BLACK PANTHER OPENS THE DOOR, THEN ONLY HALF STEPS IN

Estimated reading time: 50 minutes. SPOILERS INCLUDED

Black Panther is a game changing Afro-Futurist Pan-African artefact that is changing several playing fields in the world

There is no denying this cultural moment. The Black Panther movie has inspired the African diaspora with the vision of a Black and African superhero who leads an unconquered African nation that is the most technologically advanced on Earth that has built this from the ground up out of its ancient traditions. The movie has also assembled some of the most beautiful and gifted Black diaspora talents in front and behind the camera in an unprecedented big-budget Black movie epic about African subject matter set on the continent. Just on the strength of its trailers, its majestic art direction, and its strategic hype led by its beautiful diaspora-wide cast millions of Black people around the world have already been awakened to new possibilities of self and new imaginative frontiers. The vision of such a movie done on an epic scale by black writers, a black director, co-producer, production designer, and costume designer, and a storied multi-generational mostly Black A-list cast has inspired a groundswell of black diaspora arousal around the idea of an idyllic Black present and future. This article will attempt to critically assess the movie and the larger cultural moment that is cascading around it…