blindness, EG Geordy Laforge, dare devil etc. You might as well claim that Darth Vader "represents", quadriplegic people, as claim someone like Dare devil represents blind people. This is because of one single thing, most blind characters are "blind!", first, people second. There are rare exceptions who have personality (Toth from Avatar the last airbender, whose magic powers also did not get in the way of her actually being blind), but for the most part, the thing that colours most blind characters people write is that they are "the blind one", whether this is manifest either in helplessness, or simply wearing a car filter on their head. They don't have relationships, preferences, ideas, jokes or a personality, indeed often their only desires are expressed according to their blindness like Dyna in the langoliers (an especially egregious example), saying "kit was wonderful just to see!" In the Maine, the characters I "identified", with were people like Frodo from Lotr, identifying with their personality and journey, This is those things which made them universal, rather than specific, which ironically ties very much in to the attitude I have to foster in others myself. Most people upon encountering me (especially in Britain), tend to treat me like I am some sort of alien from another planet, either ignoring me and pretending I do not exist, or if they do actually notice I exist, assuming that I have a "blind", way of doing everything, indeed frequently attaching the adjective "blind", to everyday items I use (it particularly amuses me when people call my guide dog a "blind dog"). . Would I like to see more blind people in fiction? Only if they are written to emphasise their personhood, the fact they have wants, desires, personalities, and indeed relationships beyond the state of their sight. Nothing irritates me more than blind characters, or indeed blind people in rl who are so very! Very! blind! So while I agree with your point here, speaking as someone who is a minority; albeit one which is unrecognised by the hypocritical woke mob, not to mention someone who has been through very much his own share of abuse, exclusion and discrimination , I have to say if you want to "represent me", then make sure you do it right, and if you can't do it right, better not to do it at all. Indeed, I'd rather see a well written sighted character, than a badly written blind one, since while there is a very good chance I will be able to empathise with and enjoy the journey of the one, I will only feel contempt for the other.

Great video. I think a problem is that modern Hollywood has an assumption that Black audience members need Black characters, without considering who those characters _are_ and whether a non-Black character already represents the audience better; this is the not-ironic bigotry of modern Hollywood. We can/ should promote "diverse" characters (simply because our world is diverse) without reinforcing racist ideas that we can only find representation without Our Race (or sex, or sexuality, etc.)

The problem with “representation” is it ignores the fact that we are all humans who are birthed and die the same. We all bleed the same. It’s not us against each other. It’s us against the universe. The idea that I need someone on screen who has some arbitrary trait like me to feel represented is ignorant at best and malicious propaganda at worst.

With great power comes great isolationism.

I see it more as if this kind of manipulation does the opposite of what the writers and producers hope for. I think this creates far more racism and sexism than it eliminates. Pressure always creates counter-pressure, a pendulum always swings to both sides, and people just don't like being forced into something or constantly being lectured. This triggers a defensive attitude in me and certainly in many others as well. However, what worries me more than just the fact that there aren't any sane and good movies out there these days is what's going to happen next. The pendulum is swinging so hard in one direction right now, I can hardly imagine what the counter-movement will look like at some point when people are absolutely fed up with it and the whole thing turns into the opposite.

What you pointed out about how Tchalla transcended those ideals was the one thing i really liked about the black panther movie. For all it's faults, i wll admit i felt something when T'challa called out his ancestors, accusing them of turning their back on the rest of the world. ultimately the main antagonist, for all his faults, had a point and managed to change the convictions of the protagonist, something i never expected in a marvel movie. The ending was promising, leading the way to interesting developments on how Wakanda would deal with international diplomacy for the first time. Sadly, the execution left much to be desired...

Profoundly said. And unfortunately the greatness of the Black Panther character in moments magnificent such as in the Marvel Civil War when he stood with Cap for freedom, vice Ironman for "collective security" are overlooked entirely by both films, the second that we shall not see. Peace be to you.

On the subject of "representation". I remember hearing a story about how Whoopie Goldberg watched Star Trek TOS as a kid and was excited to see Uhura because she was possibly the only black woman she'd seen on screen at the time who wasn't a maid. This inspired her to pursue acting herself later in life. This is what I think is important about representation/diversity. Not feeling like society is putting you in a box due to some immutable characteristic. My concern with representation/diversity rhetoric today is that it becomes this checklist for things a film must include to be "progressive" enough, which often ends up just putting people in different boxes.

There is something extremely immature about needing to be represented

The whole message of the movie is literally "Kill whitie"

The best part about BP1 is that they took South Africas Xhosa language , but only one African actor who they killed off in Civil War they then chose to film in Argentina for tax breaks from their government even though S Africa has a far more established film industry Dredd, Black Sails, Raised by Wolves , The Watch, Distric 9, etc...

The fact that Wakandans call Americans colonizers in this film is so annoying to me. I feels like the writers genuinely didn’t know that Americans had nothing to do with the colonization of Africa, and I know damn well that they don’t give a shit about Hawaii and Guam.

As explained at the beginning of BP the 5 tribes fought each other for control of the meteor not even knowing its full potential, just because they didn't want the others to have it. It was only after years of conflict that it was agreed that they would share it but only with the 5 tribe. Greed is the binding agent of Wakanda, it forced them to watch as Africa was plundered for it resources, for its people and mineral wealth. Not only be Europeans but by the other nations of Africa. Wars they could have stopped, colonies they could have uprooted if they didn't fear the discovery of their precious vibranium. Vibranium radiarion has the power to alter things at the genetic level. Like it did with the purple flower. If they hadn't created a mythology around that plant hundreds of warriors could have been created to become an army that could have controlled all of Africa and even the world had they so desired. But they didn't because their greed and fear of discovery kept them within their borders. But take a moment and think. If Europeans flooded Africa in that universe enough to forever be known as colonizers how did Wakanda repel then without giving themselves away?

I recoiled at the part in the first film where Shuri calls Bilbo a coloniser. That immediately stood out to me as smug, ill informed, vindictive, and patently false. Yet the film glosses over it as if it's something anyone should just take for granted. Toxic indeed.

I would add to the "needing representation", shall we say, 'debate'... That the representation that is included, indeed in many places REQUIRED, is only a very select list of traits that apparenly need to be represented. Why do they think the need for representation of people is so absolute, yet neglect representing many other types of people? What about the people with learning difficulties, who were bullied, or who has no friends, who live or believe something that means that they're on the outside. What about people who aren't naturally geniuses who make the CIA look like idiots from the age of 10, but struggle in everything they do? Or who were musical but can't get their heads around STEM subjects? Or people of different religious beliefs represented... In a respectful way, not as extremist nut-job villians or as cliche mentour plot devices. And for all of the same-sex relationships depicted, when was the last time there were depictions of people who were saving themselves for marriage? The real world is far more diverse than hollywood writers seem to think & include in their depiction of "diversity".

Very eloquently put and I like that you bring up creation myths and their roles. This parts was the most profound of that whole video.

Well thought and well said. My hat off to you.

I have to side with the born blind writer below, as I was also born - though very fortunate in the regard it could have been much worse than I got - with a physical disability. As an example; Barbara Gordon. In The Killing Joke, Joker (regardless of whatever else did or did not in fact, actually happen in canon of the story) shoots Babs point blank. She is permanently crippled by a gunshot. She can no longer walk. She is bound to a wheelchair. I've had the experience in my own recoveries from several surgeries I didn't exactly elect for myself, but my mom signed up for because I couldn't convey properly at that time, exactly what I meant by my statement "I want to be normal." They did their best to make me that way, and I've had to deal with the consequence, now being still in factual practice, physically disabled but in all likelihood to everyone else, 'invisible.' How many characters outside of Barbara can you name that were wheelchair bound. That limped, visibly, or had something even marginally similar to being "on the spectrum" (which frankly didn't exist as a construct, and or just wasn't talked of when I was a kid) Did not having any of them mean I couldn't see myself with the cape on. Flying around, or being super strong. Invulnerable? Did it mean then that I shouldn't be able to imagine what it felt like to be actually physically capable to the degree I wanted. I was, and still am. That's the issue I take with the idea of One to One representation. It kills any need for actual imagination, and in fact, wrecks the ability to naturally immerse oneself in any given story told. A character to truly resonate with I agree would be nice, but the point in a Hero is you're supposed to be able to respond to the IDEAL. The concepts they hold as their standard, not their political ideologies. Not their physical attributes down to a full scaled level. I care less that they almost instantly made it so Barbara could walk again that if they were going to go there, they didn't stick to the concept. Hell, Bruce Lee apparently broke his back, and he managed to walk again afterward. Still be great at martial arts, so there was realistic precedent to say she could've managed it without the bio tech bull to fall back on. It would have actually made her MORE like Bruce, who also healed from his own broken back on his own - thanks to Bane - and perhaps just as strong a candidate to take up his cowl as Dick did. (It could also have led to some romantic drama if she had fought him over that, in going down that path, which could have pushed him back to Koriander... but I digress) Point being, and it's overly long winded I'm aware; we DO NOT need visual representation of who we actually are. This is a fantasy. It's escapism. It's for FUN. All I see if I see a kid drawn in a wheelchair is, damn... that sucks. Hopefully he/she gets better soon. Because I remember what that felt like. I don't bloody need to go back to that place in my head, if I'm looking for an outlet. Though I can appreciate your point of view comes from a different lens. There are certain minorities that will NEVER be properly discussed. Heck, Daredevil is a perfect example of how superheroes deal with a physical disability. He gets to cheat because he can still see down another viable path and he knows this, but calls himself legally blind and gets away with it. Who exactly does that represent? Just food for thought.

I’m excited to discover this channel!! Love the little platoon and had no idea this channel existed or that you sing several of my favorite songs so well! You win 🥇

Excellent beyond words! Well presented and the conclusions as usual are based on solid evidence!

The most unfortunate part of this discourse is that the people involved most often want to only discuss it insofar as it confirms their own bias. Anything else deems you an -ist undeserving of livelihood and the right to use the public square. As for Black Panther, the movie was far from perfect but I personally did love that the ideological lines between the hero and the villain were blurred enough that it could've inspired discourse had it not been neck deep in IDPOL. The villain had set out to right a wrong in a destructive way whereas the hero was at the time upholding the system that had enabled that wrong. By the end of the movie T'Challa acknowledged that N'Jadaka may have had a point even if his methods were unacceptable and thus works to right that wrong, the right way. It is in my opinion a phenomenal character arc that was sadly sacrificed on the altar of "activism" for the sake of social media brownie points. Clout chasing has become a virus in entertainment and one that can't just die soon enough. It could cease tomorrow in spectacularly explosive fashion and it would still not be soon enough.

I can’t remember the last time someone called Everett Ross “Ross”. All I hear is “colonizer”.

You make really cogent and fair points, LP. Great writing for a video essay.

I've come to really enjoy your videos, I look forward to watching them whenever I see a new one has been added. Thank you, you feel is good making them as we do watching them. I hope that you fulfilled and rewarded and continue to keep them coming .

Thinking on it, growing up bisexual and kinda figuring out my sexuality, I found it more beneficial to write stories about gay characters than I did seeing them on-screen. It was nice knowing that movies about the 'gay experience' existed, but, for me the main benefit of them was about having something to be like "straight person, you should watch this movie to understand my perspective because it explains it well and I find it relatable," rather than for me to personally enjoy it. I just never personally found gay movies enjoyable if all they had to offer was a gay character, because what I personally wanted to see from those gay movies was attractive men doing romantic things with other attractive men that I could project myself onto, which I honestly don't see happen often in mainstream movies despite all of the 'gay representation'. Like, at best I'll see a very chaste kiss in mainstream stuff, and in indie movies all of the boys look too 'normal' and I usually don't like their personalities enough to be like "I'd totally be in love with this guy if I met him. He's not annoying at all." With that in mind, I wonder about the mindset of African people who look at Black Panther and think "This is relatable to me. This is mine, and I don't want to share it with white people." If the thing that you want from entertainment is a mirror, you might just be a big narcissist.

Japan is as close to Wakanda that we can get. Xenophobic, isolationist, excellent technology. The difference? International trade, years of civil war, years of conflict, and years of resisting invasions. This has lead to a rich cultural history that’s birthed many subcultures, stories, adaptations of their stories, and more. No magic meteorite but the cherry blossoms are pretty.

Fighting with spears in a world of guns and magic is almost as stupid as using a drum set to be a control system for a force field.

Well, let it never be said the algorithm can't provide. Just found this and your articulation of the ideas in your piece here is masterfully done. I shall keep my eyes peeled for your fuller essay.

Ive never in my life looked at a character I liked and thought this would be better if they looked like me. As a black man my favorite childhood character who I wanted to be like was Riggs from lethal weapon played by Mel Gibson and I never had a problem with his race or even thought about it

I’m disabled and I don’t feel the need to see someone like me in a movie. That’s just stupid and reeks of insecurity. I actually feel like part of the PC checklist when I see it in film.

This is a year old, and I doubt anyone will read this essay of sorts, but I think it's important for anyone to understand. The ideas behind Wakanda actually started with old "Jungle Adventure" fiction back in the mid 1800s with writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs (the creator of Tarzan), Stan Lee was a fan of such material as you might see in characters like Ka-Zar, and "The Savage Land" the X-men and other heroes tend to visit from time to time. At any rate the idea of there having been hyper-advanced ancient civilizations is not a new one, people had been discussing possibilities like that long before "Ancient Aliens". As a result the idea of there being some hidden, hyper-advanced, civilization with some kind of alien technology or magic is a very old one. Various writers had characters like Tarzan or Alan Quartermain run into stuff like this all the time, with the civilization either remaining hidden or being destroyed in the course of the story to explain why this was unknown to the rest of the world. The central idea of "Black Panther" was basically along the lines of something like that existing in The Marvel Universe, where there were already a ton of hidden super-advanced civilizations ranging from Mole People, to eventual concepts like Nova Roma (basically a Wakanda-type civilization descended from The Roman Empire in South America... it's where the mutant Magma was from originally), and so on. Heck I believe "The Serpent Society" had yet another ancient all powerful civilization behind it in it's lore, I'd be surprised if there are less than 50. At any rate the idea was that Stan Lee would simply have his new hero be a guy from a civilization like that re-entering the world, and it would justify his tech gadgets and stuff. It was not a deep idea, though the idea was played more straight originally with "The Fantastic Four" visiting the newly revealed Wakanda diplomatically only to be attacked one at a time by Black Panther so he could test himself to see if he could protect Wakanda against actual super human opponents. It was a variation of the classic stories Stan Lee was basing this all on, and as we know Black Panther proved to not actually be a bad guy. The problem is the MCU invited all kinds of socio-political commentary on what is a very old, pure fantasy, concept. Disney invited people to insert real world politics on something never intended to be analyzed in that way, as remember part of why this worked was The Marvel Universe was intended to have all kinds of hyper-advanced sub groups, all of which promote themselves as "the most advanced place on earth" at whatever moment when the story requires, and they mostly stand out compared to the real world baseline of the rest of the comics universe. I mean understand Latveria is pretty much a B-horror movie based nation run by Doctor Doom and is every bit as ridiculous as Wakanda when you get down to it, and there have been tons of others. If you were to analyze this though understand, Wakanda would come across as being way less than empowering. Of course it's not meant to be analyzed that way. I mean the whole concept was that Wakanda had access to a meteorite and a level of isolation that let it develop it's tech and such in secret. In practice though it never developed a civilization more advanced than what amounts to a literal "might makes right" monarchy with literal trial by combat involved, that's both been in the movies and the comics. For all their "highly advanced science" they haven't done anything better than any other super-science group, and they have technically been working at it longer. Sorry to the "Black Powah, Wakanda Forevah" crowd, that is pretty sad if you want to look at it fairly... but of course as I said it's not meant to be viewed that way, in reality it's what it is due to this thing called "Power Scaling" and as something closer to a street level hero than anything Black Panther's tech access had to be limited to scale him properly to the level of opponents they wanted to it him against.... and of course activist writers started turning this into garbage without bothering to consider all of the design parameters beyond their politics. Crap writers actually tanked Black Panther by getting increasingly political with it and forgetting things like established continuity, power scaling, and what this was supposed to be from the very beginnig. Black Panther was simply conceived as a low tier hero who could punch above his weight class to the mid tier with the right tech gimmicks if really stretched. Later they created a whole character called "Blue Marvel" to do high end stuff, and he wasn't bad before political weirdos increasingly got their hands on him to the point where he's pretty much in the "only technically exists" category due to nobody wanting to read his crap.... even black people. The point of this rant is that trying to analyze this won't work based on the intended content. I mean at the end of the day it's like trying to go back and insert some kind of common sense or socio-political logic onto the absolute chaos that is the multi-writer mythology of Tarzan, which is probably where you first saw ideas like this originate... and understand that is a guy who can somehow communicate with animals by yelling, swings around on vines that would slice his hands open in the real world, magically never worries about disease or fungal infections despite living in the deep jungle, can apparently dodge bullets based on sheet athleticism (with no super powers except "animal control" which is mostly supposed to just be him being one of them), and who has somehow punched it out with everything from poachers, to demons, to alien space robots and come out on top.... I mean he's a perfectly fine super hero, don't get me wrong, arguably one of the first that actually deserves that title, but trying to insert any kind of consistent logic or modern political thinking on any of that nonsense is doomed to fail. While the original stories were perhaps a bit more down to earth, in the end by the time Tarzan was visiting the prototypes for Wakanda we had gone far off the deep end and people need to realize this is what it all came from. It was meant to be really dumb, campy, fun, even getting to the point where this guy was one of the favorite mockery targets of old sci-fi comedy writers like Ron Goulart (your forgiven for having no idea who that is, he didn't have any enduring fame... but yeah, he knocked Tarzan big time. Even making jokes about entire 'Jungle Man' conventions in some of his books given how many Tarzan knock offs there were over the years).

Representation is not the problem in of itself. My favorite captain from Star Trek is Captain Benjamin Sisko from DS9. He is flawed, but intelligent and driven. He is a good father to his son. He loves baseball and African Art and boxing, and had to work hard to recover from the death of his wife at Wolf 359 to the Borg. He struggles with his status as a religious icon to the Bajorans, as their Emissary. His race is only relevant when it's relevant to the story. And that's the key issue. Representation now is not about the story, but about a bunch of rich Hollywood people signaling how very virtuous they are, how much better they are than anyone us, especially normal people, the consumers. It is no different from French Aristocrats pre-Revolution commissioning the most decadent artistic works from artists to show off to their peers and to look better, just with different tools and signals. And it shows in how utterly ignorant and poor the art these people produces. Star Trek DS9 had a fraction of the budget of these huge operas devoted to intersectional politics and race baiting and yet it was far more intelligent, moving, and memorable than any of these travesties. That should be the takeaway: These people are using art as propaganda and as a result, the art (and those who enjoy it) suffer.

LP putting more thought and effort into his _Wonkaverse Forever_ review than the people who made it put into the film.

I can't claim to be an expert on the cultural practices of the many African tribes, but even from my limited knowledge base, Black Panther and it's sequel are absolute nonsense. They had the "the most technologically advanced nation on earth," chucking spears and using trial by combat to see if the king is fit to rule, for fuck's sake! It's a pastiche of things these writers saw in National Geographic but have no knowledge of how they fit together in a coherent culture. In fact, they seem proud of their ignorance. And another thing; isolation is poison for any tribe, big or small. No contact with the outside world limits the size of the cultural universe and keeps them from developing. Europe had the collective knowledge of the Rome, India, Egypt, China, and the Middle East to pull upon, which is why they became so advanced compared to everyone else.

Brilliant video sir.

So well put!

I resonate with Nightcrawler, that doesn’t mean I’m a blue, fuzzy, teleporting German or even a man, I’m Catholic and know how it feels to be ostracized because I’m different like a mutant. But that’s it. I love you to death but I disagree with having to need someone who looks EXACTLY like you to resonate with a character, like I said Nightcrawler is the character I resonate with most, it doesn’t mean I’m a fuzzy, German blue elf. I’m just a Catholic comic geek

The isolationist, nationalist, supremist thing they did was extremely tonedeaf. Why didn't wakanda help the other "colonized" people? You know, the impoverished third world status countries right next door. Bare minimum w medicine, energy, economic and technology. Then they finance some outreach center in Oakland? Seriously?!? That money would have gone way further and done so much more in the African countries. Am I missing something? Or did the writer?

This length of video up to about 30 minutes long is the best length of video for me.

Drax needs his own movie, grey and reddish people are not given enough time on screen at all.

Worst part is... Waka da is supposed to be grimdark. You aren't supposed to want to be in Wakanda, or to be black panther, but to be like him if you are faced with the same dilemmas. It's like WW, or Aquaman. The lessons from Wakanda is supposed to be that resources and technology solve no moral questions. It's a Burkian tale as well.

Nice one, Lord. I look forward to the full video. :)

"WAKANDA FUEVUUUR" lasted about 2 years before some people got a reality check in that the 'brand' is dying because the guy carrying it died IRL.

I've mentioned that life follows art but got told I was overthinking things.

Your thoughts are very well explained. Thank you. As for the representation, just yesterday, I heard a 20 yo Asian girl say how excited she was by seeing the first Asian superhero in a movie, and a 20 yo Black girl expressed her appreciation of, and inspiration from, strong Black women in movies as exemplified in the Woman King. These are university students. I’m looking forward to seeing your whole video, but I really like these excerpts to provide on this channel. You should receive a lot more subscribers here as well!

THANK YOU! It kills me that more people aren't talking about this! Wakanda is fundamentally advocating for segregation and separation of races! That's why I liked Killmonger because he was an interesting take on the idea that Wakanda couldn't segregate themselves from the rest of the world.

Really interesting and I am totally with you on the oversimplification of cultural ramifications which we often find filmmakers portraying in their works. Although, I am afraid of dabbling in it because chances are that I may end up doing the same ironically that is, oversimplifying the problem itself. The "us versus them" cultural war has taken on a new meaning in the postmodern era, which makes the problem even more complex and therefore difficult to scrutinize. Although, I commend your effort in breaking it down for us viewers. At least more thought would be put in while consuming popular culture.

Great analysis

I share your views on the wakandan toxicity and straight up aggression towards foreigners, which became exceptionally clear in the second movie. However, the reason Wakanda was so rich in those movies was not isolationalism, but their vibranium. Just a small correction.

Wakanda For a Limited Time Only.

All the entertainment labelled as "black" is tragic. It's like they are trying so hard to embody the "we waz kungz" meme.

After the first Black Panther movie not only was I disappointed the main character had taken 3 steps backwards, but the Eddie Murphy film Coming to America did it better.

oNlY wHIte peOpLE Can bE raYCeeSt

My belief on this whole situation is the idea that there is no such thing as true progressive globalization. There are two polar opposite ideals that end up being shoved into the same end of the political spectrum through some strange way despite those ideals being extremely contrasted: Isolationism vs Imperialism. Isolationism is the desire to preserve one's culture and traditions by keeping all foreigners away from their nation while simultaneously not interacting with other nations of the world in meaningful ways. It is an inherently conservative ideal. Imperialism, by contrast, is the spreading of one's own ideals throughout the world and trying to assimilate all other nations into it, believing that the other nations' cultures and traditions are barbaric. This is inherently a progressive ideal, and yet it is acknowledged by progressives as a conservative ideal because the progressives believe Imperialism to be evil, just like how they believe conservatives to be evil. The progressive utopia would be a one-world government that somehow keeps all other nations' cultures intact, a dream that is impossible to achieve. Isolationism removes all concepts of a one-world government by keeping all nations separate. Imperialism forms the one-world government by eradicating other nations and/or forcing their assimilation into the "ideal" world. Wakanda is seen only as the ideal nation by Black America because of the color of their skin, regardless of what ideals Wakanda has, and no matter what ideal it is, be it T'Challa's former ideal of isolationism or Killmonger's ideal of imperialism, either way the African American audience is gonna be in favor of it. I actually saw a video recently that was an hour and a half long that hailed the film as a masterpiece EXCEPT for the after-credits portion of the film where T'Challa opens up Wakanda to the rest of the world in order to try and achieve a middle ground of the traditional isolationist beliefs of his forefathers and the extremist imperial beliefs of Killmonger. The reviewer criticized this scene because he felt that it went against the "cultural moment" that the film had sparked by promising an antithesis to cultural divide. (He also said it was because it was treating the C.I.A. like the good guys, which I agree that they're not, but he's acting like it's a bad thing for Wakanda to remove itself from isolationism despite the reviewer being a progressive himself) TL;DR: People try to read too deep into the film for messaging to a point where it makes them look like that shitty English teacher I had back in my junior year of highschool, and the bigger picture of the film is trying to find a middle ground between isolationism and imperialism and overcoming its extremism, an idea which only extremists are against.

9:38 tell me you didn’t watch the movie without telling me you didn’t watch the video 9:38 Yep, that was clear

Wow. Excellent analysis.

I don’t need representation in order to feel good about my self

While we do mostly agree on the broad things I'll have to disagree about the notion that you must see people who look like you to be able to relate to them, mainly because it entails that everyone from that group has the same life experience and the same thoughts and mentality, which is quite a messed up notion to say the least. Even worse is the terrible messaging that's fueled by these movies (subtle in first movie, more blatant in the 2nd), specially when the vast majority of the people celebrating Black Panther has never set foot in Africa, never lived there, and most certainly never ruled over an African nation, there is literally nothing in common between any of them and the character Black Panther or Amy of his family, except their skin color, yet the movie (specially 2nd one) uses this tangential connection to push for the idea ALL black people are better off segregating from everyone else and looking down on them and that's the only way for them to succeed and thrive, and it's obvious why this message specially in a country like USA is extremely damaging. IMO there shouldn't be any dictates or checklists or quotas of any kind, let people create whatever they want and give opportunity to as many talented people as possible to reach a very wide audience and you will naturally and dynamically reach a diverse outcome, real genuine diversity not manufactured soulless corporate one.

Wow very well thought out and conveyed

Art is a (and always must be) something you create for yourself.

Thank god a new video 😁 I am so curious to know what you think about willow and avatar 2 too! Love the vids keep ‘em coming

This is actually perfect for describing issues objectively rather than getting baited like a lot of reviews and ending up sounding racist while you do an excellent job being objective

I listen to you on both Channels constantly and have never doubted your eloquence or execution but I must say this video is by far a master class in every category. I’d say, “I’m not just blowing smoke up your ass” But a large part of me suspects you take as well as you give😂 Thank you for the fantastic content.

your closing statement actually makes the movies better in my opinion.

Wakanda; taken down because the strongest nation in Africa didn't think any local threats could swim. 🙃🤣

What irks me about the "colonizer" thing is that the USA only had one colony in Africa: Liberia. Which was run by BLACK Americans. It was basically a real life Killmonger situation where a bunch of black Americans (there were white financers, but the actual colonists were black) decided to escape the racism of the US by moving to Africa and creating their own colony - regardless of how the actual Indigenous population felt about it. This colony eventually became an independent country and was the only Republic in Africa for many decades. But eventually the tension between the descendants of the American colonists and the indigenous tribes boiled over into a very long and bloody civil war. To be fair, the first Black Panther film does sort of mirror this, with Killmonger vs the Native Wakandans. But it feels like everyone forgot he was the only actual colonizer in that movie.

Very well put.

There is one phrase that I think will echo across all of history whenever someone starts banging on about colonialism: What have the Romans ever done for us?

I've always thought that needing to "see yourself" on screen felt a bit narcissistic or at the very least uncreative as most white people i know, and myself (Mixed race) can happily see and write characters whom are not of our race and gender and use them as a role model, for me growing up (late 90's early 2000's) i loved Mace windu from star wars, i loved Samuel Jackson in most of the things he played in, I also loved Maara Jade from the books and Jaina solo as well, along with Benjerman Sisco from DS9. I wonder if said ability to identify with people not of your race is a empathic trait or more of my highly religious upbringing which told me to think of everyone as a child of god.

For centuries, the richest portions of Britain were those that the Romans conquered first and held longest. The wealthiest Native Americans in 1800 were those who had access to European goods and culture earliest. The wealthiest nations in Africa today are the most Westernized. During the Reconquista, the poorest regions of Iberia were those that were never conquered by the Moors. It makes people really uncomfortable to realize it, but conquest and colonization often have long-term benefits for the conquered and colonized. This is NOT a justification for conquest-but it does fly in the face of the notion that “everything was perfect before those foreign invaders showed up.”

Thank you this. Although I love the first film, I have a deep abiding love of all of the intellectual discussions and dissections that the movies promote. In my opinion, this would be a fantastic firs step to finally putting the world on the road to understanding and acceptance off any culture through dialog and not through propaganda.

This is a topic that almost everyone is afraid to touch and a very astute observation. However the stage was set with first BB, when the story diverted so greatly from the comics and focused on Blacks in America. The retrofit of T’challa changed him from a stoic African king with world class intellect to an emotional habitual mistake maker. He was not even the hero of his own story, that was obviously Killmonger, the villain that was forced into existence by the West(even though it was Wakandians that wronged him). These decisions were made in bad faith and were only accentuated in the sequel. It’s truly sad because BB was amazing in comics and he was respected because he showed the resolve of a King.