All the hype about the movie Black Panther.

First Blade is shit and trinity is good? you must be from some parralel dimension or something.

 

Not shit. THE shit. Which gives it the complete opposite meaning. The shit = great, terrific, awesome, rad, etc.

Anyway, BP was fine, but yes, it was a bit overhyped solely because the guy's black. If people focus on any race no matter what over an actual plot, then priorities are messed up.

 

I know I am going to get a lot of hate for this but I think it's racist as shit. The fact that it's called black panther and has all black main characters is B.S. If they made a super hero movie called white knights with all white characters people would be crying and going crazy. I am fucking sick of hollywoods reverse racism bull shit. Wake up people.

 

I’m going to go see it this Wednesday.

I'm just a dude, playing a dude, disguised as another dude

 

Very good point. Hadn’t even thought of that.

Marvel didn’t pull Black Panther out of its ass in the past few years. Black Panther debuted in the July 1966 issue of the Fantastic Four comic book. In October of that same year, the Black Panther Party was founded by black people in response to police corruption and brutality. It is a bit awkward that a black superhero is called Black Panther, but his name was conceived in a different time, and it’s somehow stuck for more than 50 years. One of the villains in the movie, Ulysses Klaue, is white, and so is Agent Ross. The main character is from Africa and lives primarily in Africa (which was all established in the pre-existing comic books, not in the movie script), so naturally most of the main characters are going to be black.

The overwhelming majority of movies are still filled mostly with white people, which sure doesn’t look like reverse racism to me. For every Black Panther, there will be dozens of movies with mostly white casts. It’s one thing if a movie ignores the demographics of the location(s) where it’s set, like an all Asian cast in a movie that’s set in Sweden. It’s quite a different thing for a movie that mostly takes place in Africa to have mostly black main characters.

 

Do you think they should go old school like the did in the 10 commandments and hire white people to play the Africans?

 

I don't understand your point in the slightest. Who is it racist towards? What's wrong with having a movie with mostly black main characters? There are plenty of movies with mostly white main characters, for example. Are those racist too?

 

A movie set primarily in Africa, with primarily black actors....yeah this is racist. How dare they not cast all white people?

 

Lmao the nerve

 

I'm personally just sick about the hype and how people have been taken in by the movie, and the whole diversity Hollywood argument. Firstly even though I hate capeshit films, it's not the first black superhero film, Steel was and it was rightly shit which is why no one remembers it, but it tried.

Secondly the black panther isn't a character that has been pulled out of nowhere, it has been a long established character in the Marvel universe, and was invented by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in order to sell to the young black demographic of comic book readers, in the same way that Marvel now has been peddling social justice warrior characters, it was meant to capitalize on a specific market of readers who weren't the typical buying demographic. Same reason that blaxplotation films came into vogue, because there was money to be made from the demographic by making cinema specifically for that group. Unfortunately this is what I see the new Black Panther as.

Modern Hollywood has become a progressive hugbox, (I know I work with these types.) Where SJW values have infiltrated every aspect of the media. They hate single white male demographics, and have this fetishised view of empowerment for women, POC, LGBTQ, and it has all become about focusing on the message and selling points. Sad to say but in Hollywood at this moment, white males are not being considered as part of the demographic, because they will see movies regardless of the SJW messages.
They may whine, they may complain, but all female ghostbusters still sold tickets, wonder woman still sold tickets, and Black Panther still will sell tickets, because the majority of the demographic likes seeing these genres of films, despite any inserted form of propaganda or SJW talking points.

So then we move on to the real problem that I have with Black Panther and it is the fact that it is highly pandering to the black demographic. Everyone has been sold the line that its the first black super hero film. It's set in some weird fictional totalitarian ruling class in a country with a huge ethno-statist theme. It is massively disingenuous towards actual African tribal societies and culture, most of which African Americans wouldn't understand anyways because they are
so extremely removed from African heritage and traditions that all we get in the film is an ersatz version of easily digestible and ultimately vapid cultural winks and nods.
And finally while I commend it on having a nearly all black cast in a movie that is placed albeit fictionally in Africa, I cannot help but think, perhaps forlornly that if the story of the film is excellent then it does not need the current diversity casting that Hollywood seems to think needs to be inserted forcefully into everything.
The focus should have been on Black Panther being just a great movie, (very difficult with capeshit genre films) not the self congratulatory circle jerk of people going on about it being the greatest movie of all time because of muh diversity. All the while the people who produced the movie are sitting back and rubbing their hands together as the money flows in. That in itself is an area I think that people who are actually serious about diversity need to look into. Go ahead and look up the list of the producers for the film on IMDB, and then we can have a serious conversation about actual diversity in Hollywood.

At the end of the day this has been what Hollywood has always been, an excuse to sell merchandising through chicanery, a way to pander to the demographics of people who will swallow everything they are told to without question, because they are either ignorant, or willfully deceiving themselves. If Hollywood really wanted to empower black people. (Aside from another mind numbing film about the civil rights movement, which by this point has been done to death.) Then there are so many areas that it could explore with actual historical African characters. Same goes for Asians too. Make the story interesting, make the characters interesting, and people will watch regardless of the lead or the full casts race.

 

Uh... Black Panther has been around since 1966 (in comic books). The story of black panther isn’t some sort of new idea meant to pander to black people and promote reverse racism. If you haven’t noticed, Marvel and DC have been making movies based on all their comic book characters and now it’s just Black Panther’s turn. Chillax.

 

Of course not.

First the name of the movie is BLACK PANTHER. Second there is nothing wrong with having a movie with mostly black characters. Third no they are not racist. Have you been paying attention to how the movie is marketed? Clearly not.

I am not saying this at all. Stop putting words in my mouth. Open your eyes to how the media markets the movie.

Think about it why name a movie Black Panther and finally come out with it now. Why not come out with it 10 years ago? If a movie was named White Knights and it was about some white super heroes do you not think black people would do the same thing?

 

This is the exact point I'm trying to make. I agree The story of black panther isn't some sort of new idea. You got the end all wrong though that's exactly what Hollywood is trying to do. The front is the comic has been around since 1966.

 

No, you got your theory all wrong. Making it into something else makes me think you’re the racist one.

 

So your entire basis of it being racist is that the movie is called "black panther".

Again, what's your point? He is the Black Panther. That's what his character is called. You're not representing your stance very well. Explain your seemingly ridiculous position. How is it racist?

This is speculation. You're basing your point off of a possibility. So I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions to better understand you here.

What's the sigificance of Black Panther coming out now as opposed to 10 years ago? Why would it coming out now be somehow racist?

Because as far as I'm aware, you're saying it's racist because Black Panther is black. Since the movie is called that, it's racist even though he would be regarded as a black guy.

With the Marvel movies, it's an on-going story. Black Panther was introduced in Civil War as well as Spider Man and both heroes needed their own movie to give more focus to the characters.

As far as I can tell about your stance, you're just somebody looking to stir up a debate just to stir up one. I like debating as much as the next guy ( perhaps a bit too much ), but you need to give us a little more than what you already have.

 

Yes they are. Just because Hollywood is considering women and minorities more doesn’t mean white males are being ignored. If most white males are still seeing these movies that you seem to have a problem with, then perhaps most white males don’t see those movies the same way that you do. I can’t speak for everyone, but if there was a movie that was very clearly racist and/or sexist, I wouldn’t give a shit if it was technically part of a genre I enjoyed, I wouldn’t watch it.

Hollywood’s primary interest has always been making money? Gosh, I never would’ve guessed from a studio spending $100 million or more on producing and marketing just one major movie. There have been lots of movies made about World War II in Europe and the Holocaust. Are those mind-numbing too? Could it be that a lot of people watch the movies you dislike because they find the story and characters interesting, and don’t care about the race of the lead or race of the full cast?

At the end of the day, the interest of a movie is subjective.

 

While you're not wrong with interest being subjective, I'll have to agree with @GeneralismoKilgore on that particular point. I too think movies about slavery are completely over-done and are now rather unnecessary. ( But this is obviously an opinion )

I completely agree with this.

 

Obviously I wasn't as succinct in my comments as I thought I was. I have no problems with more people of color in lead roles, I have no problems with women in lead roles, or all female casts, or all black casts, or any other group of people who would be considered minorities in American film making. The focus should be on making the best movie possible, and not using diversity as a marketing gimmick, which is essentially what I see is my whole issue with the Black Panther film.

Point in case, one of my favorite films of all time is Black Dynamite. The film is a masterclass on satire. It has a majority black cast, and genuinely is excellent on so many levels that I cannot recommend it enough.

Regardless of how I feel about comic book films in general, and I'm willing to admit I don't consider them high art, they are just popcorn cinema, I do take exception to pandering to a specific group of people as a marketing ploy regardless of ethnic background or gender.

As for your not choosing to watch a movie you'd either find sexist or racist no matter how much you enjoyed the genre, congratulations, but that has no actual bearing on the subject. For myself I don't really care what people deem a movie to be, one way or the other. I like challenging myself with the cinema that I watch, even if I find the subject matter particularly unpleasant.

In regards to Hollywood being a business. Of course its main function is to make money, only a complete idiot would argue otherwise. However there is a middle ground between purely run of the mill safe sales film making and trying to present something that breaks new ground, and I'm sorry if I find particular film establishments boring. Holocaust films sell, but Jews were not the only victims of the holocaust. World War II films sell, but Western Europe wasn't the only field of conflict. The Civil Rights movement films sell, but the civil rights movement was not the only defining moment of black history in America. The list goes on and on.

The most original WW2 film I've seen in recent years was Letters To Iwo Jima, classically it was a film that Hollywood wouldn't traditionally have touched if not for Clint Eastwood being attached to it, a Japanese language film produced for American audiences. I can only imagine what sort of cross talks must have gone on in order to get funding and a green light for it. It went on to be successful and critically acclaimed and rightfully so, and worked against the typical established film tropes for Japanese people during the war period. As being the foreign invaders who either bombed pearl harbor, got nuked, or ran the most abhorrent of interment camps during the war.

Alternatively how fascinating would it be to have a film about American interment camps for the Japanese, a part of history that had a hugely profound effect on part of Americas population, but for the most part is completely ignored, or at least I've never seen a serious screenplay to that effect.

I'm not saying that civil rights films and historical figures from that period aren't interesting they are, but at the same time there is so much rich history of black people in just America alone that to me it just seems a shame that it is just the one period of history that gets fixated on.

Who knows maybe Black Panther will be a new catalyst for bringing back mainstream black cinema into the US, the blaxplotation period had some really terrible films and some really great ones too, it exposed audiences to a whole new genre of films, before being stifled by politicians and moral busybodies.
It may also enable more good African actors a way into Hollywood, or heaven forbid actual African films access to the US markets. Nollywood and the South African film industry have produced some great films and series that do not get a look in.

Again like you said, its purely subjective.

 

I just finished watching this movie. It wasn’t great and it wasn’t horrible. I’ve come to accept that I’m not really a Marvel movie fan. I never understand the hype behind them; like with Deadpool, I watched it and felt pretty meh about it.

 

I may have been wrong to a point. Rolling stones changed my mind imagine that. I guess i'll watch it this weekend.