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Neo Rasa posted:When he started saying how Killmonger is using the CIA's methods I was briefly expecting him to then reveal how he was working with Killmonger all along to bring Freedom to Wakanda which is why they were so easily able to bust Ulysses Klaue out/etc. Naive of course but in the moment of watching the movie I was just assuming he was going to turn out to be bad or at least conflicted/complicit at some point because as others pointed out I figured like why else is he just a "regular" CIA guy and not from SHIELD or whatever. The answer as to why he's not from SHIELD is SHIELD doesn't exist anymore at this point in the narrative (it was destroyed in Winter Soldier, or at least made defunct). Like, maybe he was in SHIELD before, but he's in the CIA because SHIELD doesn't exist anymore, in the comics he is from SHIELD in fact.
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# ? May 7, 2021 15:37 |
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# ? Apr 25, 2024 06:25 |
Lord_Magmar posted:The answer as to why he's not from SHIELD is SHIELD doesn't exist anymore at this point in the narrative (it was destroyed in Winter Soldier, or at least made defunct). Like, maybe he was in SHIELD before, but he's in the CIA because SHIELD doesn't exist anymore, in the comics he is from SHIELD in fact. Which begs the questions, what organization, if any, is Nick Fury part of at this point? He's clearly not kicking around by himself. He has resources. He talks to other people. He and Maria Hill have people. Are they all Skrulls? Is it SWORD? What's going on there?
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# ? May 7, 2021 15:45 |
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Timeless Appeal posted:Yeah, I always find when people straight up go for T'Challa is collaborating with the CIA they're spiking the ball a bit on the CIA critique. The movie is communicating to us that Killmonger isn't the Joker just letting the world burn. He's someone who became scary by going through legal US institutions. If you're a scared little kid who wants to be able to shoot and bully people, the US will let you if you put in the effort. Like I said, he's a cop. I understand that you're referring to Killmonger's cold-blooded use of force, but I think the characterization of him as a cop doesn't clarify but obscures, because essential to the constitution of police is their badge as symbolic authority imbued by the state. It's terrifying to mess with a cop because the full force of hegemony will come down on you, regardless of that individual cop's beliefs. Killmonger is terrifying because of his absolute ideological commitment as an individual, which strengthens his ability to draw people around the world to his cause; if the second part of this description wasn't true, then he wouldn't be a supervillain.
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# ? May 7, 2021 15:51 |
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thrawn527 posted:Which begs the questions, what organization, if any, is Nick Fury part of at this point? He's clearly not kicking around by himself. He has resources. He talks to other people. He and Maria Hill have people. Are they all Skrulls? Is it SWORD? What's going on there? My guess is he's using what's left of SHIELD's funding to organise his own system, alongside Skrull resources.
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# ? May 7, 2021 15:58 |
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We've gone an absurdly long time without anyone mentioning The Spook Who Sat By The Door.
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# ? May 7, 2021 16:06 |
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KVeezy3 posted:I understand that you're referring to Killmonger's cold-blooded use of force, but I think the characterization of him as a cop doesn't clarify but obscures, because essential to the constitution of police is their badge as symbolic authority imbued by the state. It's terrifying to mess with a cop because the full force of hegemony will come down on you, regardless of that individual cop's beliefs. Killmonger is terrifying because of his absolute ideological commitment as an individual, which strengthens his ability to draw people around the world to his cause; if the second part of this description wasn't true, then he wouldn't be a supervillain. I think we're conflating Killmonger's grievances and ideology. His grievances regarding white supremacy and the failures of Wakanda are all legitimate. But we only see him carry himself as an authoritarian and making appeals to security and hierarchy.
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# ? May 7, 2021 16:15 |
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You're confusing cop with standard militarism.
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# ? May 7, 2021 16:36 |
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Lord_Magmar posted:The answer as to why he's not from SHIELD is SHIELD doesn't exist anymore at this point in the narrative (it was destroyed in Winter Soldier, or at least made defunct). Like, maybe he was in SHIELD before, but he's in the CIA because SHIELD doesn't exist anymore, in the comics he is from SHIELD in fact. Shield was reformed by the time AoU rolls around, remember? "This is what shield is supposed to be". Also if you're referring to Ross, then you're wrong because Ross was actually with the State Department, not the CIA, or Shield. Which means there was an active choice to make him part of the CIA when they just as easily could have picked shield or the state dept. I'm sure this was an honest mistake and there was no ulter... https://twitter.com/CIA/status/1099847092221165569?s=20 https://twitter.com/CIA/status/1099847245346807808?s=20 https://twitter.com/CIA/status/1025051074028351488?s=20 https://twitter.com/CIA/status/1025051877703143426?s=20 https://twitter.com/CIA/status/1025052630106689536?s=20 ...oh
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# ? May 7, 2021 16:42 |
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Timeless Appeal posted:I kind of have mixed feelings about this because yes, I think what you're describing would make a lot more thematic sense, but also take some agency away from Killmonger. I didn't even think of that and agree. And I wouldn't want it to be a situation where it turns out to straight up be Killmonger's operation with CIA man has his lackey either. Maybe something where the CIA guy is just there to "monitor the situation" would make more sense where like he's reached out to Killmonger and not just Wakanda but they're just not working together. Lord_Magmar posted:The answer as to why he's not from SHIELD is SHIELD doesn't exist anymore at this point in the narrative (it was destroyed in Winter Soldier, or at least made defunct). Like, maybe he was in SHIELD before, but he's in the CIA because SHIELD doesn't exist anymore, in the comics he is from SHIELD in fact. Lord_Magmar posted:My guess is he's using what's left of SHIELD's funding to organise his own system, alongside Skrull resources. This was something I always felt the movies REALLY should have been clearer about or thought through better. Like SHIELD gets wrecked in Winter Soldier, so SHIELD is gone, but Fury just, like, has a fully manned helicarrier he can call upon in Age of Ultron, like the US government just lets him roll around with that even after what went down in Winter Soldier? Also Cap performs a 9/11 on a government building in Winter Soldier but the end of Age of Ultron they just give them a huge facility upstate where he can train everyone or whatever no big.
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# ? May 7, 2021 17:22 |
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It’s pretty obvious that Ross is CIA rather than State department to soften any critique of US intelligence by contrasting a good CIA agent with a bad asset. It’s not the organization that’s rotten to the core, it’s just a bad apple. White supremacy can be overcome if black people just get better at science and the CIA isn’t *necessarily* imperialist and savage, they just need to get the right people in charge. It’s standard liberal reformism.
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# ? May 7, 2021 17:22 |
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I'm sensing some divides in the conversation here, maybe, which might account for the sense that some of us seem to be talking past each other? Some people seem to be discussing Killmonger as a literal person in the literal reality of the MCU, and some people seem to be discussing him as a fictional character in a film, whose personal qualities and motivations are an artifact of the ideologies of the filmmakers and just one element of the moral narrative they create with the film. I don't think anybody is arguing that Killmonger, a former CIA assassin that carves marks in his body to commemorate every time he kills someone, is personally a good guy. But the people arguing against Killmonger seem to be doing so in the context of the Literal Reality of the MCU, whereas the people (like me) arguing for "Killmonger" are doing so in the context of filmmaking choices that reflect on the actual real world--it's the gap between "what are Killmonger's moral and political qualities" and "what does the Killmonger puppet represent in the unified, deliberate narrative of this puppet show." To repeat the MVP tweet on the subject: https://twitter.com/allisonkilkenny/status/1385597080857681921?s=19 Killmonger is not a Person, Killmonger is a Film Character. Are we talking about the literal place Wakanda, or are we talking about a film's reflection of the real world?
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# ? May 7, 2021 17:23 |
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KVeezy3 posted:You're confusing cop with standard militarism. But like I said, that seems more like a pedantic argument. The bigger issue is separate grievance from ideology. Killmonger isn't really shown making class based appeals to a proletariat. He makes appeals based off of security. I don't think he's talking in bad faith. I think he really does want to kill white Supremacists which hey, but the movie is presenting him as dangerous not because of those grievances but because he only sees the world through authoritarian systems. It's why the film never makes the stakes actually about white people getting killed, but about Wakanda itself.
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# ? May 7, 2021 17:46 |
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I'm struggling with how to express this, because I'm dumb and bad at writing/thinking, so I'm gonna step back for a second on how this is being discussed. It feels like there's a difference in how we're approaching film on a basic level. Specifically talking here about marvels black panther, there's a movie conversation using political tools, and there's a political conversation using movie tools. We've got two dudes, Literal T'Challa and Literal Killmonger. Literal T'Challa puts on a puppet show, marvels black panther, starring Puppet T'Challa and Puppet Killmonger. (Literal Killmonger is off somewhere else.) We all just watched that puppet show, in which Puppet Killmonger eats babies. Some of us seem to be saying "why would Literal Killmonger eat those babies," and some of us seem to be saying "why is Literal T'Challa using Puppet Killmonger to imply Literal Killmonger eats babies". A film speaks with one voice. It discusses things using different viewpoints, but ultimately, it's just one voice speaking, We need to consider the ideology of that singular voice, and filter our understanding of what it says through our understanding of its ideology. or maybe not, or this isn't relevant, gently caress my brain hurt
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# ? May 7, 2021 18:04 |
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POWELL CURES KIDS posted:or maybe not, or this isn't relevant, gently caress my brain hurt I don't think that's a complete depiction of the film as I don't think the movie discounts Killmonger's key grievances, but presents him as a tragic figure who has adopted an authoritarian world view. Granted, I don't think this read on things if immune from the angry Blackman strawman argument. I more just think that stuff like how police imagery is leveraged sort of falls by the wayside when the film is only discussed as CIA propaganda. I think one poster was being way too literal and focusing on just Killmonger's violence and not the context in a fictional film which we're discussing and had a weird take on what if the MCU CIA was good. Most of us agree the CIA poo poo in the film and Ross as a character is bad. I think for the most part people are listening to each other and being pretty polite. it's just we disagree on some stuff. V Yeah, but the issue is that it's a choice. Why give the CIA redemption at all? Why not use Nick Fury? V Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 18:37 on May 7, 2021 |
# ? May 7, 2021 18:19 |
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Timeless Appeal posted:I think for the most part, the vast majority of people are on the side that to some degree Killmonger's base mission and ideology are good, but the movie is presenting him as a strawman and capitalizing on angry Black man stereotypes. For my part I'm okay with the Ross character. Even if we decide that the CIA as a whole is a bad organization, does that mean that everyone from the Director down to the dude who cleans the toilets is an utter sociopath? No. Ross seems to be a decent enough person and it's telling that at the end his personal loyalty seems to have shifted from the CIA to T'Challa and Wakanda.
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# ? May 7, 2021 18:29 |
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Everyone posted:For my part I'm okay with the Ross character. Even if we decide that the CIA as a whole is a bad organization, does that mean that everyone from the Director down to the dude who cleans the toilets is an utter sociopath? No. Uh.
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# ? May 7, 2021 18:43 |
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Timeless Appeal posted:That seems like a pedantic argument though and not speaking to the issue of ideology. I'm not saying that Killmonger is literally a police officer, but Kaluuya I'd argue is at least a parallel for one. Wakanda has a distinct system of military protections, while the tribe's role seems to be protecting Wakanda although it's from what we understand it is a utopia that doesn't need policing. I get the impression from the end exchange with the cousin that prisons don't exist. The allusions to police in the film are meant as short hand for authoritarianism. I do not think it's pedantic to question why you've chosen to characterize Killmonger specifically as a cop, because framing the non-police as such has specific historical/cultural implications. Cops have a relatively brief existence in history with a very particular formation relative to the state/populous, and drawing some nebulous lines directly to it because an entity promotes an abstract notion of authority and security isn't substantial enough. Like the actual Black Panthers took authority and security by force to protect their neighborhoods, and it would be preposterous and insulting to characterize them as 'cops' or call that 'cop behavior'. KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 18:57 on May 7, 2021 |
# ? May 7, 2021 18:46 |
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Everyone posted:For my part I'm okay with the Ross character. Even if we decide that the CIA as a whole is a bad organization, does that mean that everyone from the Director down to the dude who cleans the toilets is an utter sociopath? No. Ross seems to be a decent enough person and it's telling that at the end his personal loyalty seems to have shifted from the CIA to T'Challa and Wakanda. I mean, on a basic level, the "if" part on the CIA being a bad organization is already a problem--I don't think any informed, humane person could conclude anything else but that it's evil. And if there's no ethical consumption under capitalism, then anyone with the luxury of posting on this film forum is complicit and involved to some extent. Sure. But there's a world of difference between merely "born in the First World" and "works for the CIA". You could be a ~good person~ as an individual, but where you've found/placed yourself in the systems that comprise our society has a profound impact on your moral worth, and petting dogs, or not being personally racist, doesn't quite equal out to working for the global minority genocide company. Timeless Appeal posted:V Yeah, but the issue is that it's a choice. Why give the CIA redemption at all? Why not use Nick Fury? V Nick Fury and SHIELD would run into just about this same problem, though, if in a marginally different way. They've been coded from the outset of the MCU as "superhero CIA", and you could treat them more or less as identical without losing too much in any ideological critique. (I do agree the conversation has overall been polite and productive, I'm just admittedly somewhat donkey-brained and posting on my phone. I've enjoyed the discussion.)
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# ? May 7, 2021 19:00 |
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YOLOsubmarine posted:It’s pretty obvious that Ross is CIA rather than State department to soften any critique of US intelligence by contrasting a good CIA agent with a bad asset. It’s not the organization that’s rotten to the core, it’s just a bad apple. White supremacy can be overcome if black people just get better at science and the CIA isn’t *necessarily* imperialist and savage, they just need to get the right people in charge. It’s standard liberal reformism. It's also an overarching theme for a lot of modern Disney films, since at least The Princess and the Frog. Institutionalized racism, animal cruelty, sexism, and working class oppression can be solved by having nice rulers instead of bad rulers. Neurolimal fucked around with this message at 19:06 on May 7, 2021 |
# ? May 7, 2021 19:01 |
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E: posted too slow, post I am kinda responding to is somewhere up there. .On the other hand Wakanda has a xenophobic border patrol wearing clothes colored like a cop car that jump at the chance to support the guy who vigilante killed the criminal that Black Panter briefly arrested. It at least looks like they were going for something there but didn't stick the landing because of all the other poo poo that muddled it.
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# ? May 7, 2021 19:05 |
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KVeezy3 posted:I do not think it's pedantic to question why you've chosen to characterize Killmonger specifically as a cop, because framing the non-police as such has specific historical/cultural implications. Cops have a relatively brief existence in history with a very particular formation relative to the state/populous, and drawing some nebulous lines directly to it because an entity promotes an abstract notion of authority and security isn't substantial enough. The reason I found the argument pedantic is that even without the cop imagery, I would argue that his actions are authoritative and his main appeals to power in Wakanda are rooted in authority and security. Daniel Kaluuya's for example really doesn't seem to give a poo poo about the revolution. His concerns are more with the rest of the world sending Iron Men to conquer them. My bigger issue is that I think people are treating grievance and ideology as the same thing. So, you either: -- Have to see Killmonger as a true revolutionary fighting for Black liberation -- Or see Killmonger as a bad faith actor who doesn't give a poo poo about Black Liberation Neither is true although the former more true than the latter. His grievances are correct and in good faith, but his mental models and how he actually persuades people is fundamentally authoritative. Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 20:42 on May 7, 2021 |
# ? May 7, 2021 20:03 |
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Does the CIA guy's loyalty shift at the end? I don't remember him past the big final battle
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# ? May 7, 2021 20:05 |
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POWELL CURES KIDS posted:Killmonger is not a Person, Killmonger is a Film Character. Are we talking about the literal place Wakanda, or are we talking about a film's reflection of the real world? YOLOsubmarine posted:The question, as has been mentioned repeatedly, is why is the only voice on the entire MCU that's talking about liberation of the dispossessed from white supremacy also just so goddamn crazy that he just lives for murder? Yes to both of these points. I almost wrote something similar last night and then gave up because this thread is exhausting. But yes: Killmonger is a character conceived as the villain of this film written with a liberal-centrist ideology at its core. He's a violent psychopath who kills his girlfriend for the poo poo of it because the film needs for him to be the villain...I suspect the writers even realized they'd written him too sympathetically at first and peppered in some more Villain poo poo to make that more clear. The question isn't if a man named Killmonger is a good person as he's written. He isn't, for the same reason socialist characters are evil in Ayn Rand novels. But what's telling is that Killmonger is *still correct*. Like, despite its efforts to villainize him, the film doesn't do a very good job of proving his ideology wrong. Instead you're asked to focus on these compromising personal details (he's mean, he's a sadist, he hurts women) and hopefully reject his ideology by association.
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# ? May 7, 2021 20:30 |
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sean10mm posted:On the other hand Wakanda has a xenophobic border patrol wearing clothes colored like a cop car that jump at the chance to support the guy who vigilante killed the criminal that Black Panter briefly arrested. Part of Eric’s deal is that he wants to open the borders. If all these guards shift their allegiance to him, then so much for the xenophobia. Also lol at fretting about vigilantism in the MCU.
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# ? May 7, 2021 21:17 |
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POWELL CURES KIDS posted:I'm struggling with how to express this, because I'm dumb and bad at writing/thinking, so I'm gonna step back for a second on how this is being discussed. It feels like there's a difference in how we're approaching film on a basic level. Specifically talking here about marvels black panther, there's a movie conversation using political tools, and there's a political conversation using movie tools. I say bite the bullet. Okay, take the movie completely at face value, Killmonger is a bloodthirsty psycho with all kinds of pathologies and bad habits, he's a danger to his friends and loved ones, he's a cynical manipulator, deep down he just wants to lash out, he never really grew up, whatever. Who else is fighting white supremacy? Like actually fighting it instead of upholding it while trying to sand down its rougher edges. You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want. As SMG points out, if Killmonger were just one man rather than the face of a global insurrectionary movement, he'd be no threat to anybody... but there are, factually, lots of people out there waiting to receive those weapons and use them. An entire chunk of Wakanda fought bravely to keep him in power. Do you want to end colonialism or don't you? Are you going to support the people or repress them?
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# ? May 7, 2021 21:25 |
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Ferrinus posted:Are you going to support the people or repress them? Wakanda will support them! By flooding skilled labor markets with tens of thousands of poverty-stricken hopefuls, they'll driving down wages and benefits across the sector. This will help people because now they're making slightly more, while their employers are making a LOT more!
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# ? May 7, 2021 21:29 |
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Wakanda will support them! By flooding skilled labor markets with tens of thousands of poverty-stricken hopefuls, they'll driving down wages and benefits across the sector. This will help people because now they're making slightly more, while their employers are making a LOT more! Excellent, I've reduced the value of certain commodities, giving myself a short-term advantage over other capitalists. This is sure to increase the rate of profit. EDIT: hmmm EDIT 2: oh no
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# ? May 7, 2021 21:30 |
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Honestly I was pretty tolerant of a lot of Black Panther but that dogshit final fight and the "learn to code" ending put me off my oats.
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# ? May 7, 2021 21:32 |
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Honestly I was pretty tolerant of a lot of Black Panther but that dogshit final fight and the "learn to code" ending put me off my oats. Yes, yelling "REVOLUTION NOW!" over the Internet instead should bring down the White Colonial power structures any second now. Any second...
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# ? May 7, 2021 22:44 |
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Everyone posted:Yes, yelling "REVOLUTION NOW!" over the Internet instead should bring down the White Colonial power structures any second now. Any second... I thought you were concerned that people were going to do violence. What changed?
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# ? May 7, 2021 23:03 |
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Everyone posted:Yes, yelling "REVOLUTION NOW!" over the Internet instead should bring down the White Colonial power structures any second now. Any second... What a bizarre non-sequitur. I didn't mention anything about internet activism of any variety, nor did I make any comment on the efficacy of any alternative method. I'm just saying Black Panther has dogshit neoliberal politics and offers solutions that plainly won't work.
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# ? May 7, 2021 23:23 |
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Wakanda's wealth and technology is the result of their control over vibranium and not because they are the best at coding or whatever. Black supression in the real world has nothing to do with nobody teaching black people STEM, they have been and are systematically opressed and their wealth extracted. The "solution" the movie is presenting is just insulting.
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# ? May 8, 2021 00:59 |
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I thought you were concerned that people were going to do violence. Nothing changed. I just think it's funny to recognize that the people talking about how funding STEM centers is useless and that Killmonger was right to send out weapons/attempt to start a race war will in reality do nothing toward any of those ends aside from yelling about it online.
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# ? May 8, 2021 01:46 |
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Junkozeyne posted:Black supression in the real world has nothing to do with nobody teaching black people STEM, .
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# ? May 8, 2021 01:55 |
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Timeless Appeal posted:Okay, but that's not true. Like a huge amount of Black oppression has been related to lack of education since slavery. It's part of that systematic oppression. We're still struggling with access to resources and how education for Black and Brown kids focuses on control and compliance whereas for white kids it is more often focused on intellectual enrichment and exploration. Exactly. Plus, within the MCU teaching black kids how to navigate, exploit, subvert and overthrow the system seems like a much more promising avenue than handing out laser guns and telling them to "Go shoot Whitey!"
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# ? May 8, 2021 02:08 |
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I don't believe that's true. Within the MCU, the most promising avenue is to gather magic gems and wish for what you want
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# ? May 8, 2021 02:23 |
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Everyone posted:Exactly. Plus, within the MCU teaching black kids how to navigate, exploit, subvert and overthrow the system seems like a much more promising avenue than handing out laser guns and telling them to "Go shoot Whitey!" The MCU is currently a world where literally half the planet was dead for five years, Norse Gods are definitely and well known to be real, and first contact has been made with alien species. But it would be too weird for it also to be a world where T'Challa just paid for reparations or something ambitious. Saying that education actually has nothing to do with Black oppression clearly isn't true, but it's not even clear if what they're building has anything to do with education. It's the most vague phrasing to get across that Wakanda is doing something, but that's kinda weak sauce. Also Everyone posted:telling them to "Go shoot Whitey!" Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 02:36 on May 8, 2021 |
# ? May 8, 2021 02:29 |
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Timeless Appeal posted:Well no, the ending is still bad because it's pretty unimaginative and nebulous. Despite the "LOL coding" stuff, the actual language being used is super vague of what exactly they're building. It being a charter school or an embassy or a cultural center or a shelter all seem equally possible. And honestly, building a cool thing in the increasing gentrified Oakland isn't the most promising thing. Weak sauce is to be expected. Stronger sauce would require some viable solution to systemic minority oppression in terms of global wealth redistribution and Disney not backing that horse, for sure. Timeless Appeal posted:Also That was Killmonger's plan, not mine.
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# ? May 8, 2021 02:51 |
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Everyone posted:Plus, within the MCU teaching black kids how to navigate, exploit, subvert and overthrow the system I originally had something a bit more histrionic and insulting here but I will just say that anyone who would post this horseshit isn't worth engaging. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 03:13 on May 8, 2021 |
# ? May 8, 2021 03:00 |
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# ? Apr 25, 2024 06:25 |
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Timeless Appeal posted:Okay, but that's not true. Like a huge amount of Black oppression has been related to lack of education since slavery. It's part of that systematic oppression. We're still struggling with access to resources and how education for Black and Brown kids focuses on control and compliance whereas for white kids it is more often focused on intellectual enrichment and exploration. There is some truth to this but it also misses the point. Even when controlling for education level blacks have worse career outcomes and financial outcomes. The implication is that black people are much poorer, more likely to be killed by police, more likely to spend time in prison, more likely to be unemployed, more likely to die early because they don’t understand physics well enough. It’s an incredibly naive (intentionally so?) solution to the problem which is the white supremacy is structurally embedded in every facet of society and if you pass the education gate check there are plenty of others that can stop you along the way. There’s also some sleight of hand going on where Killmongers violent activism is contrasted with a non-violent solution like education centers but the actual violence being done every day to these communities is elided so you’re left with this false dichotomy of Kilmonger wanting war and Nakia wanting peace when really it’s a war either way, the question is whether one side can fight back.
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# ? May 8, 2021 03:41 |