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so this is an entertaining movie on its face that might literally have the worst politics of all time like, I was basically screaming internally through the entire second half of the movie once I realized what it was trying to say. the people who think this movie is a CIA psyop are probably dead-fuckin'-on.
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Feb 20, 2018 17:25
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the thing about the movie's handling of the CIA is, while it addresses the bad things the CIA has done, it largely plays them as a loving joke. Black Panther treats American imperialism as something that's not Good, but also something that's not really worth taking seriously that you can just kind of laugh off while dealing with what the movie considers to be the actual problem, "black people who are too violent and angry." i was being hyperbolic when i said it's the worst of all time, but holy gently caress that message is up there on the worst-ever list. e: I've only read the runs by Priest, Hudlin and Coates. Coates is fine. Hudlin is staggeringly awful, but from different angles (what he did to Storm is loving abominable). Priest is... a good read from an apolitical perspective, but I haven't really gone back to it since I started really paying attention to this sort of thing, so I can't comment there. WeedlordGoku69 fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Feb 20, 2018 |
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Feb 20, 2018 20:39
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General Dog posted:I guess it kind of makes sense if we're looking at Wakanda as an aspirational, fantasy Africa. It's a universe where the rest of the world's governments continue to exist only so long as Wakanda is gracious enough to allow them to exist. They are mighty enough to render the CIA an impotent, minor nuisance. It's an empowerment fantasy. but then this clashes hard with the movie's ultimate message that Wakanda needs to use its resources for the betterment of black people's lives worldwide. what, are they gonna do that with the loving CIA's help? because that idea is at best laughable.
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Feb 20, 2018 20:59
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like, if the movie's trying to say that black people should subvert the deep state from within and use its entrenched power to their own ends, i'm not really against that, but that really didn't seem to be the movie's message so much as "the deep state is already your friend."
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Feb 20, 2018 21:00
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i think the whole point of T'Challa couping back is that ritual combat to determine the king is kind of an insane idea that sometimes leads to really poo poo kings like, i have issues with the movie (as mentioned) but that all seems more or less fair
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Feb 21, 2018 05:50
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also, T'Challa's kind of... not actually wrong about the challenge at the end anyways? he never yielded, and he obviously didn't die, so the challenge wasn't actually over. it ends by yielding or death, neither of which happened until after the final battle. if the same thing had happened to M'Baku it would have made perfect sense for M'Baku to come back up a few days later and be like "hey rear end in a top hat, we're not done."
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Feb 21, 2018 05:55
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AverySpecialfriend posted:Someone console me I am very upset that Michael b Jordan does not wear his hair like this irl shameful confession time: I hadn't really looked up the cast for this before seeing it, and when Killmonger first showed up I was like "wait what, is that The Weeknd?" (because I'm slightly faceblind and hair helps me recognize people, and The Weeknd has definitely had that exact hairstyle in the recent past)
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Feb 22, 2018 02:59
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Farg posted:what are her thoughts re: crisis actors i would imagine she's not fond of the idea given she's on the literal polar opposite side of the political spectrum from most of the people pushing that poo poo
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Feb 23, 2018 03:06
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Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:I like how this movie was so chained by Hollywood Neoliberalism that they couldn't even come up with a rebuttal to the villain other than "yeah, but why do you gotta be a dick about it" i thought the fact that he had last words sort of illustrates the problem. everyone defending the movie's ideological stance says that T'Challa ends up adopting Killmonger's ideology to some extent by the end of the movie, simply moderating it to be less violent. this makes Killmonger's death odd. Killmonger chooses death on the assumption that T'Challa still completely disagrees with his ideology and would just lock him up, which... doesn't gel. when Killmonger asks that question, T'Challa should by all rights be like "uh, dude, no? you're like 75% of the way to being right and just need to be less dickish, man, why not come with me and let's get that stab patched up and you can be my right hand guy?" they should have ended the movie as allies, and them not doing so muddled the seemingly intended message. it even seemed like they were setting this up with the fight with M'Baku, with M'Baku trying very hard to end the fight by his own death and T'Challa convincing him to yield; I sort of wonder if this was the original intent and Marvel nixed it. WeedlordGoku69 fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Feb 24, 2018 |
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Feb 24, 2018 04:23
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BrianWilly posted:There is approximately zero percent chance that Killmonger would deign to become T'Challa's aide. i mean if T'Challa offered it with the explicit pretext of Killmonger actually being listened to and his goals being more or less worked towards, just less violently, (like, y'know, what ends up happening anyways without him) it's plausible that he'd be like "oh yeah cool" and it seemed like he mostly just had beef with the idea of being a prisoner anyhow?
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Feb 24, 2018 04:40
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McCloud posted:Are you completely forgetting that Killmonger had killed literally hundreds of people, and was fine with causing the deaths of millions? Like, did you fall asleep during the segments explaining what a monster killmonger is, or do you actually support mass murder and deaths on a global scale? His name is killmonger! And you're looking at him going "yeah man, that's totally a cool guy". you realize that applies to pretty much every MCU hero as well right like, you're just making an argument that they should have let Killmonger on the Avengers
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Feb 24, 2018 16:47
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sleep with the vicious posted:Ant man's genocidal urges ant-man is a thief who murdered a guy by literally shrinking him to death Cap and Iron Man both have easily higher body counts than Killmonger and the latter for way, way loving dumber reasons (the former too arguably but that's a whole separate debate I'm not sure if I want to intertwine with this one)
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Feb 24, 2018 17:00
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yeah, like... i'm not really supporting killmonger by saying what i'm saying, i mostly feel like within the internal logic they've established for the MCU it's odd that what I said didn't happen. like, compared to Tony Stark Killmonger is an actual loving saint, and yet one's got three movies and hijacked four others, and the other ~had to die~. the MCU is a universe of morally compromised heroes, and yet for some reason this movie couldn't end with its villain making the change into a morally compromised hero. WeedlordGoku69 fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Feb 24, 2018 |
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Feb 24, 2018 17:12
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I think the underlying implication is that the concept is going to have inherent problems that even the most thoughtful take can't truly fix, simply because it was invented by two white dudes who didn't have a great handle on geopolitics or racial politics.
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Feb 24, 2018 19:45
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Also, re: him not technically having to die and killing himself: note that film characters do not have agency beyond what the writer assigns to them. I am not faulting Killmonger's decision, I am faulting the writer for not coming up with a smarter way to resolve that which dovetails properly with the clearly intended message (and gels better with the broader logic of the universe, to boot).
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Feb 24, 2018 19:47
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:One of them was a special agent working for the US who helped overthrow foreign governments. The other was a special agent working for the US who helped overthrow foreign governments. yeah this is... sort of what i meant by my parenthetical, like there's an argument to be made that Cap is different from Killmonger in that Cap is doing this "legitimately" whereas Killmonger went rogue, but whether that actually matters is way the gently caress tangential to my actual point and not something I feel super qualified to unpack regardless. Kurzon posted:On another note, I was worried that the Jabari would be considered racist because they literally behave like apes. But nobody saw them that way. i'm gonna be honest, i was a little uncomfortable with that. it's sort of what i was getting at with the post about BP having inherent problems as a concept: it's sort of impossible to completely divorce from a lot of the "Darkest Africa" cliches that dominated the pulp it was originally inspired by, and even if handled thoughtfully their simple presence is Not Great.
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Feb 24, 2018 21:40
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Rand Brittain posted:A black person acting like a monkey is probably (I think) less racist when they look incredibly boss doing it. I'd have been too nervous to script that myself, but they made it work. yeah, it's less something that made me go "okay gently caress this movie" and more something that made me go "...okay that's not a great look" and start keeping an eye out for dumb thinkpieces, between that (M'Baku fuckin owned) and the fact that it's a movie made by black people
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Feb 24, 2018 22:03
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garycoleisgod posted:I understand, but there's no way to use violence nicely. You decide violence is the answer? Women, children and bystanders are gonna cop it too, "clean" violence is a myth. the fact that women, children, and bystanders are inevitably gonna get caught in the crossfire doesn't suddenly make actively going after them cool and good. like, there's a difference between "we're gonna use as much violence as we need to, and if innocents get caught in the crossfire that's their problem" and "BURN MAIM KILL, SLAUGHTER THEM ALL"
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Mar 2, 2018 03:08
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Sinding Johansson posted:Black people learning how to code in movies can be extremely cool and good ie the film Hidden Figures. In that film (which is based on a true history) there is no outreach center, the people teach themselves. The politics of the Black Panther movie are not cool and not good. i don't disagree with your broad point, but like, it's not like the logic for why Wakanda would need to build outreach centers is nonexistent. their main thing is vibranium, which basically nobody other than them completely understands how to use; for others to actually get anything out of Wakanda exporting vibranium, they'd need Wakandan scientists working with theirs and teaching them how the poo poo works.
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Mar 2, 2018 21:04
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XboxPants posted:Good to know that oppressive structural racism is actually just "local culture" and it would be insensitive to attempt to change it. I really don't think that's what was being referred to. the implication is that Wakanda's outreach efforts would cause the cultures of black communities worldwide to be essentially overwritten by Wakandan culture, which I... can possibly see, but I don't think the movie really gives us enough to judge on?
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Mar 2, 2018 21:20
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XboxPants posted:Ok, I see what he was saying then, but I don't think the film showed that. Centers like that only work if assimilate to the locals and their culture. Weren't T'Challa and Shuri wearing Western clothing in the final scene? And the building, it could have been a wild SciFi fantasy Wakanda complex, but it was typical American architecture. What little evidence there was supports the opposite reading. yeah, i really don't think the movie gives us enough to go on either way in that department, that's a question for Black Panther 2 to answer more than anything. it's not like the worry's just popping up out of thin air, though.
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Mar 2, 2018 21:53
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BrianWilly posted:What exactly do people think that a radicalized black power movement even is? what the movie depicts as a radicalized black power movement is terrorism, because it creates a false dichotomy between neoliberalism and BURN MAIM KILL. a legitimate radicalized black power movement would likely resemble Killmonger in goals and methods more than T'Challa, but would probably be a little less... nuts, maybe? like, the open bloodthirst is a bad look, if you're going to embrace violence the proper way to look at it is "necessary evil" not "cool and good thing that we enjoy."
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Mar 2, 2018 22:11
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Unmature posted:Yes. If you're ok with racism existing you are a racist. Full stop. What about someone who's largely unaware of it? I think that's sort of what's being said about T'Challa; it's less that he's in favor of or against racism, and more that he's never really experienced it the same way people in Oakland have (being a Wakandan prince-turned-king). Aside from, essentially, what he's heard from Erik and what he's seen on his visits abroad, he'd have basically no context for what the hell racism looks like in Western society.
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Mar 3, 2018 21:29
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Sir Kodiak posted:I don't think we do. I mean, not necessarily, but we won't have a lot concrete to discuss about this until it gets followed up on somewhere; we have pretty much the vaguest possible idea of what T'Challa's doing as-is. It could be coding camps or it could be literally sharing Wakandan technology with the rest of the world and teaching people how to use it, and one of these is a lot more substantial than the other. (in a real life scenario, the latter option is a fantasy, but fortunately we're discussing a movie where the country doing this has a literal mountain of magic super-tech rocks.)
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Mar 13, 2018 19:09
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Sir Kodiak posted:I'm talking about what we see in Black Panther (2018; dp Rachel Morrison). We see Killmonger talk about oppression. We then see T'Challa act not on oppression, but a lack of opportunity. It does a disservice to the film to pretend we can't read it until they put out Black Panther 2. except the movie's very pointedly ambiguous about what, specifically, T'Challa is doing. a lot of people are interpreting it as "STEM camps," but the movie never says that (and only sort of vaguely implies it with Shuri being left in charge). a lot of people are interpreting it as "Wakandan tech school," but the movie never says that. a lot of people are interpreting it as a Wakandan embassy with legal aid and financial assistance and etc available, but the movie never says that. all we know at the end of Black Panther (2018; dp Rachel Morrison) is that T'Challa bought some property in Oakland, is turning it into an "outreach center" of some sort, and is leaving Shuri in charge of it. we can't concretely judge T'Challa's actions unless we have a better idea of what those actions actually are, and the film left that up in the air. the reason i'm saying we need to wait for a sequel to fully interpret the original is because whatever the sequel follows up on this with will inevitably color the handling of the subject in the original; we might all have egg on our faces if we assume it's STEM camps but it turns out the "outreach center" is putting a stop to police brutality, offering food bank services to the starving, and offering free medical assistance to the residents of Oakland. quote:It's not like comic book movies are unable to do summarize someone doing the former in a quick scene. Hulk ends with Banner in South America, directly facing off against soldiers attempting to steal from the poor. I agree! Black Panther just didn't really do that.
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Mar 13, 2018 19:31
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I also didn't stay for the credits scenes, I should note, and am taking the movie without them in mind (I totally missed whatever speech T'Challa gave). if they're important and not just teasers for the next chapter of the Marvel Saga, they can put them in the actual drat movie. 
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Mar 13, 2018 19:50
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i mean i've seen a bunch of leftists admit that, due to the movie going out of its way to poo poo up Killmonger's ideology with unrelated puppy-kicking, the ending works out to being pretty much fair, but this is generally cited as a flaw of the movie
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Mar 19, 2018 02:08
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Baron Porkface posted:Macbeth could've been a great king if Shakespeare hadn't poo poo up his reign with unrelated puppy-kicking you're a loving moron and this is an incredibly bad post e: like, I'm not even going to dignify this with any kind of critical response, go gently caress yourself with a tree and let the adults talk
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Mar 19, 2018 13:29
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