The movie Black Panther was released in 2018 and took that year by a storm. The reason this movie was so successful was because Marvel has never created a movie focusing on not only almost an all-black cast, but a black superhero and powerful black female roles. For those who don’t know, this movie is about T’Challa, a black superhero/king who comes from a fictional country called Wakanda that is supposed to be based in Africa. This movie shows the importance of black culture and although not all of it is real, a lot has been tied into it, so people get a feel and learn about certain aspects of black culture.
Although having a black superhero is super important to this movie, I want to focus more on the women. For people who have not seen this movie before, King T’Challa has not only a full force of woman as his guards, he also has a sister who makes all this technical equipment and weapons for him. As I’m sure many of you know, women are very underrepresented in STEM which ultimately tends to be a male dominate field. Women in STEM hold less than 25 percent in the field and in STEM specific jobs compared to men (Beede et al. 1). Showing a young women of color in the STEM field and based in Africa was a representation we didn’t know we needed. Although there has been an emergence of women in STEM fields over the past decade or so, more still needs to be done to even the playing field (Su and Rounds, 1). More women need to be seen and acknowledged in this field and this movie was a step in the right direction for that.
Lastly, having a group of women as his guards is another great representation we needed. There have always been stereotypes about women in leadership positions, how women tend to be more nurturing and the caretakers whilst men are strong and decisive (Rhee and Sigler, 11). This has obviously portrayed women leaders in a negative light, especially ones of color due to racist tendencies. However, this movie does a phenomenal job portraying these woman as strong, capable and reliable and also in a way that shows women can do anything men can, sometimes even better.
Citations
Rhee, Kenneth S., and Tracey H. Sigler. “Untangling the Relationship between Gender and Leadership.” Gender in Management: An International Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 13 Apr. 2015, www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/GM-09-2013-0114/full/pdf?title=untangling-the-relationship-between-gender-and-leadership.
Su, Rong, and James Rounds. “All STEM Fields Are Not Created Equal: People and Things Interests Explain Gender Disparities across STEM Fields.” Frontiers, Frontiers, 5 Feb. 2015, www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00189/full.
Beede, David N., et al. “Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation.” SSRN, 26 Nov. 2011, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1964782.
This is a very interesting take! I have watched this movie several times and am a huge fan of it. However, I never really conceptualized the influence that women had in the movie. It really hits on all the points you discussed and it is the little things like this which work to break stereotypes of time. Thank you for sharing it was super eye opening!
This movie had a lot of intersectionality of characters and this is a great example! The technology and science of Wakanda relied completely on women, which is not something we typically see in the real world. I agree that the movie did a great job with reversing the stereotype of women and proving that they are just as strong and capable as men are.
I really liked your focus on women in this movie and how they are all strong and intelligent! I really appreciated your input on breaking stereotypes and the usual norms in society and media.
Hey, I enjoyed your post! I agree that the most interesting aspect of Black Panther was all the strong women leads. I loved how his sister used her creativity to create solutions out of vibranium. I think we need more of this in the United States and the world. The movie broke stereotypes and created new opportunities for the young children that watched.
This is very deep information and I enjoyed reading it. The connection that was made were some of the connections that I have made when I watch the movie when it came out. The creation of a black superhero and woman being a ginormous part of the movie showing skills and their creativity to the overall aspect to how woman are in within society trying to make an impact and expand their way within life. Especially the connection with STEM I really noticed that when watching the movie, this is a very on point presentation and the connection to each concept really make that point stronger.
Thank you for your post! I really like this Movie Black Panther. I’ve watched it for many times. But I don’t know that it also expresses the idea that women could be strong and decisive. Your post provides more information that I never thought before.
Thank you for the post! This is really interesting for me! One thing about the Black Panther is that it contains a lot of female superheroes! They might have superpowers but they are still strong, no less than man, good at combat!
I really liked this! I never thought about how there were many women in power in the movie. This will have a lasting impact on future movies I hope!