Is Black Panther actually insulting? A Chinese review

[Unwritten1]

You're making it sound like they did a bad thing.

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If you enjoy well thought out and consitant worlds in your fiction then it was a bad thing. If they had planed things out better then they wouldn't have had to sacrafice wouldbuilding at all.

More seriously, my dude, this is completely pointless nitpicking. This is Cinema Sins-level of pointless nitpicking. Sometimes, artistic choices are just made, and they either work or they don't. The artistic choices in this movie work fine -- you're just disagreeing with them on principle here because the movie chose to have a graphic showing where Wakanda is located in the real world, meaning it had something you could look up. That's not stellar criticism.

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I never said I hated the film becuse of it. Read what I orignaly said.

it is the little details that wind me up.

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I didn't exspect people to get so angry that I found an minor inconsistency in the film slightly irritateing. Stuff like that is annoying becuse it is so minor and easy to fix and yet they fail to do so. Dispite it not masively impacting the film it is still valid criticism.

Actually, considering that at least one language of Wakanda was established in a previous movie (as @Arthur Frayn pointed out), choosing to flip-flop between languages for Wakanda might have appeared inconsistent, might have led to a lacking suspension of disbelief for the audience, and would have been attacked on the grounds of insufficient or contrarian worldbuilding. They had to choose which inconsistency to follow, and following the characterization of two of the movie's key characters set in one of the world's largest crossover blockbusters made more sense than giving Wakanda languages that fit better geographically.

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Read what I said again. Actually read it this time don't just skim it.

The obvious argument against this is that since they decided where to put the country they could have put it in a more fiting spot for the language but as I said before their choise to sacrfice worldbuilding for their art direction was probably the right choice for most of their target audiance.

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[Hologram Killer]

If you enjoy well thought out and consitant worlds in your fiction then it was a bad thing. If they had planed things out better then they wouldn't have had to sacrafice wouldbuilding at all.



I never said I hated the film becuse of it. Read what I orignaly said.

I didn't exspect people to get so angry that I found an minor inconsistency in the film slightly irritateing. Stuff like that is annoying becuse it is so minor and easy to fix and yet they fail to do so. Dispite it not masively impacting the film it is still valid criticism.


Read what I said again. Actually read it this time don't just skim it.

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Can you quit it. It's a valid criticism, but it's also annoying. People are reading what you're writing, but in the context of the thread you look silly bringing up tiny inconsistencies (if they can even be called that) when people are discussing if the entire film insulting. This isn't a general thread about the movie or it's worldbuilding.

 

[Entropy Judge]

I didn't exspect people to get so angry that I found an minor inconsistency in the film slightly irritateing

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Call it a failure of idiomatic language. Winding you up might not be as bad as driving you up a wall, but I've always seen it as more than just ruffling your feathers. It doesn't say, "I'm slightly irritated," it says, "this is something I really don't like."

I mean, stuff like that is annoying because it's so minor and easy to fix, but people keep using inaccurate idiomatic statements instead of clearly saying what they mean. Due to the fact that it can massively impact a conversation, it's a very valid criticism.

 

[Reveen]

Dispite it not masively impacting the film it is still valid criticism.

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It's also an irrelevant one that has barely anything to do with the quality of the movie. Because it's a two hour action blockbuster movie in a massive multimedia superhero franchise, and having well thought out intricate worldbuilding is not it's job.

The shot to shot color grading has more relevance to why it's good than the worldbuilding or whatever.

 

[Athene]

If you enjoy well thought out and consitant worlds in your fiction then it was a bad thing.

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I had a lot of sarcastic responses to this but what can I say say that could male it look worse?

Here's the deal sport: I don't actually think this took you out of the movie. I don't think you actually even knew. I think you want to seem smarter via pointless nitpick. I am going to gamble and say you're not an expert on Bantu languages.

Dispite it not masively impacting the film it is still valid criticism.

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Is it though, is it really? With as powerful of a divergence point as Wakanda, we don't know what they would be speaking. A commonly spoken Bantoid language is perfectly acceptable as a stand in for Wakandan*

I mean, just looking up Xhosa and Bantoid languages in combination with the alternate history involved could lead you to "Oh, maybe Xhosa comes from Wakanda" as a strong possibility. You know, what with the Bantu migration taking the future Xhosa, and Xhosa related, peoples through where you put Wakanda.

And the thousands of years of alternate history of course. We literally can't say what language they would be speaking and so an approximation, stand in or random appropriate choice works perfectly fine and isn't actually an issue.

*Its amazing how quickly it becomes obvious you didn't do any research to accuse others of not doing research, when someone just does a basic look into this shit.

 

[all fictions]

And, like, conlangs of Wakanda have already been done elsewhere. For example, recording artist Stephen James Taylor created a Bantu-derived Wakandan conlang for the theme song to BET's Black Panther animated series:

Eh ai ee nene mahngukulo
Black Panther, The Black Panther
Kapai yan-go ja lee ka mo
Black Panther, The Black Panther
Me me eh ye pan geh
Shee ku lo me seh
Une ne mure mokasahn
Gan ye shuke me Te'Challa
Black Panther ! Black Panther ! Black Panther ! Black Panther!

Kake la Wakanda
Kake le le
Kakee ye ma
Oh ka puca shoka
Black Panther!
Kake Nene pahn dah
Kake sheh sheh
Kake me seh
Noka tuca posha
Black Panther!
Une ne mure moka sahn
Ganye shuke se Te'Challa
Black Panther ! Black Panther ! Black Panther ! Black Panther!
"Get out' my way !"
Whoa!

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Ta-Nehisi Coates as well created a Wakandan language (or at least a bit of one) for his Black Panther comic book series. He too based it on African languages from the appropriate region:

Wakandan language

Unlike Klingon or Dothraki, there's no official version of the fictional Wakandan language. In this story, we mostly see it translated into English, but there are a few words Coates wanted to play around with in untranslated form. It resembles real languages, but don't bother trying to find literal translations of the Wakandan terms. "I could have created a Wakandan language from scratch, but the idea is that Wakandan, as represented to the reader, pulls from a variety of African languages. [The language is] imagined as an amalgam. I think there's a little bit of Hausa in there. There might be some Swahili in there. There might be a little bit of Shona in there."

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So like, if you want worldbuilding on the Wakandan language, go read and/or watch those things.

And also because they are pretty good in themselves. Just sayin'.

In any case, while conlangs are my type of nerd wankery, they are completely unecessary to the quality of a movie; Bright had conlangs, but Bright still sucked orc's ass for example. BP had a good reasoning for using Xhosa, first because of T'chaka's actor, and second because Wakanda's amalgam of elements from cultures all over the African continent was intentional and worked with the pan-Africanist theme of the movie.

As such, this is kind of an irrelevant complaint.

 

[Gore17]

There's a lot I can say here, especially about endemic racism towards Africans and people of African descent in China, ideas of Chinese cultural superiority, and how it's ironic that a Chinese person is telling black people that they should be offended by Black Panther.

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My take is "Hey, at least they're think about other cultures and what would be respectful to them".

Nevermind that this fucking review frames the movie like it was made by white people, which for Black Panther is pretty goddamned far from the truth.

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This article is getting the biggest side eye from me. There is nothing lazy about this movie production. Even a brief google will show you the research and care they put into depicting a variety of Africans cultures. It also feels like the author doesn't realize that many African and African Americans were involved, they phrase it as if it's a movie made by white people to cater to white people when the opposite is true. Have you also considered that it's kind of disrespectful to completely disregard something that has empowered a minority community? Like "how could you not realize how bad this is?" doesn't seem a bit condescending to you? Honestly there are reviews by black critics that are better able to articulate the impact of the film and I'd implore you to look for some.

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*ponders* How much of that info was available in China at the time? That wasn't, you know, in english, which they may not have been able to read/understand.

 

[Droman]

So, what are your thoughts about this? And if you're Indian, Arab, Japanese or whatever, what would you think if a movie like this was made about your ethnicity?

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I disagree with the writer. And if I got something akin to Black Panther as an Arab, I'd be intrigued and want to see it in action before making any actual commentary. Super! Canaan on an island between Cyrpus and Lebanon or Super! Arabia in the Empty Quarter would be cool, though.

With black panther, it is the little details that wind me up. Like how they speak Xhosa, a laguage of South Africa, despite wakanda being located next to Uganda in the East. The fact that they didn't do such simple research, or did it and then ignored it, is disapointing.

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The Xhosa migrated southwards to the Cape from the region around the Great Lakes, which is bordered by Uganda. A complaint that they speak Xhosa is like complaining that English and German are from the same family tree. It's also ignorant of the fact that linguistically and tribally speaking, African peoples have dispersed widely across the continent historically, with countries like Nigeria, Niger, Congo and others having dozens if not hundreds of unique peoples under their national borders.

 

[Aranfan]

Now, I am neither black nor African nor Asian, but to me the scenario in the review misses the importance of local context. The ceramic kingdom described has no relation to actual Chinese culture. Wakanda, however, pulls heavily from many African cultures.

I imagine that would make a difference.

 

[Fivemarks]

My take is "Hey, at least they're think about other cultures and what would be respectful to them".


*ponders* How much of that info was available in China at the time? That wasn't, you know, in english, which they may not have been able to read/understand.

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Given China's issues with racism towards black people, I'd rather not give the benefit of a doubt to this. If you'll excuse me for that.

It's like, all those MRA reviews of The Force Awakens, complaining about how the film was racist against Straight White Males(tm). You don't need to put on your thinking cap and step into their shoes to be able to go that it comes from a poisoned well.

 

[Chloe Sullivan]

I dunno, the whole review seems to come from a place of privilege.

China has an active film industry. Heck, it's had the ability to make fairly solid, quality movies since at least the 50's.

China can get representation in it's own, quality, internationally-watched films anytime.

Africa takes what it can get.

Check your privilege, Chinese dude.

 

[andy50]

Heck, it's had the ability to make fairly solid, quality movies since at least the 50's.

China can get representation in it's own, quality, internationally-watched films anytime.

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Sorry this is a bit out of place, but this actually struck a gripe I've had. This is a misrepresentation of the Chinese film industry. Most Chinese films I've watched are actually pretty awful when it comes to storytelling, in comparison to its Japanese/Korean/English counterparts. The Chinese film industry is pretty undeveloped when it comes to being able to tell compelling stories. I went looking for good movies with Chinese male leads, and the results were quite disappointing.

So "quality, internationally-watched films" is not what I would consider an accurate portrayal.

 

[Fivemarks]

Sorry this is a bit out of place, but this actually struck a gripe I've had. This is a misrepresentation of the Chinese film industry. Most Chinese films I've watched are actually pretty awful when it comes to storytelling, in comparison to its Japanese/Korean/English counterparts. The Chinese film industry is pretty undeveloped when it comes to being able to tell compelling stories. I went looking for good movies with Chinese male leads, and the results were quite disappointing.

So "quality, internationally-watched films" is not what I would consider an accurate portrayal.

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So in other words, you're trying to say that Chinese people are jealous that when a group of people they see as subhuman make their own movie in the west it's not only successful in that group, it's widely acclaimed?

This is an appropriate reaction, I feel:

 

[Arthur Frayn]

Sorry this is a bit out of place, but this actually struck a gripe I've had. This is a misrepresentation of the Chinese film industry. Most Chinese films I've watched are actually pretty awful when it comes to storytelling, in comparison to its Japanese/Korean/English counterparts. The Chinese film industry is pretty undeveloped when it comes to being able to tell compelling stories. I went looking for good movies with Chinese male leads, and the results were quite disappointing.

So "quality, internationally-watched films" is not what I would consider an accurate portrayal.

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I mean, the seventh highest grossing film of 2017 worldwide was Chinese (Wolf Warrior 2, beating out Hollywood mega-hits like Thor: Ragnarok, Wonder Woman, and GotG 2). Last year, Operation Red Sea was the thirteenth highest grossing film and came within spitting distance of the top ten. The Great Wall managed to snag top tier Hollywood talent like Matt Damon and Willem DeFoe. The quality of those films not withstanding (Wolf Warrior 2 is basically a PLA-sponsored Mission: Impossible film. It's fucking awesome), China clearly has a fairly developed film industry that's only now beginning to flex its international muscle.

 

[Omegahugger]

Like, we're already deep inside alt history territory with Black Panther in just the concept of Wakanda, so there is a bazillion ways to explain this but as a wholly fictional country and people there isn't any inaccuracy.

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In fact, wasn't Black Panther the movie that made some people believe that Wales was its own independent country in the MCU, based on it having its own flag at the UN?

 

[Chloe Sullivan]

Sorry this is a bit out of place, but this actually struck a gripe I've had. This is a misrepresentation of the Chinese film industry. Most Chinese films I've watched are actually pretty awful when it comes to storytelling, in comparison to its Japanese/Korean/English counterparts. The Chinese film industry is pretty undeveloped when it comes to being able to tell compelling stories. I went looking for good movies with Chinese male leads, and the results were quite disappointing.

So "quality, internationally-watched films" is not what I would consider an accurate portrayal.

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Look, just cause you have shit taste in Chinese cinema doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of great Chinese films out there.

I mean, just off the top of my head there's To Live, Raise the Red Lantern, The Road Home, Red Sorghum.

A quick google gets me:
The 10 Greatest Mainland Chinese Films Of All Time
Apparently I was off two decades, Shanghai has had a international-grade film industry since the 30's

 

[Q99]

Wakanda's tribes have clear cultural cues from multiple major African cultures from different sides of the continent. Xhosa language, Ethiopian crosses, etc.. It's very visibly aiming for a pan-African thing, where it's not making a bland genetic non-existent fictional 'African culture,' but it's also not presenting one RL culture as 'Africa' (which would have it's own issues).

That's not sacrificing worldbuilding, that is literally part of the worldbuilding.

I didn't exspect people to get so angry that I found an minor inconsistency in the film slightly irritateing. Stuff like that is annoying becuse it is so minor and easy to fix and yet they fail to do so. Dispite it not masively impacting the film it is still valid criticism.

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What makes you think other people are angrier than you when you're arguing just as much?

Africa is quite possibly the most multilingual continent in the world, with its many different people having their own languages, many individuals speaking several languages at a fluent level, creating mixed languages, and using well-known languages as lingua francas between different peoples that normally wouldn't be able to communicate. We also see in the movies that Wakandans can speak at the very least Xhosa, English, and (supposedly) the country's undercover agents speak the languages of the nations and people they need to infiltrate (e.g. Nakia speaking Korean).

It's not at all inconceivable that the tribes in Wakanda all speak their own languages and just use Xhosa and English as common languages to communicate with each other. Nevermind that if you wanted to realistically portray the multitude of Africa's languages (small reminder: Africa has something like two thousand different languages), the movie would be absolutely unintelligible to anybody watching. Choosing a genuine African language made sense. And they still had M'Baku speak Igbo and based the Wakandan script on a Nigerian language, alongside all the stylistic trappings, to make it clear that this wasn't just one African people representing the entire continent.

They compromised between representing as many of the peoples of Africa as they could and making a film that made sense and could be understood and enjoyed by many different people.

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Which reminds me, the one complaint I've seen on the subject of cultural laziness that seems accurate is apparently the Korean is pretty crappy.

 

[andy50]

Look, just cause you have shit taste in Chinese cinema doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of great Chinese films out there.

I mean, just off the top of my head there's To Live, Raise the Red Lantern, The Road Home, Red Sorghum.

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I mean no offense, but I've spent 2 months in China just last year. I can give a first hand account of the distinct difference in quality.

 

[Chloe Sullivan]

I mean no offense, but I've spent 2 months in China just last year. I can give a first hand account of the distinct difference in quality.

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I suspect you can give a firsthand account of local film productions often lacking quality, which is true everywhere.

The high end productions are a different matter. China has no shortage of film epics of high quality. Though perhaps Chinese studios cannot yet match the production and technical expertise of Holywood, Chinese actors, writers and directors have shown themselves fully able to stand with their western peers in quality.

 

[Hello]

I have seen some 200 odd hours of Chinese film in the past decade. None of them came within spitting distance of Black Panther in terms of writing, directing, production value, score, and of course acting. That Chinese films have moved from god awful trash to c and b list movies is an accomplishment worth noting, but it isn't like they are coming close to making good films.

 

[uju32]

So, what are your thoughts about this?
And if you're Indian, Arab, Japanese or whatever, what would you think if a movie like this was made about your ethnicity?

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-Africa is a continent, not a nation like China.
The movie didn't draw on any one African nation or tribe, which reduced the risk of giving offence.
Compare to Tears of the Sun, set in southeastern Nigeria. Or less egregiously, how District 13 portrayed Nigerians.

-The movie was made by and mostly starred African Americans.
The dudes who originated from Africa, but whose heritage was systematically stripped from them.
Africans are likely to cut them some slack for that alone.

And they earned more for sheer versimilitude.
Any African, or person who's lived in an African country, can recognize an African accent, even when they don't know the language. Add the recognizable clothing styles....I mean, this

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Would not be out of place stepping out of a car in Lagos or Kaduna.
The cut, the embroidery, is just one example. The entire ensemble resonates.

-There's been a history of syncretic Pan-Africanism in black American thought since at least the sixties, which crosspollinated with anticolonial African intellectualism of the time. That's where much of the raw material for the Wakanda myth comes from.

-And generally, Africans just have a thicker skin about their portrayal in international media.
Part of it is having other immediate problems to worry about, but much of it is just being the subject of so much bad news, and being patronized for so long that a good faith attempt at a positive portrayal is celebrated.

Africa is quite possibly the most multilingual continent in the world,

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To double down on this, Nigeria alone has around 519 indigenous languages, spoken by 250-300 ethnic groups totaling 190 million.
There are multitudes there.

 

[Fernandel]

I mean no offense, but I've spent 2 months in China just last year. I can give a first hand account of the distinct difference in quality.

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Are you kidding? Every time I visited China in the last few years and went to the cinema, I saw action movies and cinematic blockbusters that rivalled Hollywood in terms of acting, martial arts (actually, they were often better here lol), set pieces, and CGI.

The latest Die Renjie wuxia movie was super fucking cool, for starters -- and it was hardly the best movie I ever saw in China.

And from the trailers I saw, China now produces gritty crime dramas, action movies, romantic comedies, generational dramas, and so on and so forth, that are basically indistinguishable from any European or American production in terms of quality.

...The thing I would criticize as backwards is that Chinese movies are often kinda sexist, but like, that's not a thing that springs to mind when talking "quality".

 

[Q99]

-Africa is a continent, not a nation like China.
The movie didn't draw on any one African nation or tribe, which reduced the risk of giving offence.

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Like to expand on this more, "This ONE African nation did what no-one else managed. Oh, and they're this culture, this one in specific," is not going to produce the feel-goods in groups that aren't super-buddy with them for them to be the best. But flipside, if they're there, and them, and them, and them, you go, 'oh, ok, they're the best and they're everyone.'


It's like, let's say you have an "America is conquered, except for this one city," and then you decided to have the people in the city have signs of Texas, California, Florida, Chicago, and New York culture. You wouldn't get the sense that's supposed to be any one city, it'd be 'oh, this city is representing all of America.'

 

[Ford Prefect]

In fact, wasn't Black Panther the movie that made some people believe that Wales was its own independent country in the MCU, based on it having its own flag at the UN?

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Ryan Coogler did Welsh people right, yeah. Just, you know, because he could.

 

[S.P.Requiem]

Sorry, I've been busy lately and only read the comments now.
I think many of you have great points and taught me many things about African culture, which I'm not familiar with.
But I think you missed the main reason why the reviewer (and me) thought Black Panther was a bit offensive.
Not accurately showing African culture is just a very minor part of it.
(Also, is "the strongest gets to be king" an accurate representation to any culture of African nation/tribe?)

BP/RD sort of paints a picture that African/Chinese people on their own, are primitive and helpless, and the only way they could become advanced was through some magical alien meteor, and even then their social, political and economic structures are still laughably primitive.
I see Black Panther as a sad power fantasy for black people.
Kinda like those Chinese kung fu movies where the protagonist kicks the shit out of a huge white boxer 50kg heavier than him.
I know that's satisfying to watch, but it's just mental masturbation. And those kung fu movies have been criticized as such for a while too.
Also even though the director and actors are black, Black Panther and Wakanda were still created by a white dude. So it still looks like someone jerking you off instead of yourself doing it.

Oh BTW let's talk about the Chinese movie industry a bit.
They sure can pull off some really good stuff, especially when people from Hong Kong and Taiwan were involved and they had more creative freedom.
Things like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, Kung Fu Hustle and Ip Man, just to name a few.
But when it's purely made in mainland and targeted mainland audiences, it's rarely any good.
First reason is because of the government's censorship, only films like Wolf Warriors that are "wholesome and patriot" can pass.
Second is because the mainland audiences' taste are still kinda lagging behind more developed countries. Just look Transformers' Chinese box office.