Didas Kato
The Cultural conflicts and desires exposed in the black panther movie.
Black Panther is one of the kinds, that was widely remarkable for its diversity in cultures as we see different characters playing from different cultures and exercising different cultural norms. The movie starts with a man telling a story to a little kid, thousands of years ago, five African tribes had constant wars over metal Vibranium, one worrier ingests a ‘heart-shaped herb’ that was affected by the metal and gains superhuman abilities, therefore becoming the first black panther.
He unites all the Jabari tribes to form the nation of Wakanda. For over centuries the Wakandans use the Vibranuim to develop advanced technology and isolate themselves from the world, the Wakandan lived happily exercising their cultural norms as deemed necessary.
With T’Challa the king of Wakanda, they realize that Klaue and his accomplice Erik Stevens steal a Wakandan artifact from the London museum, T’Challa’s friend and Okoye’s lover W’Kabi argues with him to bring Klaue back alive. On the other hand, Klaue is seen to have internalized many of the racist attitudes in different times, a notion supported by some of his words and actions in the film (calling Wakandan “savages”), this might have been misunderstandings or conflicts in the different cultures.
Killmonger an outsider who grew up with different cultural experiences comes into the kingdom and challenges T’Challa for the throne, and the king accepts the challenge which showed how the Wakanda kingdom was running on a monarchy. T’Challa was challenged to a defeat and forced to meet his ancestors at his point of death, He meets the father and in his own words, he says “our people’s blood is spilled on foreign soil. Not only because of the actions of criminals but of the indifference of those pledged to stop them. Victory at the expense of the innocent is no victory at all”. T’Challa’s return from the point of death changes his perspective and rule over the Wakanda kingdom and goes to rechallenge Killmonger, peace comes back to the kingdom, and the cultural beliefs of the kingdom are restored once again.
And at the end of the movie, T’Challa decides to open his nation up to the world after centuries of isolation, it was a logical decision considering the consequences of his father’s decision to leave Killmonger to grow up in Oakland with different cultures that almost tarnished the whole kingdom because of a single mistake.
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