Black Panther: Wakanda Forever succeeds in showing us not just an afrofuturist vision but a female future

Diverging from source material is always fraught but the decision to be respectful to Chadwick Boseman, while giving black women, doubly marginalised in Marvel’s multiverses, a chance to be seen, came at the cost of retiring a culturally important character. Black Panther, as numerous Reddit comments and misty-eyed take videos say, was the hero of black men. But it is baffling to say that Wakanda Forever signalled their symbolic erasure especially when it champions black women. Wakanda Forever works because it effectively maps the attributes of a Marvel hero onto heroines. Rather than one supreme man, the story focuses on a community of women working and grieving together. Superheroes are the cultural products of American military supremacy, which emerged during the Second World War and peaked in its aftermath. Marvel’s current status as the globally successful, preeminent commercial production of our times should hardly make sense. But I think its success has a lot to do with the perception that we are in the heyday of diversifying the superheroic identity, just as the lack of complex representation contributes to the backlash against an imagined woke agenda. At the very least, we must wonder to what extent the performance of checking off token boxes is culpable in the backlash. Previous attempts of gender swapping have often depended on technicalities. Take one of the most talked about gender revisions – remaking the 1984 Ghostbusters and its extremely boyish science fiction world. While the 2016 all-female version passed the Bechdel test – already a low bar – it failed to realistically or carefully construct how women might actually react in this world in which you get to zap ghosts with sick laser guns without a serious look at any corresponding traditionally “girly” interests. To get around the viewer’s suspension of disbelief, it doubles down on the technobabble so as to tell us that the lady ghostbusters are smart, instead of showing us through action. Marvel has also been accused of shoehorning girl power rhetoric into plot, as when Jude Law’s Yon-Rogg constantly warns Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel to not get too emotional, or Wanda saying, “You break the rules and become a hero. I do it and I become the enemy. That doesn’t seem fair."  A Reddit comment reads, “Honestly my issue is that I can’t watch a single movie or show nowadays that isn’t hammering the writer’s political commentary down my gullet, even though it is usually completely irrelevant to the plot and themes. It’s totally shitty writing. It’s lazy and counter-productive…Don’t tell me how I should think, feel, or behave. Show me why i’m ignorant and dumb through actual storytelling. Don’t just use character dialogue to insult your opposition or target.” Transmuting any story across categories as big and defining as gender is a mammoth task and the trend of woke recasting in movies tends to favour quantity over quality. Even in the seemingly progressive Marvel universes, you have a lot of movies that pass but don’t adequately move women’s stories forward. Black Widow and especially the female Thor literally die before getting a go of it and the Scarlet Witch repeats some of the harmful female tropes of the monstrous mother and the hysterical woman. She is always manipulated – first by Hydra, then by Agatha Harkness and finally the Darkhold. Similar to X-Men’s Jean Grey problem, Wanda also develops supernatural abilities that make her lose touch with her humanity and ends up a problem. “Marvel has been undermining its own efforts in a number of ways. First of all, a lot of the changes have felt decidedly impermanent. The original Thor is still stomping around in the cosmos, waiting in the wings if and when his corporate overlords ever want to bring him back into the spotlight. The same goes for the Hulk. Puny Bruce Banner can go green whenever Marvel needs him to. Even more odd are the situations of Spidey and Cap. In each case, the replacement and the original are still operating in the Marvel universe under the name “Spider-Man” and “Captain America,” respectively. If there are two superheroes with the same name, and one’s had that name since your grandfather was a kid — and has that name in a multibillion-dollar film franchise — why would you ever assume the nonwhite newbie will outlast him?” writes Vulture critic Abraham Josephine Riesman. Countering all these realities, Wakanda Forever feels like the first real attempt to imagine a female future for black women. The physicality of the superhero world is one of its genre’s structuring principles. Lead actors go through the buff Marvel makeover, and their physiques and training regimens are cultishly followed by men. In fact, the discourse against casting Natalie Portman as Thor included complaints that she wasn’t “swole” enough to beat up bad guys. But here is a vision quite different from hegemonic masculinity. Our Wakandan champion is the svelte Letita Wright against the ripped Tenoch Huerta. Their face-off comes down to blows with real stakes. There’s such a difference between both their bodies that it’s even difficult to see Shuri getting beat up.

“For centuries, the Black Panther has unified Wakanda.”

Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: #WakandaForever is the #1 movie in the world for the 2nd week in a row. Get tickets and experience it only in theaters: https://t.co/GJSG053Wm1 pic.twitter.com/gWQvMIgrqK

— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) November 20, 2022

In Wakanda Forever, women have held positions of power for a long time. Unlike other women of Marvel, they don’t have origin stories. Their ability to wield power and decision-making is as unquestioned and naturalised as Captain America or Iron Man’s. They are remarkably sure of themselves. Queen Ramonda isn’t shown to be wrong about sacking Okoye for failing to keep the Princess safe because Nakia retrieves Princess Shuri successfully, not making room for the obvious redemption arc. Princess Shuri is easily able to flow from being Namor’s hostage, wise about the consequences of what constitutes a call to war, to a vengeful goddess to a stoic ruler with moral fortitude even in the depths of grief. In centering the emotional lives of these women, Wakanda Forever does not pander to liberal desires the way the scene in Endgame does where all women superheroes are bust out for a scene to work together to save Spiderman. Origin stories carry the burden of justification. An article in Polygon borrows from Toni Morison’s analysis on how the serious function of racism is distraction. It will keep you from doing real work. There will always be one more thing to prove, another myth to bust. Racism affects why Wakanda had chosen to remain hidden but doesn’t affect their day to day lives, in the same vein, misogyny affects how people see women in power but it will not define her. With overpowering shouts to recast Black Panther taking over the internet against Shuri’s taking up the mantle, it’s such a shame that Wakanda Forever ultimately trots out a male contender to the Panther suit and a rightful heir to the throne. Who then were they trying to commemorate anyway? Eisha Nair is an independent writer-illustrator based in Mumbai. She has written on history, art, culture, education, and film for various publications. When not pursuing call to cultural critique, she is busy drawing comics. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.