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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever–Black people vs evil Indigenous/Mayan people (Ugh. Why)
I’m very late to watching Wakanda Forever. I finally watched it this past weekend.
It is visually stunning in how it was shot, the design, costumes, etc. with a great soundtrack, cool fight scenes, but I couldn’t take my focus off the frustrating plot that involved trying to create villains out of the Black Wakandans or the indigenous/Mayan “Talokanil,” depending on who you end up rooting for.
My main thought throughout the film was “Why are you fighting each other?” I am curious what Black and Indigenous/Mayan/Latine people thought about this film and think we should all prioritize their opinions, but wanted to share mine.
It’s cool to see some badass Latine/indigenous actors on screen, and to hear these badass characters speaking Yucatec Maya but not when you position them as evil villains. Mabel Cadena’s introduction/entrance on the helicopter pad scene and walk on the Mass Ave Bridge in Cambridge/Boston was so cool.
If they were going to go with this plot where the Talokanil become a comically extreme murderous enemy, I wish they kept Namor and Namora white (they were originally from white Atlantis in the Marvel comics),
similar to the frustration of having Halle Bailey cast as Ariel in The Little Mermaid introducing Blackness to an already awful role model of a female character, wanting to rid her entire being to be accepted by a white man, Eric. That story was already about assimilation into white culture even with a white Ariel. Now, they’ll be more direct with having a Black woman get rid her entire being/world more vast than the surface world to be accepted by a white man. YAY! I wrote about this here:
I get that good characters, including villains, are flawed, 3 dimensional, and you understand why they do what they…
