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Phillip Mayaka

English 110

Instructor Gunner

15 November 2022

The Importance of Black Panther to the African

Diaspora

Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther (2018) is a superhero film mainly based on African

culture. It starts with the protagonist T’challa mourning the loss of his father. T’challa is

later crowned as king and protector of the fictional nation of Wakanda and becomes the

Black Panther. Wakanda is a small nation in North East Africa that has lived in isolation

for centuries but in the marvel universe it is considered the most technologically

advanced nation of the planet. The film goes on to present T’challa, Shuri, Nakia, and

Okoye defend the nation against two mysterious villains that threaten Wakanda’s safety if

their conditions are not met. The merit gained from Black Panther lies in its ability to

overturn negative stereotypes about Africa with positive images of an African Utopian

civilization showcasing how an African country would look if it was never colonized,

while also representing Africans and educating others on African culture.

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The use of positive images of Wakanda, an uncolonized African nation, in Black

Panther is meant to make us overturn the certain way we think about people of the

African diaspora. There’s been a popular stereotype established throughout history that

Africa is a poor and uneducated country. While some of the information may be true as

Africa is a third-world continent we have to look at the context as to why that is. Donkor

said, “Having “a place in the sun” served as the impetus for powerful nations to move out

to acquire territories. From Africa to the Americas, Asia to islands in the Pacific Ocean,

these nations created spheres of influence and subjected huge territories and their

populations to intense exploitation. They siphoned wealth from colonized territories to

shore up industries in their countries, while colonized sites remained marginal to the

political economy that industrialization engendered”( Donkor 28.) Africa historically as a

continent is a prominent land filled with rich resources. Given the opportunity there could

be many wealthy African countries if colonization were to never occur. This is best said

by Alex Wong, “ East Africa would likely be more developed and richer today had they

not been conquered to alter the Indian Ocean trade routes” (Wong 2017). Black Panther

overturns these negative stereotypes by exhibiting a beautiful technologically advanced

country in their film. This in turn can change the negative stigma surrounding people of

the African Diaspora by giving them a fresh new image in the media.

As shown Coogler represents people of the African diaspora positively in his film

using Wakanda, a technologically advanced civilization by showcasing a protagonist

superhero of color with African culture in a universe where every other superhero is

white. Even though there are minor superheroes like Nick Fury in Captain America: The
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winter soldier (2014) and warmachine in Ironman 2 (2010) who are basically sidekicks or

side characters, having a film solely dedicated to a colored superhero with her own

African culture is very inspirational towards people of color in ways we can’t imagine.

Having a colored superhero that fights evil villains shows African Americans that we can

enable justice too. Representation is important because it changes the already poor social

quota of the role of African Americans in films. As the article writer Washington said, “

For so long, Black actors have been forced to usually play roles like the comic relief, the

ghetto best friend, or the thug villain (with the exception of actors such as Denzel

Washington and Viola Davis). But with the introduction of the Black Panther in the film

industry, it’s proof Black actors can play more than the stereotypical roles we’ve been

reduced to. We can play heroes, we can play kings, we can play the role of one of the

most important members of the biggest Marvel superhero coalition” (Washington 2016).

Having African culture represented in the film can lead others to believe that people of

African descent can lead promising roles. The role of T’Challa, a king who protects his

country, who leads with diplomacy and justice are a few qualities that make him a

valuable role to the African diaspora around the world, it's something we haven’t seen

before on a big scale. Even myself, an African American living in America, seeing a

black superhero on film makes me happy. In D’Agostino’s “Who are you?”:

representation, identification, and self-definition in Black Panther” he explains the effects

of black representation in the film Black Panther towards the African American

community. He takes a social and educational approach to black problems such as

describing the act of purchasing a Black Panther movie ticket as a “political act”.

D’Agostino said, “black creators create more legitimate representations of blackness

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( usually because of their own identification with some stable concept of blackness) that

are automatically identified with by black viewers who are positively impacted by that

identification” (D’Agostino 2019). As he highlighted black creators create more

legitimate representations of blackness which are identified with people of the African

Diaspora and can create a positive effect from identification.

Black Panther also represents people of African descent by providing African culture. In

the film they provide a variety of culture including fashion, music, and traditions, such as

drawing inspiration from the ancient Nsibidi script from Southeastern Nigeria. Fage describes

the history of Africa and where we come from. To be more in depth, Fage describes the

continent Africa filled with savannahs with adequate supplies of game animals and year round

warmth from the sun which seemed to have provided a very suitable environment for early man

at least where there were permanent supplies of water. However by fifty thousand to sixty

thousand years ago African men were found using fire, a tool with which he could cook and

tender the tougher parts of his prey and so make efficient use of their food supply. Then the

author goes on to describe various countries of African people with their own culture, for

example Libyans, Ethiopians and Suadanese.

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Citations:

● Coogler, Ryan, director. Black Panther. Marvel Studios, 2018.

● Favreau, Justin, director. Iron Man 2. Marvel Studios, 2010.
● Russo, Anthony and Joe Russo, directors. Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Marvel
Studios, 2014.
● Wong: What if Africa was never colonized? - DNB Stories Africa
● D’Agostino, Anthony Michael. "“Who are you?”: representation, identification, and self-
definition in Black Panther." Safundi 20.1 (2019): 1-4.
● Martha Donkor. “Marching to the Tune: Colonization, Globalization, Immigration, and
the Ghanaian Diaspora.” Africa Today, vol. 52, no. 1, 2005, pp. 27–44. JSTOR,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4187843. Accessed 16 Nov. 2022.
● Washington source
● Fage, John. A history of Africa. Routledge, 2013.
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