WHAT?! THAT’S PC BULLSHIT! MGTOW!
and so forth.
Heh. I literally thought, right there in the theater, “Well, Wakanda may be really advanced technologically and even socially, but their political system clearly needs some work.”
And then I immediately thought “Of course these days as an American I’m not really in much of a position to criticize, now am I?” :smack:
A similar jarring note for me was the repeated images of huts, and shepherds, and flocks. One great big city and the rest of the country seemed to be weirdly archaic sheep farmers. Also the mounted riders did not have stirrups. This is a really important and basic advancement in animal husbandry, so that stuck out as well.
Was that supposed to be part of their deliberate “simple third-world peasants” camouflage though?
Yeah, those images are all from the Clan of the Gates (backtranslating from French, the original name may be something else). Their job is to look poor, innocent and primitive, “nothin’ to steal heah, masah.”
This reminds me of something else I’ve been wondering about. Both “Wonder Woman” and “Black Panther” have been box office sensations, seemingly proving for once and for all that any concerns that black and/or female superheroes can’t carry a tentpole movie are unwarranted. But I wonder: does this phenomenon have staying power once the novelty wears off? This sounds really bad, I realize, but hear me out. I’m not trying to piss in anyone’s punch bowl or scoff, without evidence, at the ability for black and/or female characters to carry these films.
But here’s why I wonder about it. With WW, I kept hearing from and about women who reported that they generally don’t like superhero films and in fact don’t like violence in films. But they were amazed to find themselves literally brought to tears specifically by the scenes when WW kicks ass. This is clearly an issue of representation, of a pent-up craving for fairness that these women didn’t even realize they felt. And I think that’s beautiful: I encouraged it myself by convincing my wife to go with me and our seven year old daughter to see it, so we could add to the box office take.
But are all these women really going to want to go back to the theater again and again to watch comic book plots and comic book violence? That is, does it paradoxically have to be “special” to attract these huge audiences?
Similarly, with BP: Gene Demby reported on NPR that the black community put on a full court press to get people out to this movie, almost like GOTV on election day. Schools sent busloads of kids. People were selling tickets to the movie at churches the week before it opened. Etc. Demby himself actually felt a little conflicted about it, because he said this kind of all-out effort is usually reserved for smaller films that are serious and “important” concerning black history (“12 Years a Slave”, “Hidden Figures”, etc.) and he wasn’t sure how he felt doing this kind of “pledge drive” on behalf of a huge tentpole comic book movie.
But my question, again: are there lots of black folks who turned out for this who aren’t really going to be down for doing it again and again, when we get to BP3? I’m less concerned about this happening in this case than with WW, though, because black people punch above their demographic weight in movie box office as a general rule, so lots of them probably will come out for sequels or other black superhero fare. And on the other hand, although they are overrepresented, black people still make up a small enough percentage of filmgoers that this movie’s smash success has to be attributable to far more than black audiences (whereas if women drop off significantly for WW, that could be a problem).
My best guess is that these characters will be solid enough performers in the future, but that there will be a significant dropoff and that we’re not going to see them contend for biggest blockbuster of the year like WW was last year and BP is almost sure to be this year. But we shall see!
Yes: I was actually a little surprised there wasn’t more controversy, or at least disagreement, within black intellectual circles or more broadly among the “woke” crowd, due to the way they played into stereotypes, an African version of what used to be decried as “Orientalism” in some quarters. In addition to the point you raise, there’s the facial mutilation jewelry (what percentage of sub-Saharan Africans do stuff like that nowadays?), the use of spears (even if they are super high tech), warriors riding rhinos, etc. Even all the drumming: the various music scenes in Africa are incredibly diverse, but traditional drumming is far from a major player.
Relatedly, I wondered what actual Africans think of the film. I was born in East Africa and lived there again as a teenager, and I remember that African people I knew often expressed annoyance with American blacks in their crudely stereotypical attitudes (not that whites didn’t have such attitudes, but they held people from the pan-African diaspora to a higher standard). You of course had stuff like Eddie Murphy and his broad comedy about a fictional African country; but even left wing black intellectuals, they complained, would take on “African” names that didn’t make sense, and wear clothing and jewelry that was a weird mishmash of different tribes/countries/cultures. Almost like the ignorant folks who get some kind of “Chinese wisdom” tattooed on their bodies, but then actual Chinese people report that it’s gibberish.
I hate to say I agree with this, but I agree with this (except that I felt they grossly overused the “himbo” joke, no matter how good Hemsworth was at it). McKinnon was definitely a standout; I usually like McCarthy but here she felt too constrained. I also think they spent way too much of the film doing nods to the original - we had cameos from all the leads (the late Harold Ramis got not only a hallway bust appearance but his son Daniel got a cameo as well), we got the tagline, we got the logo, we got the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man…by the time you’ve done all that you’ve taken up a goodly chunk of the film and forced the plot to jump through all those hoops along the way. They’re lucky it worked as well as it did.
I wrote that off as a nod to Winston in the original, who also was not a scientist but rather just a guy looking for a job. If anything, Jones got a lot more lines of substance than Hudson did.
That said, hearing Aisha Taylor go “Nooooooope” would have improved the film…
Again, I agree with all of that, although that didn’t stop me from loving the Crowning Moment of Awesome in the battle scene (not the final one - the earlier one). In fact that scene was far better than the climax of the film, which as noted was weak and predictable.
One hopes that the success of these will lead to more, better, and ideally standalone films starring minorities and women rather than only ones tacked onto a franchise (which make the studios feel safer because the fanbase will turn out regardless). When they’re willing to gamble on that, the barrier really will be broken.
As an aside, what annoys me about all these MCU/DC films is that in the end I feel like everything I’ve just sat through was ultimately just there to get me to watch the next film. There’s never any goddamn closure, and it weakens the storytelling IMO. And [del]if[/del] when they pull this bullshit at the end of Infinity War, the film they’ve been leading up to for the last 147 MCU films, it’s really going to piss me off.
Oh well…at least I have Deadpool 2 to look forward to.
What is it about education that you think precludes irrational or damaging behaviours? Because I could site here all day typing up examples of the kinds of things that supposedly highly educated people could tolerate or worse, perpetrate themselves.
One tiny, non-atrocity example - Some German university students (one would assume therefore relatively highly educated) still think sword scars are cool.
German words are so funny! “Studentenverbindungen from some western cities use Glockenschläger” is my new favorite phrase. 
Three or four quite small groups, probably less than a few thousand of whom still have the lip plate.
Spears are still practical - but more importantly, cultural - artifacts for peoples who still need to protect their cattle from maurading animals but don’t have the cash to buy gunpowder weapons (or wouldn’t be allowed them because of anti-poaching laws). They’re a big thing in both Maasai and Nguni (South African Bantu) cultures. “Spears and shield” is a charge on two African flags.
Yeah, that is silly. True African warriors ride cows.
I have to disagree - if you asked me what instrument was most characteristic of African music, I’d have to say the drum.
I can tell you South Africans are loving it. Still haven’t seen it, but everyone I know who has, has loved it. Our (Black African) HR staffer has seen it twice.
My wife, an Ivoirian, adored it on a level I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen after seeing a movie with her.
What are you waiting for? And are you avoiding spoilers?
Another genre that’s not supposed to be girly is cars movies. Don’t walk into a showing of Fast and Furious any-number if you still believe that shit; the amount of hairspray alone might kill you.
A free babysitting slot (I’ve used this week’s for an EU embassy do and tonight’s Shakespeare in the Park (my wife’s birthday tradition)). I’m going next week.
Naah, I generally don’t bother, especially for superhero movies. Because Science!
Those people were there to prevent the gradual decay in the delicate barrier that keeps Wakanda sealed off from the world.
You know… lysis actors.
You go to hell
I thought so except at the end Bucky comes out of one of those huts, and when Killmonger brings Klaue’s body, he is greeted by the same. Perhaps there is a small outer ring that is maintained and staffed for outsiders to interact with.
He shoots … HE SCORES!! 
I mean, not everyone wants to live in New York City. Some people just want to live in a cabin the woods.
I don’t know if this is an effort at legitimate debate, but I’ll bite.
There is a fine line between having an honest discussion about the dangers of other cultures, and xenophobia.
People on the right generally use the dangers of outsiders to justify xenophobia. You can tell this because they ignore those same dangers when insiders commit them. Conservative white men are the biggest supporters of theocracy, fascism and violent terrorism here. But right wingers are ok with that, or at least ignore it and the danger it poses. However if a Muslim immigrant supports theocracy, fascism and violent terrorism the right will jump all over it and push it all over the media.
I’m fine with honest discussions about whether immigrant cultures are bringing problems with them. I wouldn’t want to let 50 million rural people from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan immigrate here because their culture would drag us down.