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http://www.blackenterprise.com/remember-sidekicks-black-panther-comic-book-politics/
Minor spoilers ahead
This isn’t so much a review as a reflection. It’s well documented how I feel about Black Panther. I pushed for Black Panther’s inclusion in the Avengers years ago. In April 2013, I wrote “It’s Time For Black Panther On The Big Screen.” If you’re just tuning in, you can look back through my archives for my previous Panther posts. Here’s Cary Darling’s Houston Chronicle article I was featured in “Houston fans are pumped for ‘Black Panther’ superhero movie with virtually all-African-American cast”
Well, I saw it.
Black Panther was one of the best movie experiences of my life.
First, this film isn’t “homework.” Typically, movies featuring a black cast feel as if they need to instruct audiences about the ills of society past and present. Black creatives know we may never have the media mic again, so we don’t waste any moments. In my humble opinion, you’re grown, and it’s unrealistic to burden a mainstream movie with responsibility to make you a better person. That cake is baked. The only hope for a better tomorrow lies within the children. Which is why the stories they see and hear about heroic people that look like them, and don’t, are vital. Blissfully, there are no sermons in Black Panther. White colonizers never even knew the technocratic marvel of Wakanda existed, so Wakandan society flourished atop a mountain of the most precious metal on earth, unmolested.
But, to director Ryan Coogler’s and Marvel Studios’ credit, Black Panther doesn’t shy away one iota from speaking truth to power about the broader consequences of isolationism, classism or societal injustice. Thematically, the tone of the film is a tasty gumbo of an Aesop fable and James Bond political pot-boiler with a side of Game of Thrones court intrigue and a dash of hot sauce. The strongest nations throughout history learn the greatest threats are not from without but within; Wakanda is no different. No one can escape the consequences of the choices they’ve made, whomever you are, from a lowly orphan to a mighty King, to a nation of millions, as Malcom X said famously, “Your chickens will always come home to roost.”
There has been some buzz by angry white fanboys with absurd notions regarding Black Panther. They’ve declared comic book characters or stories must somehow be “apolitical”. And that the political agenda surrounding this film makes them “uncomfortable.” (Aw, pobrecito!)
However, black folks continue to celebrate the creative, cultural and financial success of the only big budget comic book movie featuring a black cast and crew undeterred.
The tone-deaf reaction of some can be expected. Wonder Woman debuted to similar trolling about sexism (against men) and uproars about Alamo Drafthouse Theaters’ woman-only screeings. Racism, sexism and pop culture fandom aren’t mutually exclusive, in fact, any female, non-gender specific person, Bleek, cosplayer, collector, or actor of color can relay incidences of racism, sexisim or homophobia they’ve encountered. This harassment both online; like John Boyega for the crime of being a black stormtrooper in “The Force Awakens” or at cons where “Cosplay is not Consent” has to be repeatedly drummed into grabby Comic Con attendees.
I’ve been trolled by white men I don’t know from Adam with the caucasity to tell me I had “no right to speak about Black Panther because I’m not a real comic book fan.” Now, not liking or even hating Black Panther doesn’t make you a racist. Telling me I can’t love it does. And using the fig leaf of “political agendas have no place in Comic Book Movies” to hide your bigotry only exposes your own political agenda.
As hard as it may be for you to believe, Jimothy, this movie isn’t about you…
White Supremacy is a Hell of a Drug
In his Forbes’ article chronicling Black Panther’s unprecedented success, Scott Mendelson (a white guy so you can trust him, Jimothy) titled “Box Office: ‘Black Panther’ Crushes Conventional Wisdom With Record $218M Debut” had this to say regarding Black Panther:
This isn’t just a blow to conventional wisdom about minority-led blockbusters, it’s a blow to conventional wisdom concerning the MCU. One of their more outside-the-box offerings, one of their most director-driven films and one of their most overtly political pictures yet, one that plays more like a drama than an action spectacular, is now on pace to be one of their very biggest movies. Like Pixar, I hope the MCU is realizing that its (stereotypically) riskiest bets turn out to be their biggest wins. Playing it safe is no longer the safe choice.”
Let’s talk a little about “politics in comics” before we move forward. Because this will come up more often as women, blacks, Asians, non-binary folks and others underserved in the pop media landscape take the lead on both sides of the camera and all phases of production in Hollywood. Let’s look at an example of how political thought not only has always been a part of comics, it grounds the greatest heroes and drives the best stories.
Captain America was created by cartoonists Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, his first appearance was Captain America Comics #1 published in 1941 by Timely Comics, a predecessor of Marvel Comics. Captain America was designed as a patriotic supersoldier who fought the Axis powers of World War II and was Timely Comics’ most popular character during the wartime period. Steve Rogers, “the skinny kid from Brooklyn” that became America’s enduring champion and the “First Avenger” in Marvels MCU, was 4F but wanted desperately to serve his country like his only childhood friend Sgt. Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes. Steve endured bullying with courage and tenacity, he knew what it meant to be powerless, which is why Dr. Erskine, the lead scientist of the super soldier program, believed Rogers was the ideal candidate.
Dr. Abraham Erskine: The serum amplifies everything that is inside. So, good becomes great. Bad becomes worse. This is why you were chosen. Because a strong man, who has known power all his life, will lose respect for that power. But a weak man knows the value of strength, and knows compassion.
Steve Rogers: Thanks. I think.
Dr. Abraham Erskine: [he pours two drinks] Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing. That you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man.”
Rogers, now a super soldier, dressed in red white & blue named Captain America quit touring with the USO selling war bonds, went to the front lines and punched Nazis in the face on a daily basis.
That’s a political statement.
It’s endemic to who he is. Rogers believes in, if not America as it is, the aspirational ideal of what America SHOULD be for all her people. He’s such a patriot, once he leaned the truth about what the American government was doing in our name? He helped take down SHIELD, fought Iron Man, and became a fugitive from justice. Can you separate Captain America’s political views or core beliefs about freedom and justice from his character?
Of course not. Nor should you. That’s WHY we love Captain America. It’s what makes him a hero.
-Amnestic fanboys must have forgotten political stances made in The Avengers and all three Captain America Movies. SHIELD/HYDRA. Steve Rogers RAFT breakout after Civil War. The Sakovia Accords; UN oversight of “enhanced” individuals that split the Avengers. The political asylum granted by Wakanda. The entire X-Men comic run since Mutants were allegories of blacks during the Civil Rights Era of the 1960’s. MUTANT REGISTRATION ACT. TRASK Sentinel Program. The Legacy Virus that decimated fictional mutants concurrently during President Reagan’s silence on the spread of HIV in the 90’s that cost millions of real people their lives. Or, the second episode of Superfriends that spoke out against man-made climate change and promoted ocean conservation in the 1970’s.
I could go on.
Decades of the politics of the day driving comic book stories that no one cared about, that is, when blacks were sidekicks. This changed last Thursday.
Black Panther is a movie about the heir to the throne of a fictional African nation who wears the hereditary mantle of both monarch and protector of his realm “The Black Panther.” Is it possible to ignore or separate his blackness and his unique Afrocentric culture or world view from this character? Should every narrative he’s a part of ignore the plight of black people that do not enjoy the privilege of Wakandan citizenship?
Of course not.
One of the most powerful Black Panther comic book stories was the Jungle Action series of the seventies featuring Black Panther vs. The Ku Klux Klan. How do you de-politicize a black king taking on the the Klan? Why should we even want to? Like Cap’s political stance and core beliefs, Black Panther’s ethnicity & culture are central to his narrative and endemic to the character.
Black Panther is a powerful, resonant, self-reflective exercise that pays homage to both the source material and the African diaspora. It represents with unconditional love, deep respect, unique style, and an effortless flourish, yet still remembers to be a hell of a good time at the movies!
Black Panther was more than I could possibly ask for and one of the best examples of what a comic book movie can be. Period.
#wakandaforever
Editor’s Note: This article is excerpted from a longer piece. Read the article in its entirety at The Good Men Project
The post Remember When We Were Sidekicks? – BLACK PANTHER and COMIC BOOK POLITICS appeared first on Black Enterprise.
Happy Black History Month! For each of the 28 days of February, we at The Mary Sue will have a post about a black woman you should know about—some you may have heard of, some a little bit more obscure, and some fictional who still deserve a lot of love.
(Credit: K. Kendall on VisualHunt )
Day Twenty-Three: Audre Lorde
“Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference – those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older – know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.” –Audre Lorde.
Lorde was born in New York City to Caribbean immigrants parents who settled in Harlem. She was born Audrey Geraldine Lorde, but she chose to drop the “y” from her first name while still a child, explaining in Zami: A New Spelling of My Name that she was more interested in the artistic symmetry of the “e”-endings in the two side-by-side names. I think Anne Shirley would have appreciated that argument.
Lorde’s relationship with her parents was difficult, especially because of colorism. In particular, Lorde notes her own relationship with her mother, who was “deeply suspicious” of black people with darker skin than hers, Lorde herself was darker than her mother. In fact, the only reason that Lorde’s father was “allowed” to marry his wife, despite being darker than her family would have preferred, was because of his charm and ambition. Lorde’s mother herself was light enough to pass for white.
In 1954, Lorde spends a year at the National University of Mexico, where she came to confirm herself identity as both a lesbian and poet while beginning to craft a writing style that explored what those identities meant.
In 1977, Lorde became an associate of the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP). WIFP is an American nonprofit publishing organization. She did this while also teaching at Lehman College from 1969 to 1970, then as a professor of English at John Jay College of Criminal Justice from 1970 to 1981. During her time there she fought for the creation of a black studies department and then in 1981, she went on to teach at her alma mater, Hunter College.
In 1981, Lorde was among the originators of the Women’s Coalition of St. Croix, which was an organization dedicated to assisting women who have survived sexual abuse and intimate partner violence (IPV). In the late 1980s, she helped establish Sisterhood in Support of Sisters (SISA) in South Africa to help black women who were affected by apartheid and other forms of injustice.
Within her academic work, Lorde focused her discussion of “difference” not only on differences between groups of women but between conflicting differences within the individual.
“I am defined as other in every group I’m part of,” she declared. “The outsider, both strength and weakness. Yet without community there is certainly no liberation, no future, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between me and my oppression”
Lorde considered herself a “lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” and used her poetry as a way to express all of the different ways her identity intersected within the world.
Lorde’s poetry became more exposed and personal as she grew and became more confident in her sexuality. In Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, Lorde states, “Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought…As they become known to and accepted by us, our feelings and the honest exploration of them become sanctuaries and spawning grounds for the most radical and daring ideas.”
The Cancer Journals (1980)and A Burst of Light (1988) both reflect on Lorde’s breast cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. Lorde deals with Western notions of illness, treatment, and physical beauty and prosthesis, as well as themes of death, fear of mortality, victimization versus survival, and inner power. Lorde’s novel Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982), described as a “biomythography,” chronicles the evolution of Lorde’s sexuality and self-awareness through childhood to maturity.
Lorde identified issues of class, race, age, gender, and health as being fundamental to the female experience. She argued that, although differences in gender have received all the focus, it is essential that these other differences are also recognized and addressed. That ideaology is the root of intersectional feminism as we have come to know it today.
Her focus on these different identities would lead to her having conflicts with notable white feminists. In her crucial essay “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” Lorde attacked racist white feminism: “If white American feminist theory need not deal with the differences between us, and the resulting difference in our oppressions, then how do you deal with the fact that the women who clean your houses and tend your children while you attend conferences on feminist theory are, for the most part, poor women and women of color?”
Lorde even vocally critiqued womanism because of its failure to explicitly address homosexuality within the black female community. According to Lorde’s essay “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” “the need for unity is often misnamed as a need for homogeneity.” She writes, “A fear of lesbians, or of being accused of being a lesbian, has led many Black women into testifying against themselves.”
From 1991 until her death, she was the New York State Poet Laureate. In 1992, she received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle. In 2001, Publishing Triangle instituted the Audre Lorde Award to honor works of lesbian poetry.
Lorde died of liver cancer at age 58 on November 17, 1992, in St. Croix. In an African naming ceremony before her death, she took the name Gamba Adisa, which means “Warrior: She Who Makes Her Meaning Known.”
Recommended Reading:
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name – A Biomythography (Crossing Press Feminist Series)
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Crossing Press Feminist Series)
This Bridge Called My Back, Fourth Edition: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Cherríe Moraga
(image: K. Kendall on VisualHunt )
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