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I know a lot of people are questioning why critics love BP but upon watching it again, it’s because it’s a superhero movie that touched upon some uncomfortable topics which superhero movies rarely do.
Some of these are:
How some inner city kids lose their parents to violence and the effect it could have on said young person. In this case, it could be even be termed black on black violence seeing as T’Chaka killed his brother and left Killmonger all by himself. It’s not a coincidence that Coogler framed that scene in Oakland (where Coogler is from) and in 1992.
How colonialism stole from Africa things that can’t be replaced. With the exception of the Wakandan thing, the artifacts in the museum are real artificacts. The Benin Ivory masks (among other precious works) were plundered from the Benin Empire and are still on display in the United Kingdom. Nigeria had to commission re-creations of it when it rightly belongs to them. It’s not even a secret how countries like Ghana and even Congo were looted for their resources. In that context, it made a ton of sense for Wakanda to isolate and hide itself.
How much responsibility a powerful country should take and what role it should play in global politics particularly in the midst of strife. I don’t need say more about that.
How easily extremism can creep into political discourse and cause divisions in society. W’Kabi was always somewhat militant and as soon as someone like Killmonger came in, he simply fell in line with him and didn’t hesitate to raise arms against his own people. We’ve already seen this happen in many western countries and it’s just now entering American politics.
How difficult it is to be a ruler and a good man. It’s been said many times that as leader of a nation, one has to make some very difficult decisions, T’Challa is a guy with a heart (of course because he’s a superhero) and some of the stuff his father did was something he just couldn’t roll with. Although, we will see the real consequences of his decisions in the next movie.
Then you have some little celebrations of Pan-Africanism (the separate colors that Okoye, Nakia and T’Challa wore to the Casino represent the Pan-African flag), Afro-futurism (something that’s never been seen on screen) and strong naturalistic female depictions.
These are some of the reasons that critics are praising the movie. Critics generally like movies that “say something”and it’s very rare for superhero movies to say anything. It’s not because of an all-black cast because if that were the case Tyler Perry movies and Fifty Shades of Black would be critically acclaimed.