The Secrets of Black Panther

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Wakanda vs. African History: Black Panther Unpacked #8

As motioned in the previous post, I think it’s unfortunate that Black Panther’s writers and producers didn’t link Wakanda to the legend of the lost kingdom of Prester John, choosing instead to allude to the mythical city of El Dorado.

El Dorado was never seriously considered to be anywhere outside of the Americas and Africa on the other hand, has a far older written history, which for its part has always been mentioned in passing. 

This disregard of African history is plainly clear to all who know anything of it. I mean just search ‘’African History’’ in the GIF editor here on Tumblr, go on and have a look at the results. Just that result speaks volumes: African History is a seriously misrepresented subject in the sphere of mainstream social media.

And so perhaps it’s forgivable that Black Panther lore refers Wakanda to the myth of El Dorado, it’s something that mainstream international history would understand, right? A rich mountain kingdom in the heart of Africa, the real El Dorado.

“You, know, Wakanda is the real El Dorado?... You know that, right?”

It’s funny because when talk of King Presbyter John first began in Europe in the 12th Century, hundreds of years before any talk of El Dorado, this King and his kingdom also quickly became mainstream. 

It was a big motivator for mobilising and financing the Crusades, invasions of the Middle East, which wanted control over the Silk Road and the sea-trade routes to India and the Spice Islands. That’s all. Africa was a big thing in this history... notice, how everyone avoided it...

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Wakanda vs. Prester John: Black Panther Unpacked #7

The last entry discussed some bad plot and writing decisions in the film, which misrelated Wakanda with El Dorado. There was talk of a legendary king- Prester John- actually being behind the true legend of a kingdom somewhere around the horn of Africa.

So let’s look now at some of the opportunities missed by the writers and researchers of Black Panther, when they failed to connect Wakanda to the legend of Presbyter John:

Sometimes Prester, sometimes Presbyter, John appeared in early Christian history in the late 1100s. 

A bishop had come to Rome from Jabal in present day Syria, talking of a rich king in need of assistance in his fight against the religion of Islam. This visit is said to have been a motivating factor in mobilising the second Crusade. 

The kingdom of Pester John was apparently protected by mountains and separated from the fight by a very narrow and dangerous-to-cross body of water.

It was immediately disputed where Prester John was said be living. Much debate also went into the nature of his humanity (ie. Race) and all such questions have remained unanswered to this day. 

Many, including the bishop who came representing the story, thought that he might be one of the powerful kings of India and that the body of water was the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia. (Slap bang in the middle of today’s Iraq.) 

The 2nd Crusade was mounted the year following the bishop’s visit and failed getting anywhere near the disputed area. 

The subject of Presbyter John came up again and again with succeeding generations of European traders, explorers, missionaries and invaders. Such famous names like Polo, Diaz, Da Gama, Speke, Stanley and Livingstone all either encountered, obsessed over, or at the very least were aware of the rumours concerning this legendary King of the Orient.

But that’s far from all. In the next post, we shall focus on the search for Prester John in Africa. I leave you with a satellite image of the Gulf of Aden

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El Dorado vs. Wakanda vs. Prester John: Black Panther Unpacked #6

Do you remember the film’s references to El Dorado? The teaser trailer really pushed the idea that Wakanda was actually the reason for the legend: “They had searched for it in South America,” Ulysses Klaw had told Agent Everett K. Ross, “but it really was in Africa.”

That certainly turned some heads: ‘’what a cool idea,’’ many film and history buffs jumped to their keyboards discussing at length what implications this might have on the narrative. 

But no one seems to have noticed that this was just too much of a stretch. How could the mythical city of gold have mistakenly been placed on the wrong continent? This needs to have a more decent explanation, and... I mean I’m not even about to get into Korea at this point...

Let’s look at the story of El Dorado. 

In South America, it began with ‘’El Hombre Dorado’’, the Golden Man: a mythical, fictional chief who would on ritual occasions be covered in gold dust and bathe in a sacred lake.

At some obscure point the legend went ballistic, transforming the chieftain first into a monarch and then into an emperor, ruling from somewhere within the jungles of Columbia.

The legend emerged some 40 years after Columbus first arrived in the Americas and reached its height of popularity in the early 1600s, with many European expeditions going down rivers like the Amazon or the Orinoco in search of it. It was never found and there was never, at no point, any discussion that it actually could have been in Africa. 

There was however, a far older legend, which spoke of a place in the Orient, the Middle East, where a rich Christian king was located and in need of military assistance form the Roman Catholic Church. This legend first emerged in the 1100s and is the source to this day of discussions as to if it really existed and if so, to where it really lay.

So, no self-respecting historian would ever mix El Dorado with the Legend of Prester John: That would be totally audacious, something that only fiction writers could accomplish or would even dare...

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The Actors behind T’Chaka: Black Panther Unpacked #5

Did any of you recognise the actors who play the old T’Chaka (John Kani)

 and the young T’Chaka? (Atandwa Kani, seen here standing with Chad Boseman in a behind-the-scenes photo.)

I’m guessing a general ‘’No,’’ and that’s OK, but I thought you might like to know that they’re quite famous in South Africa; one being a veteran actor, writer and director of the anti-apartheid theatre movement and the other being his son, who is a successful actor in his own right.

John Kani made his career on the underground circuits of the anti-apartheid theatre scene in South Africa. It was a time of serious repression and banning. Performing in or even watching anti-government plays could land you in detention, where torture and death were everyday occurrences. 

Anti-Apartheid theatre is studied today for the dogged resilience and stalwart strength of its practitioners and audiences. Perhaps Kani’s most famous performance from those days is in ‘’Sizwe Banzi Is Dead’’.  The play came out in the 1970s, during some of the darkest days under the regime. It toured the world and by the time of liberation, it had become a legend: a classic now studied in Drama 101 classes and performed by students throughout the institutions of higher learning in South Africa.

Kani went on to work in many TV programmes and Hollywood films and has been a household name for decades.

Casting the father-son pair as T’Chaka, the old and young King of Wakanda, seems to me to have been a salute to artistic struggles for liberation back on the motherland. A salute recognised and appreciated by Southern African audience members who would be well aware of the actor’s role in liberating their hearts and souls from oppression as well as the role that his son Atandwa is playing in keeping that sprit alive.

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T’Challa vs. T’Chaka vs. Shaka: Black Panther Unpacked #4

Ok, so in #2 I touched on some T’Challa-King Shaka references and then today realised that T’Challa’s father’s name is T’Chaka!

Well, #2’s not a post wasted, so go on read it. You could learn some about the legendary Zulu king Shaka, who butchered hundreds of his clan members when him momma died.

But anyway, it seems that if any references are to be made to the 19th C. King of Zululand, then it should be to Black Panther’s father rather than to the young inheritor. As I pointed out in #2 - there seemed just a faint semblance of a link to Shaka in T’Challa’s name - but there were no discernible character references between the two - but not with the father, the link between the historic and fictional kings is a lot stronger as T’Chaka had committed the worst kind of murder, like his namesake King Shaka.

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isiXhosa, the Language of Wakanda: Black Panther Unpacked #3

South African audiences must have felt a certain kind of wonder and excitement when they first heard the elegant language of their very own Xhosa people spoken by the Wakandans.

It is of course a bit of a tightrope act when an American production tries to make an authentic alternate universe where everyone speaks English more or less fluently, except of course for the Koreans. (I joke). 

There is no way around the language problem in the USA mainstream: it’s simply a sacrifice that writers have to make, so this attempt to have Wakandans speaking occasionally between themselves using an authentic African language is commendable.

English in Africa is no rarity, hence it’s quite logical that Wakandans would speak in an Afro-accented English, but they did not reference anything of the many creole versions of English - Ugandan or perhaps more closely Nigerian pidgin English for example really hit the mainstream recently with the ‘’sho me da way’’ meme (reviewed by many including Pewdiepie.) It would have been great to see some risk taking, researching and experimentation from the writers and actors. 

We shouldn’t forget however that besides the urban areas of Britain’s former colonies in Africa, speaking English is not as widespread as one might think. You can absolutely be guaranteed to travel in certain areas throughout the former colonies of the continent and find people who will not speak a word of English. Nor is it an easy task to learn or teach the language to the point of fluency in such areas. You can trust me here, I teach English for a living and it’s far harder for me to find someone speaking well than not. 

But sure, having so much wealth, it’s safe to say that the Wakandans probably have a very good schooling system - something like the Swiss speaking English like native speakers. Perhaps also their media has a fair saturation of Anglophone culture, even though there was absolutely no indication of this besides the portrayal of diplomatic exchanges between the rulers of Wakanda and the outside world.

It is here that the demographics and the social structure of the kingdom can be brought into the light of scrutiny: perhaps those Wakandans who lived on the highland plains leading up to the mountainous barrier, perhaps they should have been visibly different in terms of education and not just their attire. I will leave that discussion here for now and expand it in a later post.

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T’Challa vs. Shaka: Black Panther Unpacked #2

Is it coincidence that the current King of Wakanda’s name is so reminiscent of ‘’Shaka’’, the Zulu king of legend?

If there is a reference, then it ends there - at the name, because unlike T’Challa, Shaka was a brutal and much feared person; feared by his kin and enemies alike.

Shaka is said to have ordered the slaughter of about 1000 of his family clan members when his mom died. That’s right he had mommy issues. 

He was better known however for his ability to conduct war. It was his efforts that led to the honing of the Zulu war detachment, which consisted of warriors known as Impis. It was by him that the name of the Zulus became known the world over. The Impi was a fearsome character. Characteristically dressed in leopard, sheep and ox skins, with a large oval shield and short battle spear or a a battle-club known as a knobkerrie. Likewise characteristic was the Zulu war dance, which would have the warriors stand in formations and present to their opponents, challenging and bringing them fear. It would have been very interesting to see some kind of rendition of this war dance in the many fight sequences that we saw in Wakanda. 

Having conquered much of what is today known as Zululand, a large swath of land in the Kwa’Zulu Natal Province of South Africa, King Shaka proceeded to deteriorate psychologically, presumably under the pressures of the kingship that he had helped forge. 

Finally, after two failed attempts, Shaka was assassinated by his half brothers Dingane and Mhlangana and entered into legend.

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Black Panther Unpacked

25.02.2018, Kraków.

Hey, 

I’ve created this blog especially for Black Panther fans. 

I’m a historian, specializing in modern and colonial African history and this will be a collection of thoughts about what I think really inspired this film. I will want to focus on all the bits of ‘Africanness’ that can be found both openly and in a deeper way, all throughout the film.

First off, I want to say that I’m also gonna criticize this film a fair bit too. I want to say straight away that it wasn’t an especially deep or an especially moving script - I constantly felt like I wanted to feel the passion that I have for the motherland more than I got to feel.

There were a lot of stereotypes too and sometimes the studio in which much of the film was shot was just too much to make me feel that this was really taking place in Africa.  

As someone who knows the continent fairly well, I felt that there was a lot left to be desired ito authenticity - I know it’s a superhero film right, but this was an opportunity missed in many ways, it could have really redefined the genre, given it such an edge. 

Still, the film is the first time in ages that I have a compelling desire to buy a blueray. More so, it’s the first time that I have been compelled to start a blog dedicated to a film: to its criticism (artistic of course.)

So, please sub, and let’s get talking about this historic moment. I’ve got a fair amount to say, but yeah, I’ve only seen it once and hope to get a collector’s edition when it comes out in the shops.

Peace