Black Panther - A Cultural Perspective

Long time no read! On the off chance that I had any regular readers beforehand, and on the even offer chance that any of them are still around, I'd like to apologise but what with university, I've barely had time for anything for months now. But from this day forth, that changes!

Thanks to an interesting debate that I had with a friend, I've decided to make my extraordinarily grand return a two part series on the upcoming Black Panther film. The first part (this one), will be on analysing the cultural accuracy and inspirations of the black panther film from the posters and trailers we currently have. The second part (not this one), will be to analyse the cinematography and hopefully will give a broader view on trends throughout the marvel universe, although that one need a lot more research so I've decided to do the easier one first!

So lets dig in, although if you haven't seen the trailer yet, I'll embed it here so you can have some idea what I'm on about.

 

From what we know so far, the film deals with the immediate aftermath of Captain America Civil War including a power struggle in Wakanda as with T'Chaka dead, several of the local tribal leaders challenge T'Challa for the throne and also how Wakanda interacts with the rest of the world as it goes from a country that keeps to itself (think super badass Switzerland), to being forced into the spotlight after recent events, note the trailer song.

This is almost definitely what will lead others to fight T'Challa for the throne as African culture is usually very tradition focused and so such a large change in such a powerful country could not go unchallenged, but I'm getting off topic, back to the matter at hand.

Western pop culture (I'm looking at you Hollywood) almost exclusively forgets that Africa has an incredibly rich and diverse culture. This isn't exactly helped by the overshadowing nation of Egypt, or the atrocities committed against African culture by settling Europeans, but provided that Marvel pulls this off perfectly, they may well be in a position to change all that and put Africa into the spotlight, giving its incredible culture the recognition it deserves.

In order to understand the film's inspiration, we should first understand the inspiration of the character, the character originated in the 1960s at the heart of the black rights movements in America. One group in Alabama took the panther, to be their mascot and became known as the black panther group, and when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby read about this group in a newspaper article in 1966, they made the choice to take a black superhero that they had been toying with the idea for, the coal tiger, and incorporate him into The Fantastic 4 #52 under the new name - Black Panther.

But how does the film compare to actual African culture? Well in order to do that we should look at the trailer in more detail. Firstly we get this stunning scene of T'Challa disembarking his jet, surrounded by people in vibrant outfits and frankly incredible scenery. And all of this is accurate to real life! The costumes were designed by Ruth Carter (known for Roots and Malcolm X) who has in interviews commented that she looked to the Masai and the Suri tribes for inspiration.

Of course the fact that Wakanda is a significantly more advanced country than any that exist today adds another element of challenge, especially since the designs all seem to be drawn from very old cultures, but it looks like the costume designers did a fantastic job of preserving the vibrant colours and traditional forms of clothing while using futuristic looking materials. We can also see they still have futuristic but familiar looking spears as the weapon of choice, just like may of today's African tribes.

In a shot further on in the trailer, we see a gorgeous aerial view of the city, and honestly the design is flawless, as well as looking like the sort of high rise you'd see in Japan or Korea, it's complete with the African propensity for circular structures which we see in tribal huts and buildings today, along with even having traditional straw roofs on some of these high rise buildings! Even the infrastructure is laid out in a way so that it is efficient and away from the ground, which appears to be covered in plants, looking almost like a rainforest, echoing the huge respect for nature prevalent in African culture.

In addition to this, there is evidence in the trailer and descriptions that it is a nation ruling over several tribes who occupy different regions of Wakanda, echoing the African social structure of old and finally we have the poster released for the film. This poster caused the internet to reel with stupidity even more so than usual when it was released, with racist conspiracy theorists running rampant, claiming that it looked overly militant and that white genocide was coming.

As entertaining as it was to read about, I personally think that it's on the same level of stupid as flat earth theorists. Because while it has also been compared to images of American black rights leaders, which is at least a bit less insulting, I would like to point out that there are only so many ways to sit on a throne. Personally I think that it looks similar in style to portraits of monarchs from European history. This is also pretty likely as there is a lot of inspiration to draw from in these easy accessible images of kings and queens, and also it would be a nice nod from the designers of the poster to the associations of these sorts of portraits with royalty and developed societies.

I'd also like to point out some more examples of the incredible attention to detail in this poster. The juxtaposition of the beautifully designed hall to the dirt on which the throne sits implies a certain level of humbleness and connection to nature. The throne's large prongs resemble claws and finally the text on the throne and walls appear to be a more modernised version of the traditional Adinkra symbols used throughout Africa (also worth noting they are carved on stools for rituals).


So I hope you all enjoyed this whistle stop tour of African culture in what's sure to be a great film. Next week I'll try to analyse the cinematography of this and what it could mean for the Marvel universe and for cinema itself (cue ominous noise). Anyways - Peace out!

So that I don't get sued - All image credit goes to Marvel Studios/Disney and no copyright infringement intended, thanks to my debate buddy Adam for the idea.