Canadian Politics Today

There's another one this weekend: Black Panther.

I am NOT going to see this, nor am I slightly interested in the impact but I AM wondering:

Is anybody on here interested ?

I did finally go to the big movie yesterday. I told my date it was a documentary about the Black Panther Party.

I did enjoy the movie.  Some of the early portions of the movie were so "Lion King" that I expected Elton John to burst into song.  But things quickly improved.   The movie delivers everything you go to this sort of film to see.  Great action sequences, spectacular visuals, excitement, drama, a light comic touch... basically all the hallmarks of the most successful Marvel movies are here.

Does this movie have an "impact" beyond being tremendously successful and demonstrating that audiences will go out to see movies about black characters?  (Did Wonder Woman?)

During the recent Oscars, there was a clip of director Ryan Coogler saying something like "I went to Wonder Woman and there were grown women weeping with emotion, and I wanted Black Panther to make black people feel the same way."   Did he succeed? I'm not the right person to ask.  I did feel that initially watching a movie with an almost entirely black cast was somewhat odd, and that very quickly this aspect of it completely vanished and you become immersed in the movie.  Perhaps this is how non-white audiences feel every time they go to a movie.

As far as a greater social message... it focuses on King T'Challa's realization that the main villain is to some degree a monster of his family's own making. He feels guilty for his father's role in turning his back on the child who would grow up to become a menace, and in a broader context makes him realize that it's time that his country do more and stop turning its back as well. It is, I guess, a call for people to do more for each other and consider that the things you turn a blind eye to today could come back to haunt you.

But anyway, I did enjoy the movie, I think it completely stands on its own as a great piece of entertainment, regardless of whatever social and cultural implications one wishes to consider.

 -k