FruitOfTheVale
Superstar
Saw the movie on Tuesday, I'm considering seeing it again though my initial reaction has not significantly changed. I was surprised the movie had as many political overtones as it did. That being said, many of the film's overtones were very questionable in my opinion, particularly those that concerned black separatism and the larger piece about the third world's relationship to the Western world.
Kilmonger is the most interesting character in the film by far and is also the most problematic. His backstory jumps out for a variety of reasons: He is an American military asset gone rogue with a mission to attain weapons of mass destruction and rally the support of his homeland against America and other Western powers. Sound familiar? I find it curious that no one I'm aware of has directly compared his character to Osama Bin Laden as of writing nor framed the plot in the context of 20th/21st century political upheaval. Kilmonger's character all but personifies Western fears about the manufactured monsters of Western oppression: he is a tragic broken shell of a human who is beyond "reason" and therefore can only be "neutralized" before he does the same to us. The plethoric kill-count he bears on his skin is perceived as tragic insomuch that it's "common sense" that the outcomes of his circumstances (abandoned ghetto child from Oakland) were inescapable. His character presents a false dichotomy that the only "logical" course of action for oppressed people to take when they are militarized is to react to oppressive forces with violence.
The fact that the film draws some of its thematic undercurrent directly from the other Black Panthers makes this oversimplification of the agendas of oppressed people even more disturbing. The Black Panthers were a fully realized political party that believed in self-defense as a means to be seen and heard instead of being bullied into silence. However, as we all know, The Black Panthers' political positions were completely ignored in the mainstream media and replaced with the notion that their sole goal was to "kill white people". They successfully spread this lie by repeatedly flashing out-of-context images of black panthers brandishing guns and getting into shootouts with cops on TVs and newspapers worldwide. The Black Panthers understood that true political equality for oppressed peoples requires them to be able to defend themselves. Even if your agenda is global pacifism, your agenda is only as strong as your ability to ensure the protection of the members of your group.
That being said, why does it never cross Kilmonger's mind to arm the 3rd world with vastly superior weapon technology merely to put them in a position to make demands? To put it another way, if every African country had nukes tomorrow, what western country in their right mind is going to try to bully them in the manner they've been doing for the last 3 centuries? Any country that can adequately defend itself is NOT getting "liberated" by the United States anytime soon, that's for damn sure.
Kilmonger is the most interesting character in the film by far and is also the most problematic. His backstory jumps out for a variety of reasons: He is an American military asset gone rogue with a mission to attain weapons of mass destruction and rally the support of his homeland against America and other Western powers. Sound familiar? I find it curious that no one I'm aware of has directly compared his character to Osama Bin Laden as of writing nor framed the plot in the context of 20th/21st century political upheaval. Kilmonger's character all but personifies Western fears about the manufactured monsters of Western oppression: he is a tragic broken shell of a human who is beyond "reason" and therefore can only be "neutralized" before he does the same to us. The plethoric kill-count he bears on his skin is perceived as tragic insomuch that it's "common sense" that the outcomes of his circumstances (abandoned ghetto child from Oakland) were inescapable. His character presents a false dichotomy that the only "logical" course of action for oppressed people to take when they are militarized is to react to oppressive forces with violence.
The fact that the film draws some of its thematic undercurrent directly from the other Black Panthers makes this oversimplification of the agendas of oppressed people even more disturbing. The Black Panthers were a fully realized political party that believed in self-defense as a means to be seen and heard instead of being bullied into silence. However, as we all know, The Black Panthers' political positions were completely ignored in the mainstream media and replaced with the notion that their sole goal was to "kill white people". They successfully spread this lie by repeatedly flashing out-of-context images of black panthers brandishing guns and getting into shootouts with cops on TVs and newspapers worldwide. The Black Panthers understood that true political equality for oppressed peoples requires them to be able to defend themselves. Even if your agenda is global pacifism, your agenda is only as strong as your ability to ensure the protection of the members of your group.
That being said, why does it never cross Kilmonger's mind to arm the 3rd world with vastly superior weapon technology merely to put them in a position to make demands? To put it another way, if every African country had nukes tomorrow, what western country in their right mind is going to try to bully them in the manner they've been doing for the last 3 centuries? Any country that can adequately defend itself is NOT getting "liberated" by the United States anytime soon, that's for damn sure.
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