The popular and critically acclaimed movie, Black Panther, is a fantastic opportunity for the Tea Party to finally review a movie that portrays extremely well the horrors of collectivism, paranoia, racism, and any non-capitalist government. The movie from the outset is firmly settled on a foundation of monarchy and wholly concerned about the racist concept that a person’s genetic makeup or their family right is a license to rule over others. The film even goes so far as to state that the power vested in the land should be used to protect “people who look like us” from their oppressors, further underscoring the racist and collectivist overtones of the movie.
The plot reinforces these concepts by a strict adherence to family rule, and the fact that the only option to transform leadership is by initiating force and defeating the king.
Much of the movie is set in the Kingdom of Wakanda, which is idolized as a paradise; joyous and prosperous because of an all powerful alien mineral buried in their land from a meteorite that smashed into the Earth centuries prior. The mineral, vibranium, is the foundation of their leaders’ great power and the foundation of the super science they were able to create.
The Kingdom, though, is isolated by its paranoia and desire to conceal its great gift. Wakanda’s only export is spies, so they can keep the secrets of their super science and their limitless supply of vibranium to themselves.
The plot peeks when the isolationist Kingdom of Wakanda is set into turmoil as its people learn that T’Chaka, their recently assassinated king, had killed his brother for selling vibranium to the outside world. The son of his slain brother, Killmonger, enraged by the killing of his father, seeks revenge upon T’Chaka’s son, T’Challa, the story’s present day Black Panther and current King of Wakanda. Killmonger uses violence and his lineage to take control of Wakanda because he seeks to use the power of vibranium to conquer the world.
T’Challa eventually defeats Killmonger in an epic battle and the movie ends with the beginning of an attempt to reach out to the rest of the world to make it a better place. There is never a definitive end to the idea of monarchy rule of Wakanda or an attempt to reverse the underlying theme of race-based decision making.
The movie Black Panther is filled with action and adventure as well as a cinematographic delight. The theme, though, being rooted in all that is bad in this world, makes it a far less desirable movie and an immoral theme to portray. The Tea Party gives the Black Panther movie 2.0 out of 5.
John Niewicki
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