Black Panther finally made the women of the MCU equally capable heroes
Film Features The Marvel Moment
From the minute Black Panther officially assumed its place on the MCU release slate, it was destined to usher Marvel into somewhat uncharted territory. Sitting at the helm of the studio’s first film with a majority black cast, director Ryan Coogler already faced an immeasurable pressure to present something totally new. How did he fare? Pretty well: Black Panther broke scores of box-office records upon its release, secured a global billion-dollar haul, introduced one of Marvel’s most compelling villains to date, and continues to resonate as one of the studio’s best, most magnetic movies. Part of what makes this installment different from its predecessors actually has little to do with T’challa (which is not a dig at the effortlessly charismatic Chadwick Boseman): For once, a male hero was surrounded by women who were empowered to be just as capable, effective, and viable as him. The young king might have saved the day in the end, but his victory wouldn’t have been even remotely possible without the guidance and strength of warriors like Okoye.
Coogler brilliantly encapsulated this sentiment in a brief glimpse during Black Panther’s climactic final battle, when Okoye (Danai Gurira) saves M’Baku (Winston Duke) from certain peril. As W’Kabi (Daniel Kaluuya) charges forward on an armored rhino, Okoye steps in front of the Jabari leader with remarkable certainty, just in time to save his life and receive an affectionate lick from the animal. She and her love face off, and even as W’Kabi tries to manipulatively weaponize their relationship, she remains stalwart in the name of her homeland. As he takes a look at the battle raging around him—where the men are flagging at the hands of Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), Shuri (Letitia Wright), and the Dora Milaje—he recognizes that he is bested and, without further strife, drops his weapon and actually fucking kneels before her. The rest of the Border Tribe immediately follow suit in acknowledgment of the women’s power.
Up to this point, the MCU had presented strong female characters, like Natasha Romanoff and Wanda Maximoff, only to minimize or grossly objectify them—or in the case of Scarlett Witch, find their power regarded as a liability. Black Panther, on the other hand, takes every opportunity to remind the audience that the women are the backbone of Wakanda. If you’re ever in doubt of this, just look to Shuri’s decked-out lab or to Nakia, whose overarching vision of empowering black people globally with Wakanda’s wealth of resources encourages T’challa to build a school in America. (And she’s figured out a way to do so without amassing an unnecessary body count. Imagine that, Erik.) These characters’ unfettered power and the support of the men around them was on a level that we had not yet seen within the MCU, and it points to Marvel’s readiness to move into a much more inclusive future. With Okoye, Nakia, and the arrival of Carol Danvers and soon Shang-Chi, Marvel Studios’ next chapter will give fans from more marginalized groups the opportunity to actually see themselves as heroes and genuine equals.
151 Comments
I’m surprised this is the scene you chose for this movie, but you’re absolutely right, it’s a powerful image and an outstanding statement about women in the MCU going forward. Bravo for the filmmakers and the studio for taking this step. My one qualm is that the seeds for this moment weren’t quite strong enough earlier in the film, so it caught me off guard at first.
Okoye and W’Kabi’s marriage definitely feels like something hastily written into the script in order to justify the end of the battle.
It feels less like that if you watch the deleted scene from the middle of the movie that fleshes out their relationship and actually sets up the end. They cut it, for whatever reason, but it would have gone a long way toward making that plot arc work better.
In the released film, the only mention of their relationship has the speaker not actually on screen, which made it feel like a late ADR.
It might well have been done because they cut that other scene late in post, and that was the best they could do at the time.
it’s ridiculous that they cut this from the movie when it addresses so many issues that are in the final cut
Damn, I wish that had been in the film. It adds so much to W’Kabi’s characterisation. I don’t feel like everything he did had to make perfect sense – emotional people often do things that aren’t logical – but it had to have some emotional heft behind it, and this scene gives him that.
She is a woman in a very high position of power, she has a job, she has her duty to her homeland, and she is also a wife. She has certain priorities and the movie isn’t about them so I read the relationship between Okoye and W’Kabi as a marriage between two busy people who support and understand that the priorities of their circumstances might come before their marriage sometimes.
I felt that way at first, but then I saw an interview where Coogler was talking about scenes between the two of them that had to be cut because they interrupted the flow of the movie. One of his favorite scenes was an argument between them after Killmonger defeats the king
I never knew they were married.
Everything about W’Kabi’s role in the movie was horrible, like the whole “I’m a big fan of Killmonger because he killed Klaue, even though the king knows Killmonger worked with Klaue and broke him out of prison” plotline.
I also thought that bit was odd.
Even the rhino bows its head! Missed that before. 🙂
Can we all appreciate that this is only Coogler’s THIRD movie? I imagine this is what it was like to watch Spielberg’s rise in the ‘70s.Remember when there was some controversy over Mavel confirming Ayo wouldn’t be a lesbian in the film? That never made sense to me; would they rather the studio just queerbait them and let them go into the movie expecting to see it? This was right after they got taught that lesson with Beauty and the Beast, after all.
The movie’s primary influences are from Don McGregor, Christopher Priest, Reginald Huldin, and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ respective runs on Black Panther.It’s also worth mentioning that Killmonger has been resurrected in the comics a couple times, the first time was done with the help of his girlfriend Madam Slay, who had an army of leopards.
Another one of my top 5, i think this is one of Marvel’s best origin stories. It stayed with me after the first viewing which is more than I can say for a lot of origin stories in the MCU. This movie had a lot going for it; a great cast who all gave great performances, brilliant visuals (some of the best), a memorable villain (part of me wishes Killmonger hadn’t died, he was a well written character, I would have loved to see him come back) but most importantly it was a cultural movement. I think thats what made it so effective, it broke many records and pre-conceived notions but I don’t think any other movie has made such a cultural impact. I look forward to seeing that again when Shang Chi is released.
Don’t forget that there were 2-3 women on the king’s council too. Women played a very prominent role throughout.And just calling Sebastian Shaw the White Wolf makes me wish Netflix cast him as Geralt of Rivia instead of Henry Cavill. Just color his hair white in that scene and give him two arms, picture perfect Geralt.
I still wish it were Zach McGowan – we already know he has the TV sword fighting chops, animal magnetism and melancholy to pull it off.
I know Zach McGowan has had a ton of awesome roles in shows like The 100 and AoS as badass characters, but I can never forget his role in Shameless enough to take him that seriously.
Gotta watch Black Sails, my dude!
I saw his panel at a comic con last year! It was interesting even if he spent most the time talking about Black Sails (a show i dont watch). Admittedly i was filling time between the Ryan Potter & John Barrowman panels but still (Barrowman sets an impossibly high bar for impressively charismatic panels, though weirdly Manu Bennett’s was a close 2nd that weekend on my list of favourites – who knew i needed more stories about orcs mounting their wargs in my life?).
Wait, Superman is playing Geraldo Rivera?
Yes, but they can’t actually break his nose due to prior filming obligations, so they will have to have it digitally broken, and it’s going to look awful.
Can’t you do a broken nose in makeup?
No way, it has to be terrible CGI.
I didn’t that that’s what they did do, just what they could have done.
SupGeraldo will unearth the Fortress of Solitude and reveal on the Daily Planet live blog that . . . nobody is inside!
Just wait until he reveals the deplorable conditions of Arkham Asylum.
Seems redundant, like god playing Donald Trump or something.
Sebastian Shaw, Black King of the Hellfire Club?Btw, I just realized: when and if the X-Men appear in the MCU, are they going to have to reconcile the fact that Kevin Bacon exists as both Shaw and himself?
There’s no chance on earth that they’re gonna maintain the old films’ continuity. Ryan Reynolds will carry over, & Deadpool will remember the past franchise, but that’s it.
And just calling Sebastian Shaw the White WolfSebastian Stan. Sebastian Shaw is the Black King of the Hellfire Club.
But first he was Darth Vader (OK, ex-Darth).
It’s pretty sad that minority women almost always have to turn to fantasy/sci-fi settings to get their best and juiciest roles.
Zoe Saldana has talked about that before, and she would know. She’s been painted all sorts of alien colors to get those roles.
I’ve thought about that, how there are a few cases you can look to where it’s the minorities who get to be painted as aliens, but the white actors get to be white characters. It’s not a *strong* trend, thankfully, but it is present. At least in the Star Trek movies she gets to be her human skin on-screen. She has little to do in those movies but at least it’s her.
I kinda notice that too, but sometimes it’s actually for their acting skills. I remember an interview with JJ during Force Awakens, where he was asked why he decided to hide Lupita’s beauty behind the Maz cgi. His response? “What, you’re saying I should’ve gotten someone ugly? Who is really being the vain one here?” It was such a quick one-off legit answer.And I kind of doubt any white (or others) actor would have turned down that gig. People gotta make a living. Maybe it just so happens that the “minority” actors are actually the better actors for certain roles, because of their unique strengths.
I’ve heard that after having such a physically demanding role in ‘12 Years a Slave’, Lupita actually requested a CGI role where she just had to do the voice, as a way of getting a break and flexing other acting muscles.
The “getting painted alien colors” part is the real problem (juicy roles like the women of Black Panther, who get to actually be kickass black women onscreen, are not a problem at all). Saw Warcraft on a recent flight, and my eyes almost rolled out of my head when I realized they’d buried Paula Patton under a mass of orc makeup. I guess after casting Ruth Negga they had hit their black woman quota, so the next one had to be an orc.
Saw Warcraft on a recent flightI’m sorry.
I’ll confess, even with the entire world warning me, I was still disappointed. How could people spend so much on a movie, and spend so little of it on actors?
I played vanilla back in the day and loved the lore and the character stories. I soooo wanted Warcraft to be good so that we might get future films covering the different eras, from the Burning Legion to the rise and fall of Arthas Menethil.Sadly, I doubt we’ll ever see Hollywood take that kind of gamble again.
“Ms. Saldana, we have a role that’s perfect for you. Something new and fresh that you’ve never done before.”“That sounds great! What is it?”
“We’re gonna paint you purple!”
She’s working her way through the rainbow.I’m hoping Marvel ignore it’s own internal rule and casts her as Red She Hulk/Betty Ross (even though technically that should be Liv Tyler in MCU).
She doesn’t get enough praise, or screen time for that matter, for her turn as Lt. Uhura.
I would have thought that fantasy tends to be whiter than average. It’s my impression that female directors tend to have more & better roles for actresses, and they typically don’t receive blockbuster budgets. Horror has a tradition of female protagonists at least back to Carrie & Halloween, but it’s arguable that the genre frequently (not always) puts less stock in well developed leads.
Fantasy is, mainly since everyone and their brother still holds pretty true to Tolkien’s tropes.
Hot Take Alert: The final fight between T’challa and N’Jadaka was dull, pointless, poorly rendered cgi characters just going through the motions, major boring shit. Their fight on the waterfall earlier in the movie was so much better, you know what i’m sayin?
This is not a hot take.
One could say this hot take… was an absolute zero.
Is something still a hot take if it’s been said a thousand times already?
That take’s so not-hot it’s approaching -273 degrees Celsius.
Granted my sarcasm was lost on you all but I appreciate you using a proper temperature scale to put me in my place.
Ugh. Fuck celsius. Who bases a temperature scale on something so specific as what water does, but only under certain atmospheric pressure?
Yeah Fahrenheit is sooooo much better and easy to follow. Metric all the way. They write some pretty catchy songs
Save for the science committee Jean-Pierre Christin.
I see your Absolute Zero burn and I respect it. I tried to come up with a freezer burn joke, but I’m real sick, y’all.
+1 deep freezer burn
It’s such an odd and obvious misstep in hindsight that it honestly still baffles me… why not have Shuri come up with something that deactivates BOTH Panther suits, and have their final battle be a replay of the waterfall fight (shades of Rocky, right?) that turns out differently this time, while also allowing us more time to actually SEE Boseman and Jordan onscreen acting and fighting and generally doing their best to be their best?
The end fight sequence’s dodgy SFX screams “we haven’t got time to do this properly”.A bit more time probably would have given us a better look, though what you’ve suggest is far better and get us around the “how do we get Spidey’s mask off?” trope from the Raimi trilogy.
Probably because having them in the Panther suits allows them to fight for longer, while still “taking” blows, even in a bloodless PG-13 fight?
1 problem I had with the waterfall fight between tchalla and killmonger is how did killmonger beat him? I would atleast had killmonger do something underhanded to justify him beating tchalla, maybe poison him or sabotage his weapons or something
“Hot” means “pedestrian” in English when translated from your native language: Dullard.
I think it would have been much better if they had used the footage Coogler filmed that I saw in a behind the scenes/ B-roll thing, instead of replacing them with obvious digital doubles.
I was curious what scene you guys would choose for this one since this is my favorite MCU flick. This is a very good take on the film BUT I feel the scene in Korea illustrated this better just from a more practical effects standpoint as opposed to the admittedly bloated, CGI-heavy final act battle. The female characters in that scene to a ton of work in this sequence between Shuri providing the advanced tech and communications for T’’Challa, Nakia getting them into a black market casino using her spy skills and Okoye providing the muscle. It’s the best action sequence of the film by a mile once the chase to get Klau starts. The rhinos in this final scene are bad and nearly took me out of the film. All in all though yeah I have to agree BP definitely gets female protagonists right in this one.
Alternate choice too for this: Killmonger’s journey to the ancestral plain. When his dad asked him “no tears for me?” it was probably the first time I nearly cried watching one of these movies. It’s really well shot and emotionally powered. I loved it. The ancestral plain in general is my favorite part of this movie.
I kind of get why some people think the movie might be overrated. Folks and the media just over hyped it, but I think it was still a movie worth watching.It had all the standard Marvel elements, to which I agree to a certain extent the criticisms thrown at the cgi scenes, but it’s the other parts that I thought were unusually resonating, considering it was a Marvel movie.Lots of great scenes, but if I had to filter it down to a few, it would be:- Killmonger’s entire perspective. Which gets ultimately defined when T’Challa tells him he is king of Wakanda, not the entire continent.- Obviously, the different women surrounding T’Challa.- The scene where T’Challa emotionally asks his father, “Why did you leave him behind???”. Him still seeing Killmonger as family, and not as a typical villain, was pretty heavy.- Same with the “No tears for me?” scene.- The way they handled and resolved M’Baku’s tribe, showing that there were still some internal problems going on with Wakanda way before the movie happened.Whenever I feel like watching the movie again, for me those key scenes are usually reason enough.
I’d go with Erik and his dad’s meeting in the spirit world, no question. There’s a level of raw emotion, not to mention social awareness, in that moment unmatched in the whole MCU. It’s also the moment that truly brings the humanity to one of the series best, and otherwise quite brutal, villains.
Okoye, to me, is the greatest thing to come out of the Black Panther mythos (at least, in the films). And this scene gave me all the chills when I saw it in the theater.
Her scream-whisper “WITHOUT QUESTION” was magnificent.
I mean, I’ve always had a little bit of a crush on Danai Gurira, but if she’d have thrown that look at me in any context, I’d have knelt too.
She has one of the greatest moments in ‘Infinity War’, where she just side-eyes Bruce after he’s tripped over in the Hulkbuster suit.
I know! It’s mid-battle and she’s riding into a maelstrom and she still has time to throw Banner some absolute shade.
Okoye was awesome, but Nakia is my Queen to Be.
I’m still pissed Shuri got snapped off-screen.
Was she snapped, or did Glaive just kill her when he raided the lab?
She was confirmed dead a few weeks ago when they released all the character posters, and the Russos said she was snapped, iirc.Also, if she was killed during the raid, they would’ve shown it on-screen.
I knew about the poster. I’m just surprised that we didn’t see her dust; the only other significant figures in Infinity War whose fates we didn’t see at the end were either confirmed to be alive (Wong, Pepper) or just not discussed at all (Ned).
Nah. Dead is the safest place to be going into Endgame.
Peggy Carter’s a bit miffed at this headline, but the Dora Milaje (and Shuri) are so fucking awesome that I honestly don’t care.
Peggy Carter was a great character, but I think she operates on a different level than Black Panther; Carter’s distinct for being a great example of a highly capable woman in the MCU proving her capabilities in the face of the adversities of how women are viewed in her time, whereas the Dora Milaje/Shuri are a great example where there is absolutely zero adversity to their gender/racial background. I think neither nulls the other in their particular celebrations of diversity, but they’re both distinct properties that we’re lucky to have.
Oh, definitely!I just take issue with the headline’s suggestion that Peggy (and Gamora, bar none the smartest and strongest Guardian) hadn’t already proven women to be “equally capable” heroes.
There is definitely an underexplored, and underappreciated, Wang/Jack Burton dynamic to Gamora and Peter Quill’s relationship. It’s not that Quill and Burton aren’t capable of heroism. It’s just that they are not the heroes of that particular story, and they alone seem not to recognize it.Which is all the more shocking, given how central Big Trouble in Little China should have been to Quill’s formative years.
Boy, that would’ve made it REALLY weird when he found out that Kurt Russell is his dad.
In Gamora’s case superior to all Guardians bar the sexually-ambiguous Groot.
Best moment of Black Panther is the casino fight, and probably all the scenes that surround it on both sides, too. There is no justice in a world where Ryan Coogler doesn’t get hired to direct the next Bond movie after that. None.Danai Gurira throws her WIG at a henchman before she proceeds to beat every inch of his ass. So rad. My theater blew the hell up.Shuri makes my heart sing, too. SUCH a weird little crush on her. ‘Don’t scare me like that, colonizah!’‘The real question is WHAT ARE THOOOOOOSE!? Why do you have your toes out in my lab?’<3 Shuri <3
There is no justice in a world where Ryan Coogler doesn’t get hired to direct the next Bond movie after that
I actually thought that was the same casino from Skyfallhttps://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/02/black-panther-james-bond-skyfall-casino-q-felix-leiter
Coogler directs, Boseman as Bond?
I’m ‘bout it.
Get me my tickets for this right now.
Yes, but will Idris Elba be upset, or just clap Boseman on the back and say, “Better you than me, Mate…?”
Duke as bond. 😀
Better yet, Nyong’o. Break All The Walls.
Would pay many dollars to see that.
Surely Mr M. B. Jordan? Those two are joined at the hip.
Oh man. Idris Elba should probably get first right of refusal on a Bond role, but MBJ as Bond would be… well they’d get all my money is all I’m saying.
Jordan as the villain. He’s good at it.
Shuri deserves all the smarmy love. And some sass just to show that she can take it like she dishes it.
How did he fare? Pretty well: Black Panther broke scores of box-office records upon its release, secured a global billion-dollar haul, introduced one of Marvel’s most compelling villains to date, and continues to resonate as one of the studio’s best, most magnetic moviesDon’t forget that Best Picture nomination
I was honestly shocked to not see that mentioned.
Kind of hard to miss, or so you’d think
Disagree on the dismissal of Black Widow and Scarlet Witch. Both of them are continually awesome in previous movies. Wanda in particular had fantastic, jaw-dropping moments Age of Ultron (her moment after the talk with Hawkeye is incredible!) and Civil War (she kicks all kinds of ass in the airport battle). Plus, Nat was wildly badass in both Avengers and Cap movies.
That’s not to take anything away from Okoye, Shuri, or Nakia who are definitely awesome in Black Panther.
And the notion of “objectifying” Black Widow is also a load of horseshit. Just because she looked smoking hot in Iron Man 2 didn’t lessen her as a character. She should be in the realm as James Bond. Outsmarts you, disarms you, distracts you with their good looks, kicks your bad guy ass, and walks away while casually checking their watch.I’m glad the superhero films are at a saturation point where female heroes are finally showing up. There are a lot of unmined potential there, there’s only so many times audiences will sit there watching the male heroes do the same shtick film after film after film. From a creative and audience perspective, that gets boring real fast. It was really only a matter of time, thank god.I would never had believed it if ten years ago, someone told me we’d finally get to see today a real Wonder Woman hit, a Scarlet Witch, a Wasp, a Carol Danvers Captain Marvel, or see the Black Panther mythos become a household name. We have it good.
‘Iron Man 2′ could have done fine without a scene of Black Widow getting changed (and ogled) in the back of a car, but they put it in anyway, so I’m gonna say there’s definitely some objectifying going on.
She was being ogled by the character in the scene and the director at the same time.That’s pretty impressive.
I think the women in the movie were definitively more powerful than T’Challa. The women characters didn’t have super power drinks or invincibility suits and they acquitted themselves just fine. T’Challa got his ass kicked when he was without the magic juice and his suit.
Stupid Kinja
I like the scene too where Nakia tries to recruit Okoye to overthrow Killmonger, and Okoye refuses, that she must be loyal to the throne above all. It was a good scene to color in these characters in terms of finding the right thing to do minus T’Challa.
It’s a great moment, and one that doesn’t get mentioned enough. But generally speaking, honor doesn’t get talked about enough.
Unless you’re Prince Zuko.
Nice meta-Kinja.
Honestly, I’m old enough that I had to look that one up.
If you have any interest in animated TV, watch ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’. It is a classic of the form.
It’s my favorite scene in the movie. The worldbuilding is really what sets this film above, and the character motivations are crisply clear and understandable here, even when they are at odds. It’s so good.
THANK YOU. Everyone knows that throughout history women have been just as likely to be kickass warriors as men have, and comic book movies are finally starting to reflect this. There are literally ZERO physiological nor psychological differences between men and women that have led 99% of all warriors in human history to be men, that is a white nationalist myth. There is nothing in the DNA of young men that causes them to go out and try to prove themselves with ambitious, even reckless actions that will get them prestige and acclaim of young women, and there is nothing in our biology and childrearing processes that causes us to protect young women at the expense of young men to ensure the continuance of our society.So thanks, Marvel Comics! Doing great work there.
Sir, this is a Wendy’s.
P.S. you’re gonna be shocked when you find out about the Amazons and Athena.
Are you doing a bit? I honestly can’t tell.Is this a bit? Anybody?
I enjoyed the film, but I’d rank it right in the middle of all the MCU films. The one thing it has is the culture. Seeing black people have their moment, and the world building is great. But that’s it for me. And that’s not enough to sell me on a film being one of the best in a franchise. There’s just something missing from it that makes it truly one of the great MCU films. I know AV Club will rip me apart for this, but I feel like this being a tremendous moment for black people all around the world makes this seem a lot better than it is. Decent characters, decent action, and good script don’t equal great movie just because of its social message. If the rest of the movie was as great as the culture, this would be an all time great.
I know it’s unpopular to say, but I’m with you. I saw the movie late, towards the end of it’s theatrical run. I had a lot of hype going into it from here and the internet at large. I wasn’t disappointed, but I didn’t really get it.I really liked all the characters, but the movie as a whole sits squarely in the middle of the MCU for me. I feel like the social aspect of it is inflating perception.
Also, I’d like to point out that if a black person said this was their favorite film of all time I wouldn’t bat an eye. That’d make sense. The emotional payout of watching this movie as a black person must be immense.The thing that gets to me is that I’m pretty positive the AV Club writers are 100% white, and I’d assume the commenting base is at least 75% white.
You’re allowed to think what you want about a movie. No one’s going to ‘rip you apart’ for casting your opinion. Not sure what the skin color of either the AVC writers or the commenting base has to do with anything.
Certainly the guy who reviewed it here was white (Ignatiy Vishnevetsky), but he gave it a B+, which is basically solid but not great. So I don’t think his skin colour played much of a part in it one way or the other, frankly.
Yes, the culture is a huge draw, but that’s not all the movie has going for it. All three Oscars it received were well earned. And Brown’s scene with Jordan is absolutely the BEST acting in any MCU film to date, and it’s not even close.
In terms of story and main character development, it’s pretty middling. T’Chaka’s hero arc isn’t really all that different, the villain is a darker version of the hero, and, in the end, the hero emerges a better, wiser person. Pretty standard MCU fare and a valid assessment.
Can we all take a moment to chuckle at the utter failure of various “alt-right” shitlords who attempted to tank this movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score, predicted it would fail at the box office, and boycotted it (thus depriving Marvel of about $74)? That never gets old.
In their defense, they had homework. Also, Mom said no.
See also: their pathetic campaign against Captain Marvel. “We don’t hate women! We just hate Brie Larson because she hates ALL MEN!!!!1!!! Go see Alita instead, even though we didn’t pay it any mind until it was out for 3 weeks.”
“And ignore the fact that Disney gets the money either way”
For me and a lot of my friends it wasn’t what Brie was saying but how she was saying it. Her holier than thou attitude just made me go okay you are not worth my time anymore. I am all for diversity in the workspace, but I would rather see that diversity come from actual work instead of being forced upon by outside factors.
Even up till now, I’ve not watched”Alita” and don’t plan to. I have, however, watched “Captain Marvel” twice. As for “Black Panther”? I’m driving my family crazy with insisting on watching it at least every other week. This is after watching it thrice at the Cinema 😁😁😎😎
Doubly ironic for them that Captain Marvel is now less than $10 million from passing both Civil War & Iron Man 3 on the all time domestic charts. That will make it the second highest grossing “solo” MCU film, with only the three Avengers movies (so far) between it and Black Panther. So their boycotts & breast-beating has now failed twice.
The theory “We and our fellow whingeing shitlords can totally derail this massively popular multi-billion dollar movie franchise with our strategically placed bad reviews a month before the film comes out” is right up there with “We need our guns to protect us from the government, because when it comes it to it our collection of assault rifles will easily outmatch the might of the world’s largest and most heavily-funded military force.”
We should take a moment to chuckle simply because a mediocre movie, with a less than mediocre cast and a terrible storyline was able to make the kind of money it made thanks to a concerted effort of not only the studio (no money there) but also a media so demented in their view of the world that they convinced a brain-dead populace that not only was this somehow the first black superhero film (not by a long shot), but that it was actually good despite the aforementioned problems and the unbelievable, what you people who normally consider, racist stereotypes that permeate the film: blacks hooting like gorillas, carrying spears, primitive political systems, the inability to compete without make-believe alien technology… The list goes on and on. Yet you dolts think this is some kind of triumph.
What also never gets old is the perma-butthurt little trolls who flock to every comment reminding them of what colossal failures they are, still attempting to squeak out some kind of BUTBUTBUT IT WAS TOO A BAD MOVIE defense through mouthfuls of chicken tendies. Stay in the greys losers, I’m not going to get you out by replying.
I do not particularly remember a call to boycott Black Panther or any type of negative reviews or complaints. As a matter of fact I remember all the news and hype being very positive. So are you sure it is not a fake internet rumor?
“…Up to this point, the MCU had presented strong female characters, like Natasha Romanoff and Wanda Maximoff, only to minimize or grossly objectify them…”Agent Peggy Carter would like a word.
This was 100% true, one of the 1st things I said after this movie was how awesome all of the women were portrayed. It was so great. DC has Wonder Woman and Aquaman with awesome females in them and now Marvel has Black Panther and Captain Marvell.
Thankfully it’s not a hot take anymore but I thought Black Panther was pretty much carried by the women and the male secondary characters, especially Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, and Winston Duke. Actually by the end of it I thought Okoye and Shuri had made better cases for themselves as Avengers than the titular character.
I thought most of Killmonger’s lines were extremely cringey, or weirdly delivered, and Chadwick Boseman was just too static and stoic for me to be invested in any way, there’s just very little character development in this movie.
I always thought Black Panther was way more “feminist” or presented a stronger female hero than Wonder Woman. The latter just has sheer strength by virtue of her parentage that she doesn’t really understand and is activated by being sad b/c she lost her boyfriend. She also spends most of the movie with those around her telling her how dumb and naive she is, is totally wrong about the antagonist, and just lucks into a fight with the main baddy. While in Black Panther, the hero (Black Panther) actually turns to the women around him for advice on strategy and technology, and they are seen as both physically strong, intelligent and capable throughout. I think that is a much better role model for young girls (or grown-ass women!) than just “strong lady can beat up boys, even if she doesn’t quite understand why” presented in WW.
BP was an ok movie, but the thing that bothered me most is that Killmonger was the rightful king, but that is brushed under the rug. He challenged TChalla per the rules of combat and beat him fair and square. Then lots of Wakandan’s refuse to show loyalty to Killmonger and want to bring back TChalla. TChallas family, of they had honor, should have recognized that Killmonger legitimately earned the crown according to centuries long tradition. Apparently the fight for the crown only really counts if the guy you like wins. Then TChalla, while being powered by the purple juice, beats a nonjuiced Killmonger. In the first fight they made a point to show that the combatants were both unjuiced. So the 2nd fight should not have counted as it involved more than natural born ability. Killmonger was the rightful king, even if you didn’t like his politics.
My only nitpick about the female cast of “Black Panther” is that I don’t remember anything about Lupita Nyong’o’s character. I remember Shuri, I remember Okoye, I certainly remember Angela Bassett. Lupita? Nothing.
That’s more an indictment of the material and her character though, because she’s an amazing actress, so just shunting her into “supportive love interest” feels like a waste of her talents.
She was the person making a passionate argument for the non-murdery version of Killmonger’s goal, which makes her pretty significant for me.
She was the person making a passionate argument for the non-murdery version of Killmonger’s goal, which makes her pretty significant for me.
I’m still searching for an all woman moving crew to help me move out of my Brooklyn apartment.. any suggestions?
I guess Black Widow, lady Sif, Gamora, Peggy Carter, the ancient one and Scarlet witch don’t count.
The focus on women characters in this feels very deliberate, especially when you look at Killmonger as a character who disproportionately targets women in his violence. He poisons the curator at the museum, kills his own girlfriend, disrespects the Queen (“Hey, auntie”), chokes out one of the women growing the heart-shaped herb, and brutally kills one of the Dora as soon as the battle starts. It’s telling that Wakanda, the homeland he’s cut off from, has a big focus on maternal figures (it’s patron deity, Bast, is a goddess), and that he even lacks a mother of his own. The feminine side to his upbringing that might have tempered his worst instincts is completely absent.On a lighter note, I love how M’Baku just runs off in that clip. It’s like he’s thinking, “I’d rather keep fighting all the dudes with weapons than get between an Okoye/W’Kabi quarrel.”
This film had a terrible plot with a villain who was going of a grudge 200 years old, and the fact that this technologically advanced society was using armoured rhinos was just absurd.
You mean they pandered so hard, things became ridiculous. WAKANDA FOREVER! /s
Doesn’t IW straight up imply that the Border Tribe was put to death en masse?
I must rewatch this film – I seemed to spend most of my viewing thinking how boring and blandly motivated BP was compared to the villain. Well, that and the odd lacking of scale to Wakanda – I never got a sense of how big it was, or how far apart the tribes were. Actually, the whole tribe thing seemed off in lots of ways. For me, it seemed less Winter Soldier and more Age of Ultron.
I’m still mad at this movie. It gave us the most competent, kick ass, self assured, brilliant female cast, then then resolved the second act by making them run crying/groveling to the mountain men. Fuck that and the horse it rode it on.