'Black Panther' matters

By Deauwand Myers

Across social media, Marvel's upcoming "Black Panther" movie has stoked quite a lot of excitement, particularly among people of color. At first, I didn't quite understand why.

For the uninitiated: Black Panther isn't a first tier comic book character in Marvel's comic universe. (Neither was Iron-Man; but that turned out pretty well for Marvel Studios anyhow).

Panther is the young, educated king of the fictional and fantastically wealthy African nation of Wakanda, where the vast majority of a rare metal, vibranium, (a light, super-durable isotope that absorbs kinetic energy) is found and mined. He's bequeathed with a battle suit made of vibranium, and adventures ensue.

Panther is romantically involved for a time with another African superhero in the Marvel Universe, the omega-level, super powerful mutant Storm of the X-Men. (Her power is psychic control of the weather, including being able to shoot lightning bolts through her body).

Nerdiness over.

So why the groundswell for "Black Panther?"

Sure, for most of American cinematic history, and Western entertainment more broadly, there's been an absence of people of color.

When black people were represented in the movies or on television, they were mostly two-dimensional, racist caricatures dreamed up by whites. These colored characters were uneducated, unsophisticated, and obsequious ("Amos ‘n' Andy") or cruel, violent, ensconced in criminality, and sexually pliant (Blaxploitation films like the guilty pleasure "Truck Turner").

America, like all Western countries, have marginalized or excluded people of color and women from representing complex, three-dimensional characters of depth and interiority since before the advent of moving pictures.

There's been a refreshing movement as of late in adding different colors, contrasts, and perspectives into the imaginative matrix of entertainment, far beyond music (and that media needs work too, especially in management and executive positions).

Black Panther Asia Press Conference

2018-02-08 14:11 | Culture

We still have a long, long way to go, especially for Asians, Latinos/Latinas, Muslims, women and indigenous people in front of and behind the camera.

Interestingly enough, some white folks take offense to anything other than white folks in pivotal roles on the big screen, music, and social media. K-pop star Jay Park innocently took an Instagram picture at the NBA Championship Game in Cleveland and was berated with virulently racist taunts, as was BTS for their appearance on the Billboard Music Awards. Lead black (John Boyega as Finn) and Asian (Kelly Marie Tran as Rose Tico) characters in the newest Star Wars movie were criticized for no other reason than not being white (Boyega) and/or thin (Tran).

Please understand: I'm aware that white supremacy, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and patriarchy are alive and well. Further, since we, as a global society, place so much psychic (and monetary) value in the realm of the arts, especially in the audiovisual mediums, historically disenfranchised people have a particular hunger for interesting and incisive representations of themselves. Symbols are important, thus President Barack Obama, his obvious intelligence and gifts aside, occupies a large area of the zeitgeist.

Still, I was mildly surprised with the exuberance and hyped anticipation of "Black Panther" coming to the big screen in live action. On Facebook, social groups comprised of people of color were planning group outings to view the film en masse months and months in advance. Memes, reaction videos to the movie's trailers, cosplay pictures, and long essays populated my news feed like little else in recent memory.

To elucidate this point, I'll relay an abbreviated conversation I had with a good friend, also in Korea, about the aforementioned "Black Panther" mania:

Me: Lord, people are acting like "Black Panther" is the second coming.

My Friend: It is.

Me: I want to see it too, but goodness.

My Friend: I thought you'd be glad to see it: black people are not slaves; they're rich and educated.

Me: People are starved for creative, three-dimensional characters of color. But plenty of non-fantasy, non-slave movies came out and we weren't nearly as hyped about them, e.g. "Tuskegee Airmen," "Rosewood" and "Eve's Bayou."

My friend: Recently though? And what movie has shown black people running an entire country with equitable wealth distribution? Almost all of our big movies are rooted in painful history. I don't mind revisiting history, because it's real and factual. But this movie is showing black people being superheroes, and in a sci-fi, fantasy way. That hasn't happened in a big budget movie ever before.

Of all her points, that last one is most salient. I think of the high fantasy trilogy "Lord of the Rings," and literally, not a single person of color with a speaking role existed in all seven-plus hours of Peter Jackson's magnum opus. I was disappointed about this, and not a little bit, especially since I liked it so much.

The science fiction and fantasy genres have a real dearth in representing people of color, Octavia Butler notwithstanding. This is why "Black Panther" matters.

Deauwand Myers (deauwand@hotmail.com) holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. The views expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial policy of The Korea Times.