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So all my de-colonial peeps on Facebook are seeing this movie, and the common denominator is that Kilmonger rules and this movie might be a fed counter-intelligence project.
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Feb 16, 2018 15:48
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| # ¿ Apr 19, 2024 12:25 |
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temple posted:people also ignore that killmonger was cia trained and using cia tactics. the film was more a critique of the cia than people are willing to admit. This element of the plot seems rather overtly lifted from The Spook Who Sat By the Door, which, alternatively, is about a Kilmonger-esque character who uses his CIA-training to radicalize urban gangs and kickstart an anti-white supremacist movement in the U.S. By the Door also happens to have a T'Challa-esque figure, but who here is the supporting character, a childhood friend who is now attempting to 'work within the system' by becoming a police officer. Black Panther - explicitly evoking the BPP - leapfrogs from this very straightforward context to a mythical 'lost kingdom,' suggesting Garveyite 'back to Africa' themes. The irony is that, by doing this, the film compresses the ideological debate between revolutionary movements and neoliberalism into the context of a royal tragedy, and ends with the birthright neoliberal king slaying the grassroots revolutionary. This is, needless to say, the total opposite narrative of The Spook Who Sat by the Door, in which, instead of merely being 'critical' of the CIA, we are forced to confront the CIA not only as an anti-revolutionary counter-intelligence organization, but also as a mask of imperialism represented in all facets of American hegemony. Wakanda becomes a fantastical escapist setting where we are able to export both Kilmonger's revolutionary potential as well as this self-hating C.I.A. character. Here, Kilmonger's anger against the oppressor can be circumvented into a form that allows for the fulfillment of a plot right out of the counter-intelligence handbook: get 'em to fight amongst themselves, better yet kill each other off, in order to contain the pertinent threat of black revolution. Like, notice how confidently SatansBest spells out the film's message: "When you are in control of a powerful and wealthy nation, you should use that power to help people." This is the same, 'Ah shucks' attitude that pervaded the reception of Zootopia. The attempt to boil down the film's narrative into a clean moral just re-emphasizes the obvious reactionary implications of the film. The cops are still great, and they'll be even better when they integrate and have sensitivity training. 'Wakanda' made all its own problems by trying to envelope themselves from 'the real world,' but after a hard emotional trial, T'Challa is ready to take it into a bold new political future. There is no message, the film teaches revolutionary struggle as inviable with 'true progress' of the kind only T'Challa can be left alive to inherit. All that matters is if this escapist kingdom perseveres in the collective imaginary, and thus reciprocally recognizes the paramount perseverance of American hegemony.
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Feb 19, 2018 04:23
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Arist posted:This is some disingenuous-as-gently caress, not-perfect-according-to-my-exacting-standards-so-why-even-bother bullshit Again, this 'aw shucks, what were they supposed to do?' mentality has nothing to do with the actual critique. The point is not that the progressive ideology of the film is 'imperfect.' The claim is straightforwardly that the film is reactionary and tells a counter-revolutionary narrative. This is not a matter of 'imperfection.' The film functions perfectly as a reactionary text, symbolically eulogizing black liberation movements, while holding out optimism in the form of the ascendency of a mythical third world kingdom into global hegemony. The protagonists of Black Panther only seek "to improve the world we wish to join," but the conditions of that improvement are predicated on this imagined 'hidden wealth' and how it's charitably disseminated through conventional systems of authority. The film has not 'imperfectly' attempted to address globalization - it has perfectly dramatized its rhetoric.
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Feb 19, 2018 18:38
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gohmak posted:Maybe the writers are black Americans admitting to their own flaws, tainted by the trauma of their oppression. Again, this language of 'tainting' over-emphasizes this idea of the 'pure' person vs. the 'impure' person. The ideology of the film is spontaneous. The departure between Coogler and Sam Greenlee/Ivan Dixon is not the result of the latter being 'purer,' the films function in dialog commenting upon the historical legacy of black liberation. The Spook Who Sat by the Door opens explicitly with Greenlee identifying himself as this person still 'sitting by the door' of a liberal, all but exclusively white managed organization. Meanwhile, Coogler and his collaborators are creating films at a time with a historically unique state of consciousness, where the paternal movements that Greenlee and Dixon were commenting upon contemporaneously are now something of a heroic memory, having been systematically fractured and disrupted by American imperialism. There are new conceptions of 'de-centralized' revolution that are now more prolific, and which contributes to Coogler's subtle nod to the spectator in casting Michael B. Jordan, veteran of Fruitvale Station and Creed, as the film's real hero, the one who sat by the door.
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Feb 19, 2018 19:17
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Kurzon posted:Does it occur to you that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are not political scientists and consequently Wakanda is a totally absurd concept not worthy of serious analysis? Does it occur to you that even absurd notions are subject to criticism because they are often unalloyed expressions of ideological values?
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Feb 24, 2018 18:12
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| # ¿ Apr 19, 2024 12:25 |
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Complaints about there being a hivemind are almost always the wish that there actually were a hivemind.
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Feb 26, 2018 01:30
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