I can’t fuck with Killmonger criticisms that say “he’s completely and irredeemably evil” from the exact same people who glamorize Loki and other one-dimensional MCU villains for the same reasons. To me, it’s very transparent that Killmonger is vilified for the same traits praised in the likes of Kyle Ron and Loki.

They’re not even the same traits. Killmonger experienced genuine loss and grief, and went through a deprived childhood that he clawed his way out of. He came out of it with a sympathetic motivation to help a brutally oppressed group he was part of. When he was talking at the end about his ancestors who had jumped out of slave ships, that was his mother’s folk he was talking about. He is a descendant of people who were kidnapped and enslaved. The means he meant to use for his ends were terrible and destructive, which was why he was a villain and the main characters rallied to stop him, but I don’t trust people who say his motivations were not relatable or that he had no redeemable characteristics.

Loki? Look, I like the amoral little shit and find him entertaining as hell, but he is just that–an amoral little shit. All he had by way of motivation was that he was… adopted? And that his dad (also an amoral shit) lied about it? Like, fuck outta here. It’s not even comparable.

I disagree and I really think that if John Boyega had been playing Ross instead of Martin Freeman then you wouldn’t be saying this. Ross didn’t create Erik. Erik created Erik. He makes that clear and by you attempting to give the white credit you take away the black man’s autonomy. Yes Ross probably should have died and I actually was stunned he didn’t. Take it up with Ryan Coogler. Hating white characters because they’re white characters isn’t the business.

I’m pretty sure Michael B. Jordan played Erik Killmonger and I thought Killmonger’s death was a powerful and meaningful moment. But I say the same would have been true of Ross, and suddenly I hate whitey? 😂 And you actually agree with me, but when it’s me it must be because I hate white characters. Right. Could you actually get your own points straight before coming into my inbox?

And no, giving Killmonger an on-screen mentor does not in any way take away from his autonomy because Erik CHOSE to accept, and indeed actively sought out, those teachings. Having Ross be the mentor would have made for a stronger story with tighter relationships and given him an actual character arc, while making it clear he was as bad as Killmonger–worse, in many ways, because he did not have the same sympathetic motivations. Ross certainly would not in any universe have made the best parts of Killmonger, the righteous rage against injustice.

I had a white friend defend ross as “the most visible example of T’Challa’s open-mindedness” and the dogfight as “needed in order to show how helping others gets paid in kind”. I was like, “nah, ross wasn’t helping Wakanda, he was saving the white people of the outside world”, and after also quoting you and your anon on Ramonda (THANK YOU, btw), I added “ross could’ve just followed Shuri and Nakia to fight Killmonger, improvising klaue’s confiscated arm as his weapon. that’s helpful enough”. 😆

Exactly. There was no need to give him a stand-out moment when there were other characters (RAMONDA) who could have filled his role to better dramatic effect. He could have been a footsoldier and that would have been plenty help if having him help was the goal here. Also I love the idea of him getting to use Klaue’s arm cannon, that was some of the most impressive firepower in the movie and I’m sure he would have loved it.

I feel like Ross had one sole significant job in the movie which was to verbally explain Killmonger’s plan to the audience, but I feel like that didn’t even play out right enough? Like, I had friends asking “why didn’t erik kill and deliver klaue right away? why help him in london and busan?”. My interpretation was “to make T’Challa look weak, increasing Erik’s odds”; it’s dirty politics CIA would use. Ross should’ve stated “Busan was Killmonger’s plan” at some point, I feel. But he didn’t.

They’re the SAME GUYS, both CIA, both trained in its tactics and its worldview. Killmonger just had a much more sympathetic motivation and wanted a different set of people on top of the same structure. I hate that the story didn’t make this clear enough, making it seem like Ross is somehow better than Killmonger.

lj-writes:

Black Panther SPOILERS on Okoye below the cut:

Keep reading

Another ask on the subject:

Yeah, it really doesn’t come across that way at all, and considering how good they were with the T’Challa/Nakia romance the cast and crew were MORE than capable of making Okoye/W’Kabi sing if they wanted to. This is why I suspect all the more that there was Executive Meddling involved and the cast and crew were resisting it by giving the barest lip service to a male/female romance while not playing it as one. Either that, or the decision to straightwash Okoye came too late–Joanna Robinson wrote in April 2017 about seeing the Okoye/Ayo scene–to develop a proper romance for her and W’Kabi.

Black Panther SPOILERS on Okoye below the cut:

Yeah, I don’t think the plot required a romance between Okoye and W’Kabi at all. They didn’t even come across as a couple other than calling each other “my love” maybe like… one time each? @la-fuckin-life and I were talking about how they would have worked SO MUCH BETTER as siblings, with him feeling betrayed that she wouldn’t come back to the border tribe to lead it while she is firm that her ultimate loyalty is to Wakanda and not her home tribe. It would have set up the worldbuilding–that the Dora Milaje are sent from different tribes to serve Wakanda–while giving both Okoye and W’Kabi interesting conflicts both internally and with each other. It would have made the climactic battle so much more fraught if Okoye were fighting her own tribe, and killing a brother for your country is a far bigger deal than killing a boyfriend. It would even make the rhino thing work, because obviously she raised that animal with him and it recognized her!

I’m just going to go ahead and headcanon that “my love” is a term of endearment between siblings in Wakanda.

Black Panther SPOILERS below the cut on the climactic battle scene:

My God, anon, that is the perfect solution! It would have made the whole sequence so much more meaningful and suspenseful, too. And think of the toll on Shuri, she would have been like “Mom, get out!!” and wanting to go back to get her when Ramonda would not leave. Ramonda could have let her know in no uncertain terms that Shuri is to hold her position and that Wakanda is bigger than any one person, bigger than family. And, of course, she would kick everyone’s ass easily before getting out of there cool as you please.

Bonus points if she flips off the plane attacking the lab as she leaves, in a callback to Shuri from early in the movie. Maybe she even saves something particularly meaningful/useful from the lab on the way, because she’s that thoughtful kind of mom.

the black panther criticisms, from what i’ve gathered, are essentially people unable to have fun and take shit way too seriously. this is only amplified because they know black people have been waiting for this for SO LONG but no, they try deconstructing scenes that truly aren’t that deep while letting captain america and ironman slide for the same thing. wonder why.

The double standard is staggering. I think some viewers are experiencing a lot of stress or fragility with this movie. As Karen Gwee pointed out with Beyoncé’s Lemonade, which I think also applies here, a lot of white viewers aren’t used to media that isn’t made for them. For some that results in a sense of wrongness when faced with something like Black Panther which everyone can enjoy but doesn’t center whiteness or the white gaze, and the urge to rationalize that feeling by finding something wrong with the work.

The thing is, Black Panther is an amazing movie with a lot of depth and meaning. It crosses genre barriers with ease and works on every level. Just because you’re not centered in it doesn’t mean it’s bad. It has its problems, sure, and I’ve been engaged in extensive fix-it headcanons with other fans both on this blog and in chat, but none of these problems is worth obsessively nitpicking over in a quest to prove this is somehow a Bad Movie. It’s not, people. Get over it.

Dude, I have this white friend who said “the support for Black Panther is like, ‘too die-hard’, it’s making me nervous to criticize anything about it”. I, a woc who’s had to endure being hate-trolled by thousands of white ppl everytime I’ve dared to publicly call out their problematic white faves, burst out laughing, real hard, for at least a whole minute. Once I sobered up, I told my confused and hurt white friend, in the most tranquil tone I could muster, “Now you know what it’s like”. XD

I don’t think white people realize that almost EVERY piece of media produced in their countries, especially the ones with international reach, is their White Panther if you will, celebrating their culture, ingenuity, values, and beauty. I can kind of understand why some would feel unsure in the totally different landscape of BP. Turnabout is fair play, eh? Not that it’s a one-on-one equivalent, since the history of Blackness as a construct is nothing like that of whiteness.

read your under the cut… btw, did you watch Age of Ultron, and if yes, how did the scene in South Korea seem to you in regards to realism, was it close enough or not like the real thing at all..

I think it was more accurate mostly by luck–it took place in a more generic metropolitan location so there wasn’t much to get in the way of action scenes, and the city was Seoul, which fits the standard dialect used by actors who are cast for location shoots.