Month: November 2020

The Marvel movie “Black Panther” is an extraordinarily produced film that features brilliant actors and – even better – the destruction of countless stereotypes, one of them depicted in the image above: black women as warriors.

The Marvel universe has a tendency to star white actors in its movies; and, while embracing different cultures, say that of Americans or Russians, Black culture had not been strongly explored until the release of Black Panther. This is the first Marvel movie I can think of where a culture other than white or American is the star of the show and is appreciated in a new light. It gives its audience the ability to appreciate a culture which they may not have known a lot about, as African culture has been continually whitewashed since colonizers invaded the country many years ago.

Black Panther defeats not only the white or American stereotype of Marvel superheroes but also the stereotype that Africa may be less modern or technologically advanced than other continents. While Wakanda is not real, it allows the audience to view an Africa that does not give credit to colonists for its success and actually views white people as a bad addition to the continent than a good one.

For example, author Jelani Cobb explains the implications of the scene where Shuri, T’Challah’s younger sister, calls the white F.B.I. agent a colonizer: “When I saw the movie, the audience howled at the inversion, “colonizer” deployed as an epithet rather than a badge of cultural superiority,” Cobb says in his essay, “‘Black Panther’ and the Invention of ‘Africa'”. In this instance, Shuri is disgusted by this white man rather than afraid of him, showing a world that is Black-dominated and conquers the stereotypes of a white-dominated world that are widely accepted by society in current times.

Lastly, though there are countless more underlying meanings in Black Panther, I will explain one more stereotype: the powerful women in Black Panther defeat the societal standard of thinking that women should sit back and watch while men fight. In the film, the warriors of Wakanda are made up of exclusively women, while countless films have almost always made their warriors male. This depiction of women as powerful beings who are not discriminated against because of their sex. For example, in the final fight scene of the film, multiple of these female warriors are killed and it is not seen as any different than if it were a man dying; and instead of taking men with him to find the protagonist at the beginning of the film, T’Challah brings two women.

In conclusion, Black Panther makes many connections that take analysis and a rewatch before realization. Reading articles about the movie and watching videos that feature the directors, costume designers, or others involved in the creation of the film is a gratifying experience that educates the audience about Africa’s culture and traditions and makes the movie-watching experience just that much more rewarding.

Having to choose the lesser of two evils: a conflict that nearly everyone must face on a daily basis. As you can see in the image above, many sheep are casting a ballot between a wolf and a lion. While there is no text on this image, the meaning is clear: none of the sheep want to die, but they have to choose who eats them – obviously, neither of these choices are good, but they have to choose.

I will relate this to the reading of the week: the dystopian novel The Marrow Thieves, illustrating the kidnapping and experimenting of indigenous people whose bone marrow will restore the ability of others to dream. This book is riveting in many ways; it illustrates a world that is nearly apocalyptic and not far from what Earth is fast approaching at the moment. Frenchie, the main character in the book, finds a group of indigenous people who are escaping the harvesters after his brother is taken by the marrow harvesters. Over several years, Frenchie is trained to hunt by the leaders of his camp; however, it is clear that Frenchie is more compassionate than his companions.

Now, the moose dilemma comes in. When on the hunt, Frenchie finds a moose quietly grazing before him. In this situation, Frenchie is forced to choose between two evils: whether to kill the innocent moose to feed his companions and risk wasting a large part of it, or leaving the moose alone and risking the starvation of his makeshift family.

Frenchie decides to spare the life of the moose in the end, but he faces intense debate within himself as he approaches the camp empty-handed: “Walking back to the meeting point, I swung between peace with my decision and wrenching regret,” (50). In the end, Frenchie accepts his decision when he sees that two of his peers brought back turkeys, so he didn’t have to worry about the starvation of his family. However, when faced with the Dilemma of The Moose (as I now call it), people often have to live with the regret of their choice, not knowing whether they made the right one. Frenchie got lucky this time.

When relating this conflict to the real-world, one realizes that humans must face the predicament of choosing the lesser evil nearly every single day. A less intense example would be having to choose between two restaurants that you don’t like that much for dinner or choosing whether to shower and be cold for the night, or not shower and stay dirty (beach volleyball life – and yes – I choose to shower every time).

Of course, these are modest situations when you relate them to problems that are illustrated in the novel and that are currently occurring in the real world: risking oil spills so we can have electricity, slaughtering animals so we can eat, polluting the air so our cars can have power, and draining lakes so we can have water, as well as countless more predicaments. In all, the dilemma of the moose very well characterizes the human trait of selfishness that conquers everyday life and decision-making, as well as the decisions that humans make which determine the future of Earth itself.