Professor Shakes’ Lecture

Professor Shakes gave an interesting and eye opening lecture this past Thursday. I had seen Black Panther before and knew some of the themes that entailed from the movie, but not to the extent that she had shared. I have not seen Luke Cage so I will keep my focus on Black Panther. I would first like to mention how I thought it was interesting to see how the movie was made by white men, but then black writers took over the story. This changed the way the character and story looked, in order to fit themes regarding past and current issues.

In the movie, Shakes’ describes different characters desribing different ideas and peoples. King T’challa and Shuri  represented the peaceful abolitionist movement for freedom, Killmonger representing the “monster that imperlism and racism created, and Klaw representing the “colonist desire for domination.” After hearing the representations of each of these characters I began to understand why the movie was portrayed the way it was. I believe it was to show previous conflict and oppresion and how to deal with the problem at hand. This movie showed there are different ways of approaching the same issue. Professor Shakes mentioned how some audience wanted T’challa to have a Killmonger mindset. However, the authors took a different turn from that idea.

What this lecture showed me was how popular culture, such as a superhero film, can portray serious issues and the potential solutions to these issues.

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