I have not been to this thread since I posted Linsey Chutel's review on pg84. For Thousands of years Wakanda has had the ability and resources to change the face of Africa.Which means they could have even hidden the entire continent if they wanted and modern man would have never known it was there.But they didn't.Millions of Africans driven from their home and killed by Warlords,famine and taken into slavery.Wakanda did nothing.Comic Fantasy,so why so serious.
Linsey Chutel, She is a Black African Reporter who covers southern Africa from Johannesburg.
The film was mostly shot in a studio in Atlanta, Georgia, the falls are actually shots of Iguazu Falls in Argentina and the skyscrapers are all CGI. And in Africa we generally refer to our panthers as leopards. Still, it’s an indulgent fantasy of what Africa could be, but also what may have been without colonial interference. It’s a reminder that the film is not a meditation on culture, but rather a comic book fantasy that is perhaps inspired by Afrofuturism.
More realistically, the Black Panther’s political struggles center on the new king’s challenge to maintain Wakanda’s independence and protect its resources from international plundering and corruption within. It’s a narrative many African states can relate to.
T’Challa is educated in the US, but must return to Africa to fulfill his role, a more grandiose “repat” story, but one that is nonetheless familiar.
What may feel most familiar, and what has caused most debate, are the fashion and visual elements of the film.