Wakanda: Broken Dreams

Black Panther was a weak movie.

Not for any of the hysteria described, the frankly alt-right compatible ethnostate themes, the communist-feminist tropes, the obvious racism, no, it goes deeper than that. Even disregarding the obvious gaslighting at play, and the subtle injection of “colonialist” comments, the dialogue was flat, a forced attempt at creating a “high language” with simple words, and tries to portray some fantasy level of emotional and spiritual enlightenment, that is contradicted everywhere. Also despite what appears to be intense focus on the first super-villain of the movie, the first “white” character of note, it’s hard to pin the evils of an apparent South African Boer, onto the wider Caucasian populations the actors take aim against. The real problems with this movie are more pervasive and technical, and can’t be fixed with simple jiggery-pokery of lines or looks.

It had some serious structural problems that made everything about the premise/origin fail. The original “Black Panther” ate some magical fruit granting them extra strength, speed, and reflexes, supposedly without any training. Are these fighting skills? Possibly. Do these skill upgrades have more practical uses in day to day life? Well, yes actually, you could do a lot of heavy lifting, you could be a sports hero, you could even turn your attentions to mastering various mental challenges. All of these things could have very good civilian applications, but since we’re talking about Africa, and Africans, it has to mean tribal warrior. Nothing else will do, because nothing else earns their respect, and this movie is all about respect.

Herein is one of the key areas where they’ve missed the mark by 13 miles. Silly “white people” tend to respect kindness and intellect in general, or at least non-physical achievements such as negotiating or inventing great things. These “colonialist white people” constantly referenced, seem to be the core demographic of who these Wakandans want to be respected by, not other Africans, they can deal with them militarily, nah, they demand respect from white folk! It is both the height of narcissism AND an inferiority complex that their superior technology hasn’t been able to shake. Who said black people don’t love stereotypes?

On a more fundamental level, human nature would have prevented many of the elements of the story happening, and if they had managed to overcome that hurdle, would have been impossible to maintain for any length of time. Certainly their civilization wouldn’t have lasted for centuries if the people’s psycho-emotional needs weren’t met, at least some of the time. That means there had to be struggle, a lot of it, people had to be constantly reminded that working together achieves more than working individually, or separately as distinct tribes. They would have to be reminded at least once per generation, to overcome those built-in instincts that drive us to eat, have sex, and own things. Each generation has to reach the same conclusion the hard way, each child has to make the same mistakes as the parents, each child needs to learn that whatever they rebel against is the best way. They aren’t going to believe in that common vision by being told to, any parent can tell you this.

Then there’s the pesky technicalities. Let’s presume any of vibranium’s resultant technology or biological effects can work, even then the story doesn’t get much more sensible. Staring at the source, there’s some vibranium fruit that the king eats to become “Black Panther” with enhanced abilities, not superpowers mind you, but the guy playing masked kitty in previous Marvel franchise movies doesn’t actually eat it until this movie, after he becomes king, which goes unchallenged. Therefore all his heroic antics, as spectacular or inhuman as they were, previously depended on being a pampered man in a bulletproof vibranium suit. The catsuit in question is very unlike Ironman’s high-tech armoured thing, the catsuit provided no active boost to his strength, speed, nor did if have propulsion or weaponry added besides the thematic claws. In such a case, one would assume the suit is actually harder to maneuver in as a man, if it is strong enough to stop bullets, it is surely going to resist any acrobatic attempts isn’t it?

This makes the actions of the man, in that suit, particularly difficult, with the result that most of his fight scenes should look awkward and bumbling, achieving his victory by sheer grit instead of ability. Ignoring the other movie appearances of Prince T’Challa, at the beginning of Black Panther that privileged man in a suit jumps out of an airplane, with zero super powers. He lands in a jungle without twisting an ankle, before jumping off trees, and hurling entire grown men around like beanbags. Not a problem for vibranium enhanced King T’Challa, but quite another for Prince. They stupidly also have a drink that disables the super powers, something that can only exist as a comicbook trope, and I can’t see anyone actively trying to invent such an antidote, but that’s another idiocy that isn’t relevant here.

So what about the special cocktail that makes the King of Wakanda into a badass, in an almost impervious suit, with spaceships, and a gadjillion of whatever they use for currency? Well they are borne of a special meteorite, just like the source of the Shimmer in the new movie Annihilation, or the leaking meteorite in the movie Evolution, both of which create a unique ecosystem of altering life around it, or many other stories/movies that use a variation of pan-spermia as a plot element. Yet, after how many centuries, only a handful exist which are attended to and cultivated by the cleric equivalents of Shaman. They have what appears to be a few dozen plants, flowering occasionally with a long ripening period, but only the King gets to eat one.

To decide who gets to eat the forbidden fruit as king, they have a gladiator ritual, a duel, so presumably they could go through a lot of these fruit if a lot of men depose the existing ruler after a short reign. These plants exist in a glorified basement apartment in a cave, without natural sunlight. There aren’t enough to make an army of super soldiers, which you’d think would be the primary use of such an enhancer, unless you had a good chance of dying when consuming it, but too many for just kings. Everything about that seems wrong, it breaks human nature, it ignores emergencies, it escapes the inevitable jealousy, or theft, and a number of factors that would prevent the peaceful sequestering of the fruit for very long. The most likely outcome would actually be a rival warrior group killing all the caretakers, and becoming super-warriors themselves, thus giving them an advantage over whoever rules. Though like most clan victories, that too would probably devolve into petty rivalry as to which vibranium-enhanced warrior deserves to be the King, and rather quickly they would kill each other.

The technology is no more plausible, unless it has nothing to do with vibranium, although here again we are helpfully guided into believing it all is when the nerdy warrior-feminist scientist says it is everywhere. We can discuss the paradox of having a young woman as a scientist, much less Shuri who is so incensed by the idea of colonialism that she can’t stop talking about it, as being the chief know-it-all of the group. It’s one thing to be the smartest one in the room, it’s quite another to be passionate about making a difference, those two things are not synonymous, and any inventor-scientist will tell you that science and development is a slow grind full of heartbreak and frustration, with years of efforts often wasted on minute details that are incremental at best. The role she fills is not the role a woman would want, not the role a political activist would want, and certainly not a big-picture political strategist, all of which we are expected to believe from her. Being a scientist would drain her, she would feel stifled and unappreciated, not spritely and cheerful.

Anyway, the creative uses of vibranium have no end it seems. The technology they wear, earpieces which allows unlimited range communication, holographic projection phone-watches, and spears with a kind of gravity-wave punch, anti-gravity levitation dollies and ships as typical in sci-fi, but of all the uses, apparently the only people who wear the vibranium suits are Mr. Dark Kitty himself. Is this another example of necessary narcissism? It has striking similarities to Tony Stark’s Ironman, he’s very obviously a narcissist, and he has several special suits as well. Perhaps we’re expected to make an exception in this case, because he’s an enlightened black man, not some privileged upper class man with a rich daddy… oh wait. Again, if it’s so good for him, why doesn’t everyone else wear vibranium suits instead of running around in furs and miniskirts?

Which brings us into the politics of Wakanda itself. Apparently it is a collection of tribes in a region, that vie for power during the bloodsport extravaganza that are the contests for kingship, but peacefully obedient and loyal to the crown at the other times. Except that isn’t entirely true, they don’t all work together, as especially made clear with the mountain gorilla clan, who keep to themselves and don’t seem to get much share of the technology pie. If that isn’t petty tribalism, or *gasp* racism, then everyone in Black Lives Matter should go home and twiddle their thumbs. There’s also no mention of exactly who provides the bureaucracy or functionary duties, you know, those necessary jobs that make a wealth country with a capitol city full of skyscrapers possible? If they have all these things, they were either centrally planned, or privately built with private capital. Yet, you get the distinct impression that everyone is a warrior, dancer, farmer, or even lowly street merchant, and no one seems to be in much hurry at all. Those are not the conditions that provide a surplus of private capital to build megaliths, which would suggest at the very least, that it is all financed by the King, regardless who’s idea they were.

Now the important question, with all this cool technology, relative peace, and the freedom to wander around in ornate robes, what has their society actually solved? Everytime we see a flyover of the countryside, we see people just outside the walls of the city, as well as people father away, but still within Wakanda territory. Those people farm like peasants, using stone age tools, they slave away in relative poverty, picking fields in the hot sun, and despite an unusual level of happiness you don’t get the sense that there is any kind of wealth/income equality at all. All the Marxist-feminist inserts into the movie can’t escape this one fact, there is massive inequality in Wakanda, both economic and sexist. Then with a multitude of tribes present, all maintaining distinctiveness, there is additional inherent conflict always present, and the epitome of that distinction always comes back to warlike traits, so civil war should be routine.

Wakanda is basically like any other warlord state, with a rigid caste system, and concentrated wealth within a monarchy or despotic government. One that has decided not to share it’s resources with the neighbours, and while spying on everyone, lying constantly about their own military prowess, and thus inherent victim status. It might as well be a monarch version of Israel. The alt-right is wrong, it isn’t a conservative ethnostate protecting its people, it is the noble superpower fantasy of the average Zionist, with the Real&trad; messiah as their King.

In fact, having seen endless comments about the movie, people identifying with T’Challa or cousin Killmonger, I could only conclude they are a bunch of entitled pricks, with very little sense of responsibility, and a massive hard-on for ceremony, or in Killmonger’s case, to be worshipped. The character I found most likeable was M’Baku, a pragmatic leader, maybe a little over-confident, but with a sense of purpose, and strong moral fiber. M’Baku also saves T’Challa despite losing in battle. Rather than selfishly taking the vibranium fruit for himself, he dutifully gives that to T’Challa too, saving his life, showing an immense respect for the traditions, and showing unassailable personal honour. Even his amusingly dismissive commentary before the final battle exemplified good leadership, his marginalized tribe could rightfully feel spiteful of the monarchy, and still he offers safe haven to queen-mother, while putting his people’s safety first, even though it could earn him favour with the King.

M’Baku is the King Wakanda needs.