The season finale of Black History month was INSANEEEEEEE. And by the season finale I 100% mean the Black Panther premier weekend. This is my new favorite Marvel movie, with Captain America: Winter Soldier going to second and Spiderman Homecoming going to third. This movie is, as far as Marvel movies go, pretty good, it has a great hero, with a good background and a great villain. If you look it and remove the cultural component, it’s not the best of the best, but putting the cultural component into it makes it the best of the best. There are literally TWO white characters, and neither of them are central characters. Someone asked Martin Freeman what it felt like to be one of the few, and sometimes only, non-black actor on set, and he responded with “You think, ‘Right, this is what black actors feel like all the time?” And he’s right! And it’s beautiful to see a good, well written, well directed, well thought out, black-centric movie. There are black women and black men that are good and bad, and every single one of them kicks ASS (kicking ass is about to be a running theme, sorry).

For me, the best part was the black women. Although Black Panther/T’Challa was the main character, there were multiple leading roles that were women, and all three of them KICK ASS. As a black woman, I do not see myself represented in superhero movies, I guess we had Halle Berry as Catwoman, but that was NOT the same thing by any means. She was a black woman playing a character, whereas this movie was black women playing black women. That’s where this movie is different, in general, not just the women, it’s not black people in the role of superheroes and villains, is black people as the superheroes and villains. For example, you can have a black person play Captain America, but it doesn’t really mean Captain America is black, Black Panther, Shuri, Nakia, Killmonger, and everyone else in Wakanda are black people.

 

This movie, although it has appeal to everyone who loves Marvel movies, is for the black Marvel fans out there, and the black superhero fans out there. Little black boys and little black girls have characters they can look up to and want to be, they have Halloween costumes and party themes, they have a movie that they can watch over and over and over again and say “that ones me!”

Everything in this movie was meticulously thought out and planned to reflect some sort of African and Black culture. From the five tribes and their dialects and wardrobes to the fight sequences to the hairstyles. The fashion particularly stood out to me. The designer, Ruth E Carter, wanted to reflect African and Black beauty and brought it in an “Afrofuture Fashion”. She wanted to showcase the natural black beauty, which included everyone on set rocking their natural kinky curls!\

Ugh, I could go on for hours about this movie, but I will leave it at that. If you haven’t seen it yet, please go see it. If you have seen it and want to go again, please text me.