In the article ‘Black Panther’ Is Not the Movie We Deserve’, the author discusses the movie Black Panther and gives his own take on the ideals in the movie and connects the movie to the African american experience in america. In the article, he discusses how the movie at first looks like a movie supporting black power and the rights for African Americans, but he argues that when you dig deeper, the movie in actuality vilifies African Americans and portrays them as villains.

However, what I find interesting are two points that he brings up. One was that he criticizes the role of the white CIA agent in the movie and the other point was when he talked about killmonger being treated unfairly by the movie compared to others like the CIA agent. To the first point, I completely disagree because the CIA agent was more of a side-kick to the main cast and only had two heroic scenes in the movie, which was taking a bullet for Zuri and shooting down the gunships before they left Wakanda. Additionally, he wasn’t really central to the main story line of the conflict between T’challa and Killmongerer and if the issue is that the CIA agent is white, that is very discriminatory. To the second point, the vilification of Killmongerer makes perfect sense, as he not only killed many innocents along the way to his rise to the Wakandan throne, but he additionally wanted to kill millions and millions of people in a race war as a way to “liberate blacks from suffering around the world”, which is very much a bad thing. Additionally, his death in the end makes perfect sense when it comes to his character, as throughout his life, he was radicalized by his father’s ideas and opinions on the “colonizers” and throughout his life, he was so blinded by hate that he was willing to do anything to achieve his radicalized goal of getting back at the “oppressors”, not for equality or justice or anything, just pure revenge.

Throughout Christopher Lebron’s article, “‘Black Panther’ Is Not the Movie We Deserve,” he demonstrates a new point of view towards a recent Marvel movie. For children, tenagers,and even some adults,they could ave viewed this movie as a good movie as if it did what it was supposed to do. However, Christopher lebron shows that the image people recieve was incorrect. The movie was basically about racism and the different circumstances the writer and the director, Ryan Coogler, portrayed the topic. For example, in the article, it states that “The abundant evidence of his efficacy does not establish Killmonger as a hero or villain so much as a receptacle for tropes of inner-city gangsterism.” The movie, “Black Panther,” traces previous history and uses it as an example of how the movie is supposed to be. Throughput history, slavery, racism, and discrimination has came across in the lives of African Americans. Killmonger could not be demonstrated as a hero or a villain in the eyes of other white supremacy. In addition, Christopher Lebron uses the example of “The ultimate evil in the show’s first and only season is Willis Stryker (Eric Laray Harvey), another black man whom Luke Cage must defeat,” to illustrate the image various people have about White Americans towards African Americans. Luke Cage is a white man who is portrayed as the hero, while Willis Stryker is a black man who is portrayed as the villain. Even if racism is not as visible as before, it still exists, especially on popular films that most people have an interest in viewing.

Throughout the article, Christopher Lebron’s point of view actually surprised me because I specifically have not seen the movie but, most of my friends did. They viewed it as a great movie as if there was no issue to be addressed, when in reality there is. Racism should not be demonstrated as often as it typically is especially throughout movies, shows, and our president’s actions/ words. Most people watch these sort of things and might even receive the idea that if they were to be racist, it would not be addressed. Donald Trump has shown implication of this topic. He has used snaky comments on other races, and has supported racism in some occasions (even if he “doesn’t notice” it). While I was reading this article, I agreed with Christopher Lebron’s point of view towards this issue.

In ‘Black Panther’  is not the movie we deserve, the author talks about how this movie does not help the African American community but rather how black communities how. How black people kill each other and live up to there “standards” of how they are portrayed. “ Black Panther is set on a course to kill off his cousin in his first outing, suggesting yet another racist trope, the fractured black family as a microcosm of the black community’s inability to get it together.” This just shows that this movie was rather more of a hit to the African communities that they can not do anything perfect and that they always fight each other. Another thing the author mentioned was how they turned the character Kill Monger who was left for dead as a child in Oakland when his father was killed by his brother. Kill Monger seemed to be depicted as this hood guy who picked up skills and had only one thing in mind, to kill. His mission or his goal was to use the technology in Wakanda to create this black uprising to kill white people and set black people as this dominate race. In a way this just shows someone who is tired of what’s going on in the world but it also shows just another black individual with murder on his mind who will kill anything that gets in his way from killing the white people and government, even if it means killing African Americans. The last issue the author talked about was how Kill Monger died in this movie but in the comics there were signs of maybe he could last longer but the movie showed otherwise. The authors argument was that a white man like Loki was given plenty of opportunity to redeem himself after he created his fake deaths and continuously lied to his brother. However, in the last movie Avengers infinity war Loki a white character was portrayed as a hero before he finally died while Kill Monger only played in one movie but died not as a hero or a villain. “Loki even gets his turn to be a good guy in the recent Thor: Ragnarok. Loki gets multiple, unearned chances to redeem himself no matter what damage he has done. Killmonger, however, will not appear in another movie.“It really much depended on how you took the story but the arguments the author stated I found to be intresting.

What really interested me was basically everything. Honestly for me I never really thought about any of this, I just thought it was another amazing Avenger movie that had some really great technology and I thought to myself that it was a good thing they hid away from the world because of how greedy it is today. I also knew it was run by a black community which I thought was great but I did not think of it the way the author did but I see now what he said and in a way he is right but it all depends on how we take this story.

Christopher Lebron’s article provides an insight on the negative representation of Black men in the movie “Black Panther” that I was blind to before.  The article provides the information necessary to open reader’s eyes to the reality that black men are esoterically illustrated in the film industry.  Although difficult to recognize, Lebron goes in to speak about Killomonger specifically.  He says that, “Killmonger isn’t a hero or villain so much as a receptacle for tropes of inner-city gangsterism.”  He backs up his startling claim by describing that the movie only depicts Killomonger’s ravish impulses, his “evil” characteristics, and his starvation for revenge instead of focusing on the bigger picture and his primary goal: to use Wakanda’s resources to help against the mistreatment of Black American men.  This is a goal his father originally had before his own brother killed him on suspicions of treason.  Lebron’s criticism of the movie provides a completely different view: maybe Killomonger isn’t the enemy he’s put out to be and the rest of them are for refusing to help the people who are struggling; the people who look just like them, without the protection Wakanda provides they too would be facing unjust prejudice.  The article really makes you re-evaluate who the real villains are here.

At first the title of this article was startling to me because I strongly believed that there couldn’t possibly be something wrong with this movie, and yet I was proven wrong.  Lebron provides a medium so that the rest of society can see a message that most of us would be insusceptible to because these are not things we’ve gone through.  It was hard for me to place the particular strategies that Lebron uses in this piece to influence his viewers but his use of the movie’s details are what I found the most interesting.  I noticed how well detailed his analysis is and how he uses those facts to defend his stance.  I found one of the most interesting lines from Lebron’s piece to be: “T’Challa offers Wakanda’s technology to save Killmonger’s life—it has saved the white CIA agent earlier in the film. But Killmonger recalls his slave heritage and tells Panther he’d rather die than live in bondage.”  When I watched the film I had never captured the real meaning of Killomonger’s line and how it relates to history and the basis of the contradictory conflicts of this film.  Lebron strategically used details of the story that viewers might have simply brushed off.  His analysis brought to light an issue that is not predominantly talked about and that needs to be addressed in the film industry.

Christopher Lebron’s interpretation of the movie “Black Panther” was interesting. His point of view and analysis was very different. It cause me to see the movie in a whole new perspective. When this movie first came many people were happy and excited that a movie came out, which showed the enrichment of African culture. As time went on people’s opinions of the movie changed. For instance in the he states, “he learns of the racism black Americans face, including mass incarceration and police brutality. He soon understands that his people have the power to help all black people, and he plots to develop weapons using vibranium to even the odds for black Americans”. Lebron goes on to state that how this was similar to another movement like the Black Panthers. Then killmonger and his father are shown as villains because they in a sense  wanted to help out others who were struggling. Lebron further writes that there were other shows with the same thing. “Cage must beat his brother to a pulp, just as Panther must kill his cousin” , but then in the Thor movies Loki (Thor’s brother) has done so many horrible things and causes misery and damage, yet he is always given another chance in another movie. This is not the case with the “Black Panther” and Killmonger. All Killmonger wanted to do was save the lives of black people everywhere and stop them from getting hurt.

One idea that intrigued me was when Lebron wrote “Rather than the enlightened radical, he comes across as the black thug from Oakland hell bent on killing for killing’s sake”. This intrigued me because I felt that this was true. There are many people in the world who have  great ideas that may be radical but because of their background won’t be seen as that. Instead they will be judged from where they live and their ethnicity.

I have not personally seen the movie “Black Panther”, but it seems that it is racist to black Americans according to Christopher Lebron. Lebron explains in his article that although the movie is unique for its black star power, it actually shows devaluation of black American men. There is a black American character in the movie who despises the way blacks are treated in American so he returns to wakanda to challenge the throne and start a revolution to change the way things are. However according to Lebron this character is demonized, he states, ” he comes across as the black thug from Oakland hell bent on killing for killing’s sake”. He is basically saying that instead of being seen as a hero or just a good person in general he is demonized simply because he is a black American man. Another opinion he states is that the movie demonizes black Americans to shine a good light on African nobility. Lebron states, ”  The fight takes a shocking turn: T’Challa lands a fatal blow to Killmonger, lodging a spear in his chest. As the movie uplifts the African noble at the expense of the black American man, every crass principle of modern black respectability politics is upheld”. He is basically trying to saying they purposely used a black American as the antagonist to make the african nobels come out as heroes.

A quote that stood out to me was “As the movie uplifts the African noble at the expense of the black American man, every crass principle of modern black respectability politics is upheld“. This stood out to me because just reading his article without seeing the movie I disagree with it. I do not think the directors purpose was to demonize black Americans in any way. I actually agree with the choice of the wakandans in the movie, although killmonger had good intentions he lacked rationality. Had his revolution taken place the entire stability of the nation could have fallen. Their hidden fortune and power would have become known by the world, their very source of wealth and power “vibranium” would have been discovered, among other problems. In my personal opinion I think that it was a regular plot with no intention to demonize blacks anywhere, the wakandans had a very regular and rational reaction to killmongers choices.

One of Lebron’s main points from his criticism about the Marvel movie “Black Panter”, was that is racist to portray the main villian as a black man. He states that “They (the movie) safeguard virtue and goodness against the threat not of white Americans or Europeans, but a black American man, the most dangerous person in the world.”, showing his dissapointment towards the fact that the villain in this movie, wasn’t a white, but in fact that having a “black man whose father was murdered by his own family and who is left by family and nation to languish in poverty. That’s racist”. This shows how not only he doesn’t like the main villain to be a black man, but to also for him to have such a tragic background story, is “racist”. In addition he claims that the movie shows that “black lives doesn’t matter”. He says this because other “villains—even those far more destructive than Killmonger—die infrequently”, then he adds on by putting Loki as an example of how he “gets multiple, unearned chances to redeem himself no matter what damage he has done”. Which is true since he have done things like almost kill his brother, causing the apocalypse in his homeland, almost killing his brother multiple times, and causing a massacre in NY. So with this Lebron, goes on saying that his “claim that Killmonger’s black life does not matter is not hyperbole.” Since not only other villians get second chances, but also because in the scene where Killmonger dies “Black Panther does not flinch. There is no reconciliation”.

One of the major things that confuses me, is that I don’t know if he realizes or not the fact that when he talks about Killmonger wanting to “liberate” black men around the world by using WEAPONS, he understands that is going to lead to the mass murder of white people around the world. Another thing that confused me was the fact that he doesn’t like the idea of the main villian to be a black man, where after all the movie is based on an African country where ALL habitants are black. And one last thing that also confused me was that in Lebron’s last paragraph he says that “Why not take the case to the United Nations and charge the United States with crimes against humanity……?”, So I would like to know why would he make such a ramdom question like that?, I would like to know what are such “crimes against humanities” that the US have committed?

‘Black Panther’ Is Not the Movie We Deserve by Christopher Lebron presented a different perspective on the Black Panther movie. In his perspective the movie was a form of attempting to portray black empowerment, in a time period which our current president refers to blacks of “sons of bitches” whom should lose their jobs due to protesting police brutality. To deviate from the racism and integrating black culture is the purpose of creating these types of  movies. I found the portrayal of how strong women and the huge role in the movie. “They are the film’s brightest spot: the black women of Wakandan descent are uniformly independent, strong, courageous, brilliant, inventive, resourceful, and ethically determined.” This demonstrates the importance of woman and the role they played as empowered, I found this to be so interesting because often women are not placed in strong positions or roles. However, in Black Panther you witnessed gender equality because both genders recieved strong character roles. Many would believe that this movie was meant to show African culture and integrate it into society. The interpretation of how this movie was a basically a fail, interesting. He began through discussing how this was an attempt to diversify the culture of the prominently white cinematic super-heroics. However, that this was not the first attempt in which diversity within movies was presented and failed to be acknowledged or undermined.

His perspective completely shifted my point of view from a one sided view at the thought that it was simply just another movie. I realized that this movie had a bigger picture and message behind, I never really paid much attention to the logistics of the characters and the role woman played which was a deviation from the norm due to woman not usually being shown as strong. They usually are portrayed as fragile or delicate but they could be given roles of empowerment. As well as this raised awareness to me about how often blacks or people of color are excluded from cinematic heroes and are usually seen as villains but after reading this I was able to see both villain and heros.