The superhero film that could change the world
This week at the Super Bowl we got a bunch of new trailers for a lot of well-hyped films: Jurassic World, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Mission
Impossible 6 and more. One eagerly awaited film didn't feature, though — Black Panther. And then I realised how little hype the film has actually had, especially considering it's Disney, Marvel and an all-star cast with a killer soundtrack curated by arguably the biggest rapper in the world, Kendrick Lamar.
Meanwhile, a bunch of white guys on adventures and not-soimpossible missions hit the Super Bowl, talkshows, the news and social media in a big way.
The fact that we're even getting all these spinoffs and sequels is mindblowing. No one needs another blockbuster led by a straight, white male as the classic (see: played out) lovable rogue, going on misadventures with a cast full of sidekicks. You could just cut them all together, make Solo: A Guardians of the Galaxy Story starring Tom Cruise and some dinosaurs and no one would know the difference.
This is exactly why I'm so excited about Black Panther. It’s more than just another blockbuster. It's a film made by and almost exclusively starring people of colour, who aren't sidekicks and footnotes but kings and queens. A film where the women are beautiful but also fearsome warriors and who — if early reviews are to be believed — have voices which are taken into account.
It’s an African universe inside the Marvel universe which we all know has been a whitewash up till now — Wolverine, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Spider-Man and even Ant-man, all got franchises. But Blade remains the only hero of colour to ever receive the same treatment — probably only because Marvel started developing it in the 1990s when vampires were all the rage.
And if you think there’s not an element of racism involved, let me point out the Facebook group full of people who organised a mission to purposely lower Black Panther’s rating on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes.
The group’s name? Down With Disney’s Treatment Of Franchises And Its Fanboys. I kid you not. They also tried a similar stunt against The Last Jedi last year because the studios’ attempts to diversify were actually attempts to “shove SJW [Social Justice Warrior] messages down our throats” and “minorities . . . should stay that way”.
When the trailer was first released, people on Twitter called it “too black’” and lamented having a movie about a “domestic terrorist [with] racist followers that hate white people”. Ah Twitter, the cesspit of society. Here’s what I know: when you grow up seeing people of colour on screen only as sidekicks, standing in the background, keeping quiet, it does something to the way you see yourself and your place in the world; your willingness to step up, stand out and take ownership. And I don’t know if any of us ever really get over it — I’ve spoken with friends about how no matter what, we still find ourselves holding our tongues or denying our own accomplishments.
But now, to have this entire universe of people of colour in a blockbuster from the world’s biggest studios, it feels like Time’s Up on that too.
People want films like this and the numbers prove it: the trailer clocked 89 million views within 24 hours, it’s been hailed by critics as a game changer, has a 99 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s slated to outsell all three of the latest Marvel films with an estimated record- breaking opening weekend figure of US$150m.
With success like this, Black Panther could wake Hollywood up to the fact that people of colour have stories worth telling and maybe Donald Glover’s Lando will lead the next Star Wars film or X-Men’s Storm will get an origin story.
But more importantly, it’s a film that could change how a new generation see themselves and each other, and in that respect it’s definitely a game changer.