MAJOR SPOILERS
I literally teared up when Killmonger was dying. In my head I was screaming, "WAIT! WAIT! Take him to therapy! Shuri can save him! WAIT! What about therapy?"
I literally teared up when Killmonger was dying. In my head I was screaming, "WAIT! WAIT! Take him to therapy! Shuri can save him! WAIT! What about therapy?"
Then, I was like um....naw. He could never walk around free again because the macho approach to destroying white supremacy would never completely die inside him. And he'd wind up killing everybody in Wakanda.
Speaking of toxic masculinity and the macho in a soul being somewhat immortal, I've only seen two black male reviewers imply they disliked BLACK PANTHER on this basis.
Most black reviewers seem to see that, despite Killmonger being right about a good number of things, Killmonger was truly a villain. Killmonger's other goal, made so obvious by his actions, was what made him "the evil doer" in the film.
In my opinion, Killmonger's making a familiar argument is one of the things that made Killmonger the best villain I've ever seen. And he's one of the best villains in the Marvel Universe thus far because he's had a good reason to be a villain. In most superhero flicks the bad guy's badness either isn't explored very much or the bad guy is bad because he has had an extremely self-centered reaction to loss.
Killmonger's reaction to loss is extremely self-centered too, but some of it is a more of a we-centered selfishness rather than an I-centered selfishness --the "we" being all black people.
Eventually we find out that Erik Killmonger's father killed by his T'Challa's father because Killmonger's father was about to murder another man. Fatherless and also abandoned by the Wakandans, Erik grows up untrained in the ways of healthy manhood. Using a boy's view of what masculinity is, he understands the world simplistically as a dog eat dog place where the biggest, baddest dog wins.
So Killmonger's response to his father's murder makes perfect sense.
He builds himself up to be as physically powerful and invincible as he can. He makes himself appear even more intimidating by cutting himself, leaving raised keloids as a reminder of each person he's killed in battle -- hence his nickname "Killmonger."
Once Killmonger is an adult and a well-trained war-machine of a man, the anti-racism and social justice Killmonger has learned from his hot-head, gun pulling father is in effect trapped within the toxic masculinity he's learned from the world.
Furthermore, when black people wind up riding the top of the wave in 50 years or 500 years, black people will distribute by class and wealth in the same ways white people do now. And we will have the exact same problems with hoarding wealth and despising poor people -- the only difference will be in the skin color of the people at the top.
As Killmonger's death scene unfolded, I had just enough time to reject my initial therapy idea and accept that it was time for Killmonger to check out if he didn't want to go to prison for life.
Though he shot his black girlfriend in the face or head and lifted an old black woman off the ground by her throat, I'd temporarily forgotten that by the end of the movie. That's the only reason why it was very satisfying, in that moment, to see him get a hero's death. The part of him that wanted to save black people from oppression worldwide was righteous.
However, I did not have enough time to see if T'Challa had been exposed to Killmonger enough to understand just how badly Wakanda's United-States-Like hoarding and isolationism had let black people down in the rest of the world.
I guess that's what sequels are for.
One parsed the characters into Black Americans and Black Africans then decided that Black American man's being cast as a bad guy as compared to a White American CIA agent being good made the film "racist." This same reviewer mentioned but had no real objection to the only Black American woman in the film only having 15 words to say before the Black American male character, Killmonger, shot her in the face (head or neck. It's hard to tell in Marvel movies where death is bloodless).
Reading this review, I also wondered if this man failed to notice that almost all the characters were black in this black movie. That is, the bad guys are going have to be black too. And the bad guys are super-bad in white superhero movies, so I didn't expect Killmonger to be any different.
Therefore, I did not see accumulation of white supremacist stereotypes packed into the Killmonger character or the Wakandans for that matter.
Most black reviewers seem to see that, despite Killmonger being right about a good number of things, Killmonger was truly a villain. Killmonger's other goal, made so obvious by his actions, was what made him "the evil doer" in the film.
Some people don't recognize Killmonger as a villain because they are arguing about wanting to use the white man's tools --oppression, war, and genocide-- to dismantle the master's white supremacist house every day.1. Yes, he wanted the end of the worldwide oppression of black people.
2. But he also wanted most was to take the white man's place at the top of the oppression pile
Killmonger's reaction to loss is extremely self-centered too, but some of it is a more of a we-centered selfishness rather than an I-centered selfishness --the "we" being all black people.
Eventually we find out that Erik Killmonger's father killed by his T'Challa's father because Killmonger's father was about to murder another man. Fatherless and also abandoned by the Wakandans, Erik grows up untrained in the ways of healthy manhood. Using a boy's view of what masculinity is, he understands the world simplistically as a dog eat dog place where the biggest, baddest dog wins.
So Killmonger's response to his father's murder makes perfect sense.
He builds himself up to be as physically powerful and invincible as he can. He makes himself appear even more intimidating by cutting himself, leaving raised keloids as a reminder of each person he's killed in battle -- hence his nickname "Killmonger."
Once Killmonger is an adult and a well-trained war-machine of a man, the anti-racism and social justice Killmonger has learned from his hot-head, gun pulling father is in effect trapped within the toxic masculinity he's learned from the world.
This it how comes to be that Killmonger's **what to do** (free black people from oppression) was right while his **his how to do** (mass murder/war) and **why to do (pure revenge)** was wrong. He wanted to do to white people what they have done to us. But everybody who has seen THE LORD OF THE RINGS knows, you can't use Sauron's ring to kill Sauron. It will just eat your soul first then make you turns on your friends.
One cannot use war and oppression and genocide a tool to do good. It's impossible. And the outcome of letting a violent boy-man lead would have been hell on all black people, black women most of all.
However, this villain's arrival in Wakanda with a legitimate desire to free oppressed black people winds up saving T'Challa and all Wakandans from being just like the predominantly white run United States.
Before Killmonger arrives, the black people of Wakanda are sitting on all this wealth and power, yet doing nothing for the oppressed and suffering people outside its borders. Wakanda wasn't even sharing its medical technology -- in the same way the United States, through it's corporations, will let poor people die because they are unable to afford certain medications.
Some black people who have seen this movie were upset with how Killmonger was portrayed and how the Wakandans were portrayed, as if black pathology was being used to tell this story. But all Director Ryan Coogler has done is show that black people are human too every bit as morally flawed as white people are as a group.
That is, of course rich, advanced black people would hoard their resources and keep filthy immigrants out too. Of course we would.
One cannot use war and oppression and genocide a tool to do good. It's impossible. And the outcome of letting a violent boy-man lead would have been hell on all black people, black women most of all.
However, this villain's arrival in Wakanda with a legitimate desire to free oppressed black people winds up saving T'Challa and all Wakandans from being just like the predominantly white run United States.
Before Killmonger arrives, the black people of Wakanda are sitting on all this wealth and power, yet doing nothing for the oppressed and suffering people outside its borders. Wakanda wasn't even sharing its medical technology -- in the same way the United States, through it's corporations, will let poor people die because they are unable to afford certain medications.
Some black people who have seen this movie were upset with how Killmonger was portrayed and how the Wakandans were portrayed, as if black pathology was being used to tell this story. But all Director Ryan Coogler has done is show that black people are human too every bit as morally flawed as white people are as a group.
That is, of course rich, advanced black people would hoard their resources and keep filthy immigrants out too. Of course we would.
Furthermore, when black people wind up riding the top of the wave in 50 years or 500 years, black people will distribute by class and wealth in the same ways white people do now. And we will have the exact same problems with hoarding wealth and despising poor people -- the only difference will be in the skin color of the people at the top.
Trust me. Some 8% of black people voted for Donald Trump in today's conditions when white supremacy obviously rules. So imagine how many more black people would vote for a black version of Donald Trump when 90% of black people are middle class or better and 1% of them are super rich.
The good thing about Killmonger was that he was right about Wakanda needing to be socially responsible toward the black people of the world, which is why the audience loved him at points. But Killmongers ashy hotep designs on replacing the white man as top dog would have been as deadly to the world as white supremacy. And in a Killmonger run universe black women would likely have been the first victims.
We know this by looking at real life.
We know this by looking at real life.
All you have to do is look at the White Hollywood end of the #MeToo movement to see and understand this. You could also look at what kind of sentence white college boys get for raping white girls. The power white women have is borrowed through marriage or sex...and even that's shaky.
This is why white feminism exists.
Oppressors who gain power via oppression
only pretend to share power
Black women had to argue to get black men of The Civil Rights Movement to allow a black woman to speak for one minute during the entire main program at THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON. And just like white men, black men beat their women when frustrated over not being to find a job and finding himself unable to fulfill his role as breadwinner and leader(boss) of the family.
This is why black feminism exists.
But, as Joan Morgan said, white women don't call their men "brothers." Having to fight black men for gender equality and stop them from erasing us and using colorism to sort us feels like betrayal
Whenever white men, black men or brown men are talking about fixing a social problem, all women should keep their eyes open to make sure they are not solely talking about changes that benefit themselves.
So remember this when at the movies and in real life...
Just say "no"
to trading one oppressor
for another
As Killmonger's death scene unfolded, I had just enough time to reject my initial therapy idea and accept that it was time for Killmonger to check out if he didn't want to go to prison for life.
Though he shot his black girlfriend in the face or head and lifted an old black woman off the ground by her throat, I'd temporarily forgotten that by the end of the movie. That's the only reason why it was very satisfying, in that moment, to see him get a hero's death. The part of him that wanted to save black people from oppression worldwide was righteous.However, I did not have enough time to see if T'Challa had been exposed to Killmonger enough to understand just how badly Wakanda's United-States-Like hoarding and isolationism had let black people down in the rest of the world.
I guess that's what sequels are for.
At the end of BLACK PANTHER, T'Challa is building and creating in a black neighborhood in Oakland. And if you stayed for the credits, you got to see that King T'Challa following up by going to the United Nations to say Wakanda will share technology with the world.
That last bit at the United Nations might have been a step too far. Seriously. I had a longish Killmonger-moment when T'Challa started promising anything but medical technology to "the colonizers." But I guess that could make for excellent battle scenes in future movies because I am not above wanting to see the movie I expected BLACK PANTHER to be.
I walked into my movie theater expecting all the black characters were going to be good with a couple of white side kicks and that all the bad guys aliens or something. In other words, I expected something that was a skin-color opposite of THE AVENGERS, almost a film negative of all the very white superhero movies that came before.
That last bit at the United Nations might have been a step too far. Seriously. I had a longish Killmonger-moment when T'Challa started promising anything but medical technology to "the colonizers." But I guess that could make for excellent battle scenes in future movies because I am not above wanting to see the movie I expected BLACK PANTHER to be.
I walked into my movie theater expecting all the black characters were going to be good with a couple of white side kicks and that all the bad guys aliens or something. In other words, I expected something that was a skin-color opposite of THE AVENGERS, almost a film negative of all the very white superhero movies that came before.
But what I got was better.
Ryan Coogler's constructed an affluent world where almost all of the character's are black and the "colonizers" are acknowledged as negative and influential but never on screen enough to be central.
The black women in the movie were there for the entire movie instead of as tokens, a backdrop against which a black male T'Challa could shine--which is what I also expected.
Even without the Dora Milaje being on screen so much, this movie probably has the most natural looking feminism I've ever seen in a movie. And it's weaved through the entire film -- and it's a Black American film.
BLACK PANTHER isn't perfect. I had questions about T'Challa's father that I probably shouldn't have had. But by making the good Wakandans of Africa as hoarding and xenophobic as the predominantly white United States, Ryan Coogler has given us a deeply black, deeply human, and political movie that's going to continue to break box office records everywhere.
...which hopefully paves the way for future big budget, black, sci-fi and action adventure films for black nerds like me.
And all the success coming to BLACK PANTHER would not have been possible, if Ryan Coogler hadn't given us a familiar, toxic masculinity suffering villain worth crying over.
Bravo! Mr. Coogler Bravo!
Ryan Coogler's constructed an affluent world where almost all of the character's are black and the "colonizers" are acknowledged as negative and influential but never on screen enough to be central.
The black women in the movie were there for the entire movie instead of as tokens, a backdrop against which a black male T'Challa could shine--which is what I also expected.
Nakia and Okoye's part of the car chase scene had me grinning like a kid. And that scene where Okoye is doing battle, throws her wig in the enemy's face, then jumps over the rail to the first floor, red dress flowing was fire!
Best of all little black girls in the audiene got to see black female characters with strong contrary opinions respected and ultimately trusted by black men. They got to see black women making choices that didn't make it seem like getting married was a woman's most important goal --even though the love story that's critical to every movie I've ever adored was present and accounted for.And when love was center stage in the movie the camera was focused on a black man. T'Challa exploded with renewed energy, throwing multiple enemies off so he could save his sister Shuri from Killmonger -- instead of his very capable love interest.
 |
| The Dora Milaje (Based on real warriors) |
Even without the Dora Milaje being on screen so much, this movie probably has the most natural looking feminism I've ever seen in a movie. And it's weaved through the entire film -- and it's a Black American film.
Ryan Coogler's a black feminist right? He must be right?
...which hopefully paves the way for future big budget, black, sci-fi and action adventure films for black nerds like me.
And all the success coming to BLACK PANTHER would not have been possible, if Ryan Coogler hadn't given us a familiar, toxic masculinity suffering villain worth crying over.
Bravo! Mr. Coogler Bravo!
For a reasonable black male perspective on Killmonger, click here:
No comments:
Post a Comment