As we wrap up our week of reviews of the movie Black Panther and the phenomenon concerning everything it has become, we integrate the issues our reviewers raise with others who echo or challenge similar themes. Gerald Acho sets the scene well, perhaps betraying a bit of anxiety in addition to hope regarding future portrayals of Africa (see also Interview of Larry Madowo by Karen Attiah and Carole Mandi’s review). Gathara and Russell Rickford elevate the issue of race, questioning whether the movie is simply another reimagining of Africa for white consumption. Akosua Adomako Ampofo, however, refutes such an assessment, as well as complaints about the homogenizing linguistic and artistic moves made in the film as missing much of its significance., She confesses that she had to block out the critics in order to allow herself to give in to pure enjoyment. For Akosua-Asamoabea Ampofo, this gratification and appreciation was in the end immense although also unexpected given some of the issues raised by Jelani Cobb and others. Nevertheless, Adomako Ampofo, as well as Edwin Adjei, also address the complicated nature of the relations between Africa and the Diaspora that the movie rather courageously tackles. Minenhle Nomalungelo Khumalo’s review represents one of the most insightful critique of the film. This reading points out the genuflections to Hollywood that limit the movie’s bravery – especially in terms of what kinds of sexuality and intimate relationships the blockbuster industry allows.
In addition to the movie itself, we note the ambiance surrounding its reception in movie theatres on the continent. For example, Edwin Adjei writes from Accra that, “During the first few days of the film premiere, the heat could have cooked any food in minutes thanks to the huge numbers in front of the cinemas.” We know that Kisumu, Kenya (where Lupita Nyong’o grew up) held the first showing anywhere to crowds who rocked a “prismatic display of African elegance” for the occasion (although, as Larry Madowo points out in the Washington Post, the advance showing in Kisumu was not a formal premiere, and complains that there has not been one anywhere on the continent, although we note the South African premiere report). However, Blog Co-Editor Mame Penda Ba had a different experience: she tried twice to see the film in Dakar, but the first time it was sold out and the second she got stuck in traffic from St. Louis. This was not so much because the movie is a huge phenomenon in Senegal. Thanks to the infamous Structural Adjustment Programmes imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the 1980s and 90s, many movie houses shuttered their doors. Few are open today, and none are in St. Louis, where Mame Penda lives, four hours away from Dakar by car. Moreover, those who are buying the tickets in Senegal are expats and elites. The irony of this in a country that has produced some of the greatest cinema on the continent (or indeed anywhere) is great (see, for example, “Senegal: the country of filmmakers without cinema houses”).
In closing, we note the enormous — and unfair — expectations that have been placed on this film, in which one movie and young black director is supposed to rectify centuries of abuse and misrepresentation that no other director has managed and no single film can ever fulfill. This movie has, however, generated intense and productive conversations – including all of these reviews and more – each of which is in dire need of deepening and expansion. In the end, the uniqueness of the BP phenomenon is astonishing as well as somewhat sad. How is it that, in the early 21st century, a movie directed and acted mostly by black artists, that portrays a self-sufficient, aid-less country in Africa and characters whose sophistication on numerous planes runs circles around that of western white folks, and that celebrates unabashedly its Africanness on numerous dimensions (religious, technological, musical, sartorial) is still so path-breaking? As Karen Attiah points out, “white people need Black Panther as much as black people do”! Nevertheless, we anticipate that the hopes the movie has generated for further debate on its positive portrayals as well as its flaws and subservience to commercialism will also result in much-needed demands for more complex representations of Africa, Africans, and the African Diaspora. #LongLiveWakanda and much, much more!
Featured Images: Images from premieres in Kisumu, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; and Johannesburg, South Africa. Sources: Nichole Sobecki for BuzzFeed News; and Getty / AFP.