Vol. 32 No. 4 (2023): Nordic Journal of African Studies
General articles

(Re)Imagining Africa in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther (2018)

PDF
Okwudiri Anasiudu
University of Port Harcourt
NJAS Logo
DOI: https://doi.org/10.53228/njas.v32i4.1029

Published 2023-12-14

Keywords

  • African Women,
  • Afro-pessimism,
  • Black Panther,
  • counter-narrative,
  • postcolonial Africa

How to Cite

Anasiudu, O. (2023). (Re)Imagining Africa in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther (2018). Nordic Journal of African Studies, 32(4), 349–365. https://doi.org/10.53228/njas.v32i4.1029

Copyright (c) 2023 Okwudiri Anasiudu

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This article examines Ryan Coogler’s film Black Panther (2018) and the critical conversations it raises, which are problematized by its perceived failure to accurately represent Black diasporic experiences, the racist vitriol against it and its concern with commercial success. The present article deepens and advances this conversation by focusing on Coogler’s strategies of representation in the film, which foreground a compelling positive image of continental Africa within the tenets of postcolonial theory. Coogler utilizes three strategies, including 1) contrasting settings and counter-narratives which challenge prevailing notions of Africa in media/popular representation and museum exhibitions; 2) the use of inversion of the traditional dynamics between the centre and the periphery, which challenges dominant power structures by emphasizing Africa’s agency and significance on the global stage; and 3) the positive characterization of continental African women as war generals and geniuses, highlighting their empowered agency and challenging gender stereotypes. Such representation stands in opposition to the ‘dark continent’ metaphor and Afro-pessimism, which have historically perpetuated negative perceptions of African countries as the spectacle of the Other. This article argues that, by employing these strategies, Coogler invites readers to engage in a dialogue that reconsiders Black Panther as a text that contributes to the postcolonial reconstruction of narratives on the people and continent of Africa.

PDF

References

  1. Achebe, Chinua. 2003. Home and Exile. Edinburgh: Canongate Books.
  2. Achebe. Chinua. 1978. “An Image of Africa.” Research in African Literatures 9 (1): 1–15.
  3. Adeleke, Tunde. 2009. The Case against Afrocentricism. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
  4. Adesanmi, Pius. 2008. “Africa, India, and the Postcolonial: Notes Towards a Praxis of Inflection.” In The Postcolonial Lamp: Essays in Honour of Dan Izevbaye, edited by Aderemi Raji-Oyelade and Oyeniyi Okunoye, 35–72. Ibadan: Bookcraft.
  5. Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. 2009. “The Danger of a Single Story.” Accessed October 12, 2023. https://pulitzercenter.org/sites/default/files/2022-08/The_Danger_of_a_Single_Story-teacher-12.pdf
  6. Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. 2003. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literature. London: Routledge.
  7. Bakari, Imruh. 2018. “African Film in the 21st Century: Some Notes to a Provocation.” Communication Cultures in Africa 1 (1): 8–27.
  8. Barry, Peter. 2002. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Beginning Theory (4th edn.). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  9. Boshoff, Nelius. 2009. “Neo-Colonialism and Research Collaboration in Central Africa.” Scientometrics 81 (2): 413–434.
  10. Bunce, Mel. 2015. “International News and the Image of Africa: New Storytellers, New Narratives?”. In The Image of Africa: Creation, Negotiation and Subversion, edited by Julia Gallagher, 42–62. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  11. Bunce, Mel, Suzanne Franks, and Chris Paterson. 2017. “Introduction: A New Africa’s Media Image?” In Africa’s Media Image in the 21st Century: From the “Heart of Darkness” to “Africa Rising”, edited by Mel Bunce, Suzanne Franks, and Chris Paterson, 1–13. London: Routledge.
  12. Chandiran, Yasantha Devi, and Shanthini Pillai Joseph Sandra. 2020. “New Types of African Heroines in Hollywood: Black Panther.” Jurnal Wacana Sarjana 4 (2): 1–16.
  13. Chikafa-Chipiro, Rosemary. 2019. “The Future of the Past: Imagi(ni)ng Black Womanhood, Africana Womanism and Afrofuturism in Black Panther.” Image & Text 33: 1–20.
  14. Coogler, Ryan. 2018. Black Panther. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
  15. Curtin, Philip D. 1964. The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780–1850. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
  16. Dargis, Manohla. 2018. “Review: ‘Black Panther’ Shakes Up the Marvel Universe.” The New York Times, 06/02/2018. Accessed July 10, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/movies/black-panther-review-movie.html
  17. Dokotum, Okako Opio. 2020. Hollywood and Africa, Recycling the ‘Dark Continent’ Myth, 1908–2020. Makhanda: NISC (Pty).
  18. Eckhardt, Giana M. 2018. “Black Panther: Thrills, Postcolonial Discourse, and Blacktopia.” Markets, Globalization & Development Review 3(2): 1–7.
  19. Ede, Amatoritsero. 2020. “How Afropolitanism Unworlds the African World.” In Afropolitan Literature as World Literature, edited by James Hodapp, 103–129. London: Bloomsbury.
  20. Engels-Schwarzpaul, A‑Chr. 2020. “Peripheral Territories: Imagining Common Worlds Differently.” Interstices: Journal of Architecture and Related Arts 20: 20–38.
  21. Fanon, Franz. 1963. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Richard Philcox, Commentary by Jean-Paul Sartre and Homi K. Bhabha. New York: Grove Press.
  22. Fanon, Frantz. 1952. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Charles Markmann. New York: Grove Press.
  23. Fanon. Franz. 1965. A Dying Colonialism. Translated by Haakon Chevalier with an Introduction by Adolfo Gilly. New York: Grove Press.
  24. Fanon, Franz. 1967. Towards the African Revolution, Political Essays. Translated by Haakon Chevalier. New York: Grove Press.
  25. Ford, Tanisha C. 2018. “Why Fashion is Key to Understanding the World of Black Panther.” The Atlantic, 15/02/2018. Accessed July 10, 2023. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/02/why-fashion-is-key-to-understanding-the-world-of-black-panther/553157/
  26. Gikandi, Simon. 2011. “Foreword: On Afropolitanism”. In Negotiating Afropolitanism: Essays on Borders and Spaces in Contemporary African Literature and Folklore, edited by Jennifer Wawrzinek and J. K. S. Makokha, 9–11. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
  27. Hall, Stuart. 2003a. “The Work of Representation”. In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, edited by Stuart Hall, 13–74. London: Sage.
  28. Hall, Stuart. 2003b. “The Spectacle of the Other”. In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, edited by Stuart Hall, 223–290. London: Sage.
  29. Hawk, Beverly G., ed. 1992. Africa’s Media Image. New York: Praeger.
  30. Hicks, Dan. 2020. The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution. London: Pluto.
  31. Iheka, Cajetan. 2021. African Ecomedia: Network Forms, Planetary Politics. Durham: Duke University Press.
  32. Kaps, Klemens, and Andrea Komlosy. 2013. “Centres and Peripheries Revisited: Polycentric Connections or Entangled Hierarchies?” Review 36 (3–4): 237–264.
  33. Kpae, Gbenemene, and Juliana Masi. 2019. “Women’s Participation in Conflict Management in Nigeria: A Case of a Rural Community in the Niger Delta Area.” American Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 4 (1): 38–55.
  34. Lebron, Christopher. 2018. “Black Panther Is Not the Movie We Deserve.” The Boston Review, 17/02/2018. Accessed October 3, 2023. https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/christopher-lebron-black-panther/
  35. Leonardatos, Cynthia Deitle. 1999. “California’s Attempts to Disarm the Black Panthers”. San Diego Law Review 36: 947.
  36. Lidchi, Henrietta. 2003. “The Poetics and the Politics of Exhibiting Other Cultures.” In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, edited by Stuart Hall, 151–222. London: Sage.
  37. Madowo, Larry, and Karen Attiah. 2018. “Black Panther: Why the Relationship between Africans and Black Americans Is So Messed Up”. The Washington Post, 16/02/2018. Accessed: October 5, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/02/16/black-panther-why-the-relationship-between-africans-and-african-americans-is-so-messed-up/
  38. Mbembe, Achille. 2001. On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  39. Mbembe, Achille. 2017. “Afropolitanism.” In Cosmopolitanisms, edited by Bruce Robbins and Paulo Lemos Horta, 103–107. New York: New York University Press.
  40. Memmi, Albert. 2021. The Colonizer and the Colonized, translated by Howard Greenfeld. London: Profile Books.
  41. Memmi, Albert. 1962. Portrait of a Jew, translated by Elisabeth Abbott. New York: Orion Press.
  42. Mokoena, Dikeledi. A. 2018. “Black Panther and the Problem of the Black Radical.” Journal of Pan African Studies 11 (9): 13–20.
  43. Mudimbe, Valentin-Yves. 1988. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
  44. Nothias, Toussaint. 2012. “Definition and Scope of Afro-Pessimism: Mapping the Concept and its Usefulness for Analysing News Media Coverage of Africa.” Leeds African Studies Bulletin 74: 54–62.
  45. Olaniyi, Tejumola. 2010. “Postmodernity, Postcoloniality, and African Studies.” In African Literature: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory, edited by Tejumola Olaniyan and Ato Quayson, 637–645. Oxford: Blackwell.
  46. Reynolds, Felisa Vergara. 2023. “The Politics of Colonization in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther.” Black Camera 14 (2): 172–184.
  47. Ryzik, Melena. 2018. “The Afrofuturistic Designs of ‘Black Panther’.” The New York Times, 23/02/2018. Accessed October 3, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/movies/black-panther-afrofuturism-costumes-ruth-carter.html
  48. Said, Edward, W. 2003. Orientalism. London: Penguin Books.
  49. Selasi, Taiye. 2005. “Bye-bye Barbar.” The LIP, 03/03/2005. Accessed October 5, 2023. https://thelip.robertsharp.co.uk/2005/03/03/bye-bye-barbar
  50. Self, Robert, T. 2020. “Foreword.” In Hollywood and Africa: Recycling the ‘Dark Continent’ Myth, 1908–2020, by Okaka Opio Dokotum, xii–xv. Makhanda: NISC.
  51. Shaka, Femi O., and Ola Nnennaya Uchendu. 2012. “Gender Representation in Nollywood Video Film Culture.” The Crab: Journal of Theatre and Media Arts 7: 1–30.
  52. Udumukwu, Onyemaechi. 2007. “Introduction.” In Signature of Women: The Dialectics of Action in African Women Writing, edited by Onyemaechi Udumukwu, 3–32. Owerri: Onii Publishing House.
  53. Udumukwu, Onyemaechi. 2015. Literary Theory and Criticism: An Introduction. Port Harcourt: Charles Martins Higher Education and Consulting Company.
  54. Udumukwu, Onyemaechi. 2021. Literary Theory and Criticism: An Introduction. Port Harcourt: Maesa Publishing.
  55. Uko, Iniobong, I. 2006. “Transcending the Margins: New Directions in Women’s Writing.” African Literature Today 25: 82–93.
  56. Uko, I, Iniobong. 2017. The Feminine Ontology and the African Reality: Changing Dynamics in an Evolving Society. 52nd Inaugural Lecture, University of Uyo. Uyo: University of Uyo Press.
  57. Varda, Scott J., and Leslie A. Hahner. 2020. “Black Panther and the Alt-right: Networks of Racial Ideology.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 37 (2): 133–147.
  58. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2006. World System Analysis: An Introduction. London: Duke University Press.
  59. wa Thiong’o, Ngugi. 1993. Moving the Centre: Towards a Pluralism of Cultures. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.
  60. wa Thiong’o, Ngugi. 1997. Writers in Politics: A Re-engagement with the Issues of Literature & Society. London: Heinemann.
  61. Wainaina, Binyavanga. 2005. “How to Write about Africa.” Granta: the Magazine of New Writings. The View from Africa. Accessed October 5, 2023. https://granta.com/how-to-write-about-africa/
  62. Williams, Délice. 2018. “Three Theses about Black Panther.” Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies 11 (9): 27–30.
  63. Williams, Yohuru. 2008. “‘Some Abstract Thing Called Freedom’: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Legacy of the Black Panther Party.” OAH Magazine of History 22 (3): 16– 21.