The movie Black Panther directed by Ryan Coogler, is a great film that mixes the traditional African culture, with a bit of futuristic concepts. The movie does an excellent job at promoting and giving power to the African culture, as well as showing how “western views” of African culture can be interpreted. In general, many westerner’s views Africa’s traditional culture as a very outdated one, since many parts of the continent are still ruled by tribes living off of the land and following ancient traditions. It is known that roughly seven to eight percent of the continent’s population is composed of these traditional tribes, which is a lot of people when the entire continent of Africa has over one billion people. These tribes still live the way that their ancestors did thousands of years ago and will likely continue their traditions until they are forced to transition to modern standards.
An example of the film portraying these types of African culture can be seen through the tradition of mortal combat for power of the throne. This depicts the traditional African culture for obtaining power in a tribe, which can be seen through the Ibibio people Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria (Idang). According to Gabriel E. Idang, who wrote the article African Culture and Values, he described how few tribes still carry on these ancient traditions to determine the leader of the tribe. Generally, the first-born son of the previous leader gets birth rights to the throne, but an outsider is able to challenge for power.
The film can also imply western views through the tribal clothing and weapon choices. Throughout the entirety of the film, the people of the Wakanda tribes are all shown wearing traditional clothing such as cloaks or a special clothing item called Kitnege. A Kitenge is a traditional garment worn by women and is generally worn by Samburu people of northern Kenya (Hansen). The movie also shows traditional weaponry such as Zulu spear. The spear, commonly referred to as an “Iklwa” or “Ixwa” is a type of spear created and still used by the Zulu tribe of South Africa (Ogunniyi).
Works Cited
Idang, Gabriel E. “African culture and values.” Phronimon 16.2 (2015): 97-111.
Hansen, Karen Tranberg. “The world in dress: Anthropological perspectives on clothing, fashion, and culture.” Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 33 (2004): 369-392.
Ogunniyi, Meshach Bolaji. “Adapting western science to traditional African culture.” International journal of science education 10.1 (1988): 1-9.