• Flyberius [comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 month ago

    Am I the only person who thought the giant forcefield protecting Wakanda being activated/deactivated by a tribal drumming routine a bit iffy? To me that would be like MI6 Q labs being unlocked by a Morris dancer troop.

    • FlakesBongler [they/them]
      ·
      1 month ago

      I'm still mad they kept the weird "We pick kings through ritual combat" angle

      Which, you know, making the technologically advanced nation governmentally regressive is still really racist

      • SevenSkalls [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 month ago

        Let's be honest, if they didn't do that they would've made the African king picked through a western-style bourgeois liberal democracy, which would've been worse lol

        • FlakesBongler [they/them]
          ·
          1 month ago

          So, the fun thing about it is that in the comics, there is a story arc where M'Baku (at the time, still using the moniker of the Man-Ape, which... yeah) is the one who manages to fight King T'Chaka and kill him to assume the role of King of Wakanda

          This story arc was considered so out-of-touch and racist, that Marvel immediately went out of their way to hire a series of Black authors to helm the title

          Some of them went out of their way to establish Wakandan politics as being more of a Council Democracy where the 12 tribes of Wakanda voted for their tribal leader and then the tribal leaders voted for the King

          The position of King was essentially just picking the Black Panther (Wakanda's strongest protector) and representing Wakanda on the world stage

          To see them deliberately going back to ritual combat is definitely Disney making a Statement

          Especially with the sequel where they tried to force a similar thing with making Atlantis a mish-mash of Pre-Columbian cultures and saying that Namor's name came from the conquistadors saying "No Amor" which, what the fuck?

          • bigbrowncommie69 [any]
            ·
            1 month ago

            Idk about this cause the ritual combat thing has come back frequently in recent history including during the Reginald Hudlin run, which has informed most contemporary takes on the character, and in some of the cartoons as well like Avengers: EMH.

            I will say I like what Coogler did with Man-Ape, made him a much more balanced and nuanced character.