Provokr Pick: Black Panther
Marvel's First Best Picture Nominee
Marvel Studios is a money-making machine which has pumped out high-quality films based on beloved comic book properties, all set in a shared universe. Since 2008, the studio has created twenty films which have earned a combined $17.5 billion worldwide. For a long time, though, the films were culturally stagnant, with few minority actors in leading roles. Samuel L. Jackson co-starred as Nick Fury, a key supporting authority figure in the series, and great actors like Don Cheadle, Anthony Mackie, Michael Peña, and Benedict Wong played key roles throughout the films, but the MCU had never featured a person of color as a marquee title character.
That is, until 2018’s Black Panther. The character, played by Chadwick Boseman, was first introduced in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, and the ending of that movie set the stage for Black Panther‘s solo adventure. Not only did the film star a black actor in the lead role, but it featured a predominantly black cast (except for Martin Freeman, reprising his role from Civil War, and Andy Serkis, who returns to the role he first inhabited in Avengers: Age of Ultron). In addition, it was also the first MCU film to be directed by an African American: Ryan Coogler, hot off his success with the Rocky sequel, Creed.
Simply put, Black Panther was a game-changer. The movie firmly embraced a concept which is so often dismissed, downplayed, or even parodied by Hollywood blockbusters: black pride. Africa and its heritage are at the heart of the film, even taking into account its science fiction aesthetic. Michael B. Jordan‘s villain, Kilmonger, is a tremendously complex and sympathetic figure, a genuine victim with a sincere grievance against those who wronged him. Of course, his means to avenge himself go far beyond what could be reasonably expected from even the most hardened anti-heroes, but the film goes to great lengths to show that the fictional nation of Wakanda created the very villain who nearly brought the country to its knees.
At once brazenly entertaining and thematically relevant, Black Panther is a film which challenges America to live up to its ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Wakanda is a hidden nation, shielded by an dome of invisibility, with so many gifts to give the world but without the nerve to challenge its own status quo. Only by learning to embrace the global stage does the country truly live up to its potential as a beacon of hope to which other nations can aspire; when America is at its strongest, it is proud to be that beacon in real life. Under the current Trump administration, it’s not even controversial to say, we’re not that beacon right now.
Black Panther is nominated for seven Oscars, and is the first super hero film to be nominated for the coveted Best Picture award. If you haven’t seen the film yet, it’s currently available to stream on Netflix.
