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Mat Cauthon posted:So again this goes back to the point of him being a parody of Black militancy as hypocritical, nihilistic, selfish, misguided, doomed to failure, etc on top of the fact that it was only through service to (white supremacist) empire that he was able to cultivate the skills and connections to even pull off his attempted coup. This framing elides the responsibility of the Wakandan elite in shaping his material conditions as a child (and thus his destiny) while positioning them as the arbiters of moral redemption and racial authenticity. The movie is shaking it's finger at all those "crabs in a barrel" wannabe revolutionaries (with bad childhoods who should really be blaming their parents for not working hard enough or staying on the straight and narrow regardless of all manner of racialized systemic oppressions) who just can't get with the program and end up messing up the good life for ones who did it right and made it out. This is my problem with him, as well. The sense that his motivations are necessarily compromised and his character so inherently flawed due to individual trauma, his systemic critique lacks authority. "He's as bad as his oppressors!" Like Zemo, "vengeance has consumed him!" Only it's infinitely shittier because Black Liberation now sounds absurd on its face because the main advocate in the story happens to be a big meanie. The charismatic monarch is the real hero, of course, allowing some of his nation's hoarded wealth to trickle down to select poor black people. Watch Ironheart be a girl from Oakland who gets a scholarship after the Wakanda Center inspires her to build better murder armor. I'm prepared to feel similarly about whatever Falcon and the Winter Soldier is going to do. I wish it was mining Truth: Red White & Black, a story about how the US military-industrial apparatus reduced black bodies to nameless disposable weapons, despite elevating Steve Rogers to a position of public reverence. They could draw a nice parallel to the apparent conflict from the trailer, which is Sam's claim to legitimacy being rejected in favor of the corporatized US Agent. Sam was welcome to die in obscurity as a nameless air rescue trooper, but something about him as the new Captain America doesn't sit right, and I wonder why that is? (I'd guess if any of these elements find their way into the story, the powers-that-be behind US Agent will be outed as an errant corruption in the system, excised by wise centrists who see Sam's value in the end.)
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Mar 4, 2021 08:53
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Xealot posted:This is my problem with him, as well. The sense that his motivations are necessarily compromised and his character so inherently flawed due to individual trauma, his systemic critique lacks authority. "He's as bad as his oppressors!" Like Zemo, "vengeance has consumed him!" Only it's infinitely shittier because Black Liberation now sounds absurd on its face because the main advocate in the story happens to be a big meanie. This is especially insidious because it kind of suggests you shouldn't fight for freedom when you suffered oppression, because that suffering will inevitably have turned you into a meanie. Freedom fighters thus need to be saints, otherwise their cause will be rejected as just working through some personal issues.
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Mar 4, 2021 09:42
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The foremost superhero movie about black people should not have the solution of Ali G in da House or Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo is one of the main issues. That ending was pretty much insulting. So the gist of the movie was that black people suffered for centuries across the entire planet because Wakanda just refused to get involved. That creates hoteps like Killmonger, who are justifiably angry as hell and want revolution, even if their plans for this can be somewhat flawed. Instead of recognizing the immediate need for some kind of revolution because people are suffering *now*, which they can do, because they basically have magic due to the depth of their science, Black Panther is taking a slow liberal route of providing community centers that could possibly have positive effects on some people in America. I mean, what is that going to do with all the Zulu descendant South Africans that are living in tin shacks and are suffering the generational effects of apartheid or the people whose records are permanently ruined from the unfairness of the police/justice system, or the people right now who don't have enough because anyone older than 60 saw and could remember when black people couldn't drink from the same water fountains and couldn't get property, etc.? It's just dumb and makes Panther/Wakanda look bad and Killmonger better in comparison since he at least sees the problem.
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Mar 4, 2021 13:21
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It's a very Obama movie.
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Mar 4, 2021 13:33
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McCloud posted:Those are some excellent posts, Mat. The ending is basically Liberal Representation politics but on steroids. It's asking an underpaid worker at a company to give a poo poo that the new CEO is [insert minoritized or marginalized identity here] and will champion whatever DEI initiative is vogue in the moment, even as said worker is most likely without health insurance, driving Uber or working the register at Target on the weekends to make ends meet, watching the state recede from providing basic support/services even as precarity expands and intensifies, etc . "Look, a nation full of Black people is now the most powerful on Earth! Except that we could airdrop a super team at any moment to keep them in line, but they're the most advanced! Well not really because a drunk rich guy will come up with basically the same nanotech design that underpins their technology, but doesn't it feel good to see such a strong, noble Black nation! No, your material conditions will not meaningfully change because the ruling family can't or won't share their wealth or intervene in matters outside their borders but who needs money when you can feel ~*represented*~." The STEM center at the end is reinforcing the idea that through only guidance & charity from the noble Black elite can the various assumed pathologies of poor Black people (and specifically Black Americans) be resolved - and this is mirrored in Killmonger's cusp of death moral awakening where T'Challa's charity (I won't call it mercy because it's not) is what allows him to finally let go of his hate so that he can appreciate Wakanda for what it is or could be (without living to ever truly experience it for risk that he might sully it). The suggestion that one rich guy's tax writeoff intervention is sufficient to overturn structural racism and oppression is absolutely condescending, but because of the identity of the rich guy in this case it's meant to be seen as an improvement on the status quo and somehow distinct from other failed efforts. At the end of the day though you can draw a line through the genealogy of various "racial uplift" messages rooted in self-improvement, bootstraps, morally upright rhetoric from the the genesis of the idea a century ago (Booker T Washington) to modern interlocutors (Cosby, Obama, etc) to this movie. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the movie a lot. I saw it twice in theaters and it's an MCU movie I don't mind revisiting on occasion. But it bums me out to think about on anything deeper than surface level, because even in the context of a fictional universe where all aliens speak English and there are literal gods or whatever running around it has nothing good to say about the possibilities of freedom for any minority but especially Black people. Xealot posted:This is my problem with him, as well. The sense that his motivations are necessarily compromised and his character so inherently flawed due to individual trauma, his systemic critique lacks authority. "He's as bad as his oppressors!" Like Zemo, "vengeance has consumed him!" Only it's infinitely shittier because Black Liberation now sounds absurd on its face because the main advocate in the story happens to be a big meanie. Grendels Dad posted:This is especially insidious because it kind of suggests you shouldn't fight for freedom when you suffered oppression, because that suffering will inevitably have turned you into a meanie. Freedom fighters thus need to be saints, otherwise their cause will be rejected as just working through some personal issues. Bingo. T'Challa is not even a heroic figure in his own movie. I struggle to think of a single action he takes that is not concerned with maintaining his own power or getting what he wants in the moment, but these things are depicted as the growing pains of a young monarch rather than him expressing his worldview and using his power to the ends that he has been taught are not just correct but necessary. Mat Cauthon fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Mar 4, 2021 |
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Mar 4, 2021 13:37
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Part of the resolution is that Wakanda is a Shining City Upon the Hill But Black People Can Have One and I'm pretty sure even Obama-era whitey were well past. It's astonishingly retrograde even by that metric.
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Mar 4, 2021 15:55
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Rewatched Batman Returns, and goddamn is this movie incredibly horny. Especially compared to how chaste the MCU is.
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Mar 4, 2021 16:01
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McCloud posted:Personally I, as a white person, felt that the ending was more than a bit...is condescending the word? It seems to be saying that the problem with the disadvantaged communities of color is that they are poor or lack a good education, and that providing them with with STEM centers will allow those dedicated enough to bootstrap themselves out of poverty It strikes me that this is a kind of recapitulation of the racist myth that poverty and violence are caused by the absence of Black fathers. That the specific reason for Black poverty is the absence of white-protestant culture.
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Mar 4, 2021 16:07
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Black Panther glossed over it in lieu of spotlighting neo-liberal interventionism, but how do y'all think post-coup T'Challa dealt with his radicalized leftist subjects, both within and without Wakanda?
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Mar 4, 2021 16:20
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KVeezy3 posted:Black Panther glossed over it in lieu of spotlighting neo-liberal interventionism, but how do y'all think post-coup T'Challa dealt with his radicalized leftist subjects, both within and without Wakanda? Worked with the CIA to imprison and/or kill them.
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Mar 4, 2021 17:31
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Xealot posted:This is my problem with him, as well. The sense that his motivations are necessarily compromised and his character so inherently flawed due to individual trauma, his systemic critique lacks authority. "He's as bad as his oppressors!" Like Zemo, "vengeance has consumed him!" Only it's infinitely shittier because Black Liberation now sounds absurd on its face because the main advocate in the story happens to be a big meanie. What's really notable is that this is basically the same as what happens in Dark Knight 3: The Dark Knight Rises. Aristocratic Wayne defeats the revolutionary Bane and opens an orphanage, etc. But, in that film, we have a much better sense of the gulf between Bane as superheroic revolutionary figure and his alter-ego: the weak, anonymous human with stupid pathological motivations. Black Panther may be a dumb film, but the comparison points to the redemptive interpretation: that the 'human' Killmonger (with his family issues and whatnot) is the fake, and that he heroically overcomes this aspect of himself through his ultimate decision to die. In this way, Killmonger successfully rejects the entire fuckin' Marvel Cinematic/Ideological Universe: "I would rather die than become an Avenger".
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Mar 4, 2021 17:45
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Roth posted:Rewatched Batman Returns, and goddamn is this movie incredibly horny. Especially compared to how chaste the MCU is. People talk about how sexualized the imagery is in Schumacher's Batman movies--and they're not wrong--but holy poo poo, I guarantee you babies have been conceived while Batman Returns has been playing on TV. That movie is just dripping with sex in almost every scene. I've always said there's a fascinating dichotomy in Burton's Batmovies. '89 is a pretty good Batman movie that doesn't ever really go full Burton. Returns is a fantastic Tim Burton movie that occasionally happens to feature Batman.
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Mar 4, 2021 17:47
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KVeezy3 posted:Black Panther glossed over it in lieu of spotlighting neo-liberal interventionism, but how do y'all think post-coup T'Challa dealt with his radicalized leftist subjects, both within and without Wakanda? Had them form a superhero team that accidentally died in the battle against Thanos.
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Mar 4, 2021 18:05
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KVeezy3 posted:Black Panther glossed over it in lieu of spotlighting neo-liberal interventionism, but how do y'all think post-coup T'Challa dealt with his radicalized leftist subjects, both within and without Wakanda? They could go down that road with the sequel, given that pretty much all the pieces are in place to hit the main notes of the first arc of Coates' Black Panther run: - death of the ruling Wakandan monarch (T'Challa in this case rather than Shuri) - Wakanda possibly destablized as a result of the Snap and/or outside incursion - Wakandan citizens going 5 years without a royal family and figuring out "oh this is pretty nice" - whatever populist movement has grown out of the lingering influence Killmonger's failed coup So on and so forth. There's even a white arms dealer who props up the Wakandan revolutionaries (Zeke Stane) but maybe that part will get left out because they already used Klaw in the first one and also that would be a little on the nose. Given that MCU T'Challa's father was willing to kill his own brother over similar radicalization though I imagine the answer would be jail, at best.
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Mar 4, 2021 18:21
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You have to ask yourself why the real, actual CIA hosts a page regarding Black Panther. https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/wakandan-technology-today-a-cia-scientist-explores-the-possibilities/
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Mar 4, 2021 19:54
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:You have to ask yourself why the real, actual CIA hosts a page regarding Black Panther. I really don't think you have to ask yourself why the CIA hosts a page regarding a movie that made them look good - or at least look not as obviously evil.
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Mar 4, 2021 20:12
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Everyone posted:I really don't think you have to ask yourself why the CIA hosts a page regarding a movie that made them look good - or at least look not as obviously evil. Uh yes, that's the point.
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Mar 4, 2021 20:19
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At least it's not hosted by the FBI.
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Mar 4, 2021 20:25
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Don't forget that Captain Marvel is basically an ad for the Air Force!
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Mar 4, 2021 20:33
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Jimbot posted:At least it's not hosted by the FBI. I don't know. I'd kind of like to see this trend to continue and expand. Maybe a movie about heroic voyeurs hosted by the NSA?
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Mar 4, 2021 20:41
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Everyone posted:I don't know. I'd kind of like to see this trend to continue and expand. Maybe a movie about heroic voyeurs hosted by the NSA? Let's get Brian De Palma that check
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Mar 4, 2021 21:27
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Timby posted:People talk about how sexualized the imagery is in Schumacher's Batman movies--and they're not wrong--but holy poo poo, I guarantee you babies have been conceived while Batman Returns has been playing on TV. That movie is just dripping with sex in almost every scene. Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman is probably responsible for a lot of lesbian awakenings.
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Mar 4, 2021 21:36
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Hard to argue any of that. But I also wanted to say, shoutout to Mat Cauthon and all of their recent writing here with regards to Black Panther - really on point.
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Mar 4, 2021 23:18
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KVeezy3 posted:Hard to argue any of that. But I also wanted to say, shoutout to Mat Cauthon and all of their recent writing here with regards to Black Panther - really on point. yeah, it's like reading the posts I would write if I wasn't a dumbass
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Mar 5, 2021 01:54
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KVeezy3 posted:Black Panther glossed over it in lieu of spotlighting neo-liberal interventionism, but how do y'all think post-coup T'Challa dealt with his radicalized leftist subjects, both within and without Wakanda? In what way was Daniel Kaluuya's tribe leftist?
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Mar 5, 2021 17:54
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It's in the same way that the abolitionist John Brown and his crew were leftists.SuperMechagodzilla posted:What's really notable is that this is basically the same as what happens in Dark Knight 3: The Dark Knight Rises. Aristocratic Wayne defeats the revolutionary Bane and opens an orphanage, etc. But, in that film, we have a much better sense of the gulf between Bane as superheroic revolutionary figure and his alter-ego: the weak, anonymous human with stupid pathological motivations. I’ve been letting this rattle in my head for a minute, and I think I understand but I’m not well read in psychoanalysis. Is the “Weak, anonymous human with stupid pathological motivations”, what mostly constituted ethical thought prior to Kant breaking it open by placing categorical imperatives beyond the phenomenal (And partially closed back up since categorical imperatives are products of language)? I’m having trouble bridging this gap, because the film seems so utterly committed to a technocratic and ‘apolitical’ Third-Way-ism, which is embodied in T’Challa’s love interest Nakia. T’Challa goes through this journey conflicted by the protectionism of his predecessors and the traumatic figure of Killmonger, and ultimately settles on what Nakia has been pushing for all along - with her leading the vanguard of STEM schools for poor black U.S citizens. Could the MCU simply be unable to integrate the truth of Killmonger’s plight into its symbolic order without bringing down the entire universe? I admit I may be taking shortcuts and thinking too small here though. KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Mar 6, 2021 |
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Mar 5, 2021 20:28
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https://twitter.com/isaacfeldberg/status/1367871371020300289?s=19 The Russos drank the cool aid. Utterly delusional
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Mar 6, 2021 04:27
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I love that catty little (meanwhile, Scorcese)
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Mar 6, 2021 04:32
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2house2fly posted:I love that catty little (meanwhile, Scorcese) It doesn't even succeed at actually being catty either, it's great.
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Mar 6, 2021 04:43
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That article is correct. The Russos have successfully injected their politics into their MCU movies. Sadly, their politics are neoliberal garbage.
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Mar 6, 2021 04:51
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Cherry looks like hot garbage and I’m starting to think that Tom Holland might not actually be a good actor Edit: I refuse to believe that Ciara Bravo and Forrest Goodluck are real names, those are fake names you give to someone trying to get you to join a pyramid scheme who asks if you know anyone who might be interested in a new set of knives or a timeshare DC Murderverse fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Mar 6, 2021 |
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Mar 6, 2021 05:07
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Mar 6, 2021 06:19
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DC Murderverse posted:Cherry looks like hot garbage and I’m starting to think that Tom Holland might not actually be a good actor Tom Holland is a good actor, he might not be good at picking good movies to star in though.
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Mar 6, 2021 06:22
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lol Was this filmed? Does this exist on film? Can I see this somewhere?
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Mar 6, 2021 06:56
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The real test is when Tom Holland is no longer a smol bean and isn’t as cute
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Mar 6, 2021 07:32
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The incredibly belabored and overwrought villainization of Killmonger is pretty disgusting on its face, but there are at least two ways in which it's also clarifying: 1) Well, he's violent, mean, insane, smells bad, etc... but he's the only one actually standing up to western hegemony. Is it more important to have popular appeal, or to end injustice? If it's only monsters and demons who fight capitalism, well, so be it; bring on the monsters and demons. 2) The extent to which he turns out to be evil on every axis is really ridiculous and clearly a post-facto character assassination meant to distract from the essential rightness of his cause. Hmm, I wonder what other anti-imperialist revolutionaries have been depicted as cackling psychopaths purely for propaganda's sake?
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Mar 6, 2021 07:44
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YOLOsubmarine posted:lol Maybe? Find out at the end of the month lmao
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Mar 6, 2021 10:01
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well why not posted:The real test is when Tom Holland is no longer a smol bean and isn’t as cute Jackie Earle Haley steps out from the shadows, “What you are, I once was. What I am, you will become.”
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Mar 6, 2021 10:18
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Snowman_McK posted:Jackie Earle Haley steps out from the shadows, “What you are, I once was. What I am, you will become.” Once Tom Holland's a little older he could potentially make a genuinely inspired Freddy.
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Mar 6, 2021 14:48
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Ferrinus posted:The incredibly belabored and overwrought villainization of Killmonger is pretty disgusting on its face, but there are at least two ways in which it's also clarifying: It's a superhero movie. The good and bad guys are going to be clearly and melodramatically defined. Meanwhile, just because a cause is righteous does not make all of those championing that cause righteous. Osama bin Laden and ISIL were/are surely standing up to western hegemony. Are they the good guys simply because of that? I think not.
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Mar 6, 2021 16:12
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