Years 10 – 13 were lucky enough to be joined by acclaimed film analyst and teacher Lauren Binks, who visited Sydenham High as part of our Black History Month celebrations for 2022. Delivering a special TED Talk-style seminar, she deconstructed and revealed some of the hidden messages behind the movie, ‘Black Panther’ and explored some of the deeper themes and motivations behind the characters, the director and the lines.
For example, Lauren spoke about how the protagonist T’Challa and the antagonist, his cousin, Eric Killmonger both wanted the same thing: to see Wakanda prosper and thrive but had different ways of achieving these goals. She noted that the complexities of their ideals has been compared to historic figures such as Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X.
The film grossed over $1 billion in the box office, making it one of the most successful movies of all time and proved to Hollywood that Black stories made by Black people for Black people deserved to be made and funded with the same enthusiasm and vigour as their white counterparts.
Lauren also spoke about the influence of African culture on making Wakanda seem like a real, developed Afro-futuristic world and spoke about the level of detail, thought and effort that went into representing a range of different real-life African customs on such a global scale – many of which had never been seen on the big screen before. She commented that Wakanda could almost be a vision of what Africa might have been had colonialism not taken place on the continent and referenced specific lines and situations in the film and what they mean in regards to the zeitgeist of 2018 when the film was released.
Finally, she spoke about the “strong, fierce” and powerful Black women depicted on screen, not as a love interest or in a degrading manner but as individuals proud of where they come from. She noted how at various points T’Challa leans on the women in his life for counsel, for guidance, for technological help and even for protection. He recognises them as his equal and knows that he can’t do what he needs to without them.
Aside from being one of the most popular films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ‘Black Panther’ is perhaps one of the boldest and proudest representations of the Black experience in modern cinema. It created a cultural moment at the time of its release in 2018, the effects of which are still being felt today.
