The Black Panther

The Black Panther

The 2018 Black Panther was one of the first movies I watched after immigrating to Canada. Walking out of the movie theater, I posted the following paragraph:

With magnetic levitation trains more advanced than our 21st century technology, they still live the life of an early agricultural civilization where people farm and raise livestock by hand.

With highly advanced laser cannons, fighter jets, and tanks, they still wield spears in chaotic and unorganized tribal warfares.

With powerful medical devices capable of saving patients that no other country in the world could, their leader still wears a lip plate.

With skyscrapers as majestic as forests, their highest national leader is still chosen through brainless and deadly duels.

A civilization suspended from time and reality — the more you look at it, the more tragic it seems.

If we talk about cultural appropriation, nothing is more culturally appropriative than this movie. The fact that such an extremely insulting film is praised by Hollywood and even society at large only further ironizes the perceived backwardness of Black civilization.

We can only be thankful that the civilization deemed most backward in the world today is not the Chinese society. Thankful that today’s “Black Panther” is not a “Yellow Dragon,” and that the story is not about women with bound feet and some absurd “dragon-taming warriors.”

—-2018.5.26, originally in Chinese

The passage may come across as weird or confusing for the average Western reader, so I feel compelled to provide the context and assumptions behind this criticism. Doing this also helps to communicate the many of the overall theoretical frameworks I hold that diverge significantly from the standard American ones.

The Assumptions: Teleology and Materialism

In particular, there are two theoretical positions symbolic of current Chinese people (including me)’s unique ways of thinking I would note here. 

The first one is a teleological view of history that allows for the concepts of backwardness and advancement to exist. 

The second one is a naive understanding of historical materialism that identifies a casual relation between level of productivity and social structures. 

The two prepositions, taken together, formulate a projection of historical progress where productivity increases alongside the advancement of social structures, including institutions, cultures, values, and aesthetics. 

I hope to briefly explain the breeding ground of such thoughts. A teleological view of history is prompted by (1) the official reading as late Qing Dynasty as a period of painful and shameful subjugation by technologically and societly more advanced Western/Japanese Imperialist powers; (2) the rapid physical, psychological, and structural transformation brought about by the reform and opening up policy. Taken together, they form a quasi, state/civilization-based Social Darwinism, where civilizations are in perpetual competition, and the ones that embody the most efficient and fastest development will see the most dramatic technological and, therefore, societal changes and advancements. These advantages then empower them to exceed or subjugate other competitors either militarily or culturally, and the temporarily defeated have to learn from the superiors to build their own societies by cleansing their traditional weakness and adopting the advanced ways of doing things, in order to catch up with the superiors. To note two things: first, a teleological view of history does not necessarily assume a linear trajectory; there can be setbacks and competitions. Second, although a teleological view asserts objectivity and unity, there is still undeniable subjective and agential elements in it. For example, it assumes “the survival of the fittest” represents “evolution,” but it is conceivable that growth of productivity and power can occasionally be contradictory to standards of living (which we ultimately care about): some argue that peasants lived a less healthy life than the hunters and gatherers. However, I do not think this possibility constitutes a real concern in the context of this article.

China’s reform and opening up, despite marking a departure from the Marxist teleological view of socialism’s replacement of capitalism, still champion the modernization of the Chinese economy and society. For people living in coastal cities like me, they witness unbelievably rapid economic growth within one generation, where unproductive traditions are mercilessly shattered and made ways for market economy and liberalism. Those who embrace change succeed, while those who do not are left behind. By succeeding, they enjoyed much higher standards of living, possesing material wealth and personal freedom they couldn’t even dream of when they were kids. Therefore, a developmentalism or modernization theory materializes, and becomes deeply entrenched in the minds of many Chinese people in recent generations.

As for the preliminary understanding and acceptance of Historical Materialism, it resulted from the extensive, although often misguided and appropriated, education of Marxism. “Matter determines consciousness,” as is often quoted. From this starting point, a vague but strong casual inference is formed–from material determinism, to geographical determinism, to technological determinism, and eventually to institutional determinism. These determinisms are understood in chains, so are not only not contradictory, but in fact complementary and casual. In simple words, new technologies make new ways of doing things. For example, it is hardly disputable that the emergence of washing machines greatly reduced housework time and liberated women from their domestic roles—-a change of division of labour and social relations. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that, generally speaking, the countries where women enjoy the most equal rights and conditions are those that are also most technologically advanced. By placing technology/level of productivity at the center, this framework sees other factors as wholly derivative—-their influence is often conditional upon the relevantly required level of productivity.

Again, combing these two views, we have the following conclusions: (1) the increase of level of productivity leads to an advancement of social structures, where the term advancement implies normative value judgement; (2) the effect of technological advancement on social structure tends to be universal and objective; (3) a society where its level of productivity does not match its level of social structures is unlikely to sustain itself.

A Contradictory Wakanda

With these assumptions outlined, let me explain my disdain for Black Panther‘s depiction of the Wakanda kingdom.

Let’s first establish the fact that Wakanda society embodies a high level of productivity. The movie attributed its technological achievement to its unique possession of the metal Vibranium, which is a dubious reason to begin with, as we know the Europeans colonized the world not because of harder spears or faster horses, but a mastery of chemistry and physics. So, Vibranium may just be a perk—-for example, it has healing power in the movie. But the fundamental reasons of technological sophistication should be Wakanda’s knowledge and application of physical laws. For example, their train utilized magnetic levitation to minimize friction, meaning they should have an understanding of Newtonian physics, including Aerodynamics, that is no less advanced than the 21st-century human civilization. 

Naturally, we will expect to see a socio-political structure that is more or less equally advanced. However, the most jaw-dropping contradiction is their mechanism of selecting the ruler/monarch/dictator—-a bloody duel! I believe leadership through dueling existed in prehistoric tribes, where life was short, nasty, and brutish. Their survival almost exclusively depended on physical force and power that fenced themselves against aggression or conquered others for resources, so brutal power is praised, ritualized, and institutionalized. The person who subdues others through physical power is legitimized as the leader, while culture, knowledge, or judgements are not relevant criteria. Even human sacrifice is a more advanced culture—-recognizing symbolism and religion. Entering recorded history, such a selection mechanism was almost extinct: even the military generals were selected through experiences, skills, or connections, rather than muscles.

But here we have Wakanda, a society with advanced technology that is capable of utilizing energy and force much more efficiently than human power, but still worships physical strength and duels to the death. Evidently, a society like that does not respect or promote knowledge—-candidates that study management, culture, and technology will be killed by those who practice combat. How can such a society develop advanced technology if the accumulation of knowledge is not valued?

Similarly, why are the people still engaging in human power farming—-farming with a hoe like my grandma does in her small rural village? They should have developed Vibranium-powered tractors, no? I know how hard manual farming is. My grandpa’s elder brother died of a lighting strike while farming in the field during a rainly day. The farming postures, especially the rice transplanting, placed great burden to the back and the waist and contributed to chronic illnesses. Why did Wakandans choose to suffer?

Again, Wakandans use spears and shields in combat despite their knowledge of direct-energy weapons. Some may argue that these spears and shields happen to be the most suitable medium for the Vibranium-powered direct-energy weapons, but what are the odds of such a coincidence? It is more reasonable to assume that the epistemology of movie producers was not based on the efficient utilization of energy, but a mere borrow from African tribal weaponry.

A more controversial take—-their costumes, specifically the lip plate, also reflected backwardness and brutality. Only in backward societies, the average person defigures themselves, meaning that they significantly change their bodily structures or appearances by inflicting pain and modification to themselves, for no apparent usages other than ceremonial and symbolic purposes. I am not an anthropologist, but I can imagine four reasons for this behaviour: (1), they want to scare their emenies in combats with their abnormal physical appearances; (2), by hurting themselves in visible ways, they intimidate their emenies by showing their cruelity—-if I can be so cruel to myself, can you imagine how cruel I can be to you! (3), due to the lack of mediums for cultural display (paper, buildings, sculptures), they have to use their own bodies for display; (4), it serves as a mechanism and symbol of social hierarchy and control—-in Ming and Qing Dynasties, almost all upper-class Chinese women, and almost half of all Chinese women, had bound feet, which severely damaged their walking and labouring abilities. Of course, what we care about is the result rather than the intentions. A practice originated in backward societies may coincidentally come around as useful in modern societies. For example, a minimalist lifestyle, despite originally derived from material scarcity, can be now good for the environment. But it is hard to imagine how a cruel and painful practice of bodily harm can bring more benefits than harm in a modern society. Therefore, it is said to be a backward culture according to its damaging results. 

The Idealism

I believe that some very good intentions were behind the production of this movie. Some producers look at current African symbols, that are perceived as backward, and incorporate them in a hypothetical advanced society, in an attempt to “flip” their perceptions—-“you see, a super advanced society can have these African symbols, so current African cultures are advanced as long as you look at it that way!” The classic American Idealism! Basing on a theory of dualism between materials and ideas, they overemphasize on cultures and perceptions as independent and sufficient objects, and aim to change social power and hierarchy only by directing cultural representations. They also relied on a naive understanding of social constructivism: by equating construction to arbitrariness. Many professors casually say: “Since social structures are socially constructed, we can construct them in any ways we want! There are no pre-determined paths!” Even Staurt Hall had said, if I remembered correctly, that the red traffic light means stop only because we made it so, and we can also arbitrarily change it to green meaning stop! But have you considered the possibility that red meaning stop originated the association between red and danger as the human blood is red? (On a side note, red countdown signals in Canada technically means the pedestrian light is still on and you can still go if you have enough time, but it means stop in the US and China, which really causes confusion) I understand and support the position that no social system is “natural,” but I insist that all social systems “happen naturally.”

It is perplexing that how much efforts the American society are willing to spend on swapping originally white characters with non-white actors, in contrast to their unwillingness to fully fund the public education in improvished neighborhoods! It reminds me of the Maoist idealism: as long as you work hard enough, you can defy all objective obstacles and achieve glory successes! In my opinion, these idealist endeavours have largely bankrupted. Even though many critical race theorists are materialist, the mainstream reception and utilization of it is still primarily idealist. Even the DEI project is understood largely in correcting wrong perceptions by quotas and scores, rather than ensuring that all children are born with a similar level of resources. Certainly, the Western society chooses to be idealist also to avoid the tough questions of colonialism. Admitting that the imperialists and colonists had advanced culture, besides advanced weaponry, will be offensive to some victims of colonialism. But the last Chinese regime that denied the institutional superiority of the Western imperialists—-the Qing Dynasty, had died. It was replaced by a regime that wrote such superiority into its entire educational system, and this regime demonstrated substantial growth by learning from the Western institutions, which eventually empower it to develop and claim cultural innovations beyond nostalgic symbolism.

In addition, the idealist and dualist approach of seperating material realities and cultural representation exhibits a deeper fault. It implies a “liberal essentialism” that is fundamentally restrictive and exclusionary. How can an ideology be both liberal/relative/multicultural and essentialist? But this is a prevailing approach to ethnic cultures. It identifies past cultural practices and associates them with their supposed ethnic groups, where these groups are assumed to have varying explanatory and utilizing power/boundaries of their assigned “cultures.”  It is liberal because all ethnic groups enjoy recognized and equal cultural norms, it is essentialist because each ethnic group is both justified and restricted to the building of “their own culture.” The most telling example is the common accusation of cultural appropriation in America. It is not suprising that only the ethnic outgroups can be accused of cultural appropriation, while the ingroups are immune to such accusation as “owners” of their culture. While behaviours that deprive the ethnic originality of cultures or intentionally defame ethnic cultures are rightly criticized, some mere instances of “cross-culturing”—-that a person from culture A wears an ethnic dress, has an ethnic haircut, or modifies an ethnic good from culture B, should not warrant accusations. It is also not a coincidence that many angry netizens that accuse people from other ethnic groups of culturally appropriating Asian cultures are often ABC rather than native East Asians. Because some Americans, especially the minorities, see their culture as their essential property that is to be protected, under the idealist framework. While Chinese citizens tend to intepret the adoption of Chinese cultures by people from other ethnic groups as evidence of cultural progression and dissemination—-as its cross-culture popularity reflects its value and advancement under the dynamic competition of cultures.

Africanness vs. Blackness in the Light of Advancing Culture

Let’s return to the movie. Being compassionate, let’s accept the idealist approach and makes this movie about creating a new and advanced, or at least ceberated, cultural identity that the Black American community can be proud of. But even for this aim, Black Panther, or those who hope it can have such an effect, are making a strategic mistake, which is basing a Black American consciousness on an African consciousness. It is racial essentialist to assert that only because of the genetic similarity, an African figure, such as the one with the lip plate, can be instantly relatable to a Black American. Black Americans did not come here voluntarily. Their previous culture was cut off, which is different from many other immigrant communities. Even though a small part of it may have been incorporated into a new literary and musical creations, it should be this new identity that is to be celebrated, irrelevant of the previous African culture. The Black Americans are much more economically advanced than the Africans, which neccesitate a more suitable and fruitful local cultural identity that is to be fought for. The Africanness can provide very limited guidance on, let’s say, the struggle between Black culture and so-called mainstream pop culture in the United States. In a sense, Africanness is a burden rather than gift, if forced to make up the Black American culture.

This topic can be relatable for the Chinese. What is Chinese culture? The dramatic upheavals in the past century make an answer difficult. But I have always believed that the answer is found in the forward, not backward. For example, Genshin Impact may be the internationally most successful China-made cultural product, but many Chinese people despise it being used as an exemplar of Chinese culture. “It is Japanese”, “it is culturally hollow”, “its content is unimpressive”, so on and so on. The government, of course, will promote the Beijing Opera as a model of Chinese culture, but the fact is no young Chinese people nowadays, let alone the non-Chinese, enjoy watching the Beijing Opera. It is simply outdated. A culture has to cleanse and redefine itself to survive and thrive. Thinking of “the Chinese culture,” I will stress that the “Chinese” comes before the “culture,” not the other way around. It should be properly termed “China’s culture,” it is a society that is choosing its culture, not an essentialist culture that is kidnapping a country. If China is to be a first-tier country, it will create a Chinese culture that has never existed before, and will be standardized and internationalized until a point when its Chineseness becomes obscure—-like that between McDonald and Mayflower.

But, what’s wrong with a society discovering, (creating, re-appropriating,) and celebrating its long-lost cultural legacies? Like the nationalists always do? By defining your Chineseness, Blackness, or whateverness with a historical object, you lose your claim to the future. It is a retreat out of inconfidence and inferiority complex, that faced with insurmountable Western hegemonic culture, you dug up something opposite to maintain your identity—-an unsustainable and eventually secondary one. Physics is not termed Western physics, it is just physics. When Chinese people lost on the front of physics, they re-created Chinese medicine, purportedly an alternative to Western medicine (which should simply be termed modern medicine). The ethically questionable business speculators invented these Chinese medicines and relied on ancient or even mythic tellings for their effectiveness, while being afraid to have their medicines gone through double blind experiments. Yes, the Chinese medicine industry brought back confidence for many, and created a fair amount of GDP. But it also leads to vast waste of taxpayers’ money through medical insurance, resulting in thousands of kidney failures every year and leading patients to miss their optimal treatment period. A Chinese identity based on that is a dead end. Many Chinese people know this, that is why even though Lizi Qi is super viral on Western internet, she has not been remotely well-recepted in China, comparatively speaking. Because people know her subsistence farming lifestyle is staged and romanticized. A Chinese identity based on that will be impotent and weak.

This is why there can a sinister effect of relating the Black Panther to the Black American culture. The technological advancement of Wakanda is really just a small extension to the current Western technology. But the uniquely African element of Wakanda was simply moral combat, lip plates, and manual farming. Relating the Black American identity to these backward cultures will not contribute to a relevant and powerful Black identity. The weirdest of all, is how the name, Black Panther, is taken after a real native black American political community with its own ideology and movement. Such an appropriation minimized and ridiculed the real Black Panther Party, and replace it with a poorly written hypothetical scenerio caught between fairy tales and science fiction. It is actually better if Black Panther is presented as a wholly fantasy movie, like Kung Fu Panda, so no one will draw any serious political and cultural lessons from it.

It is Just my Immature Opinion

Just like how I did in the beginning, I also want to close with a disclaimer. I am not black, I haven’t lived in America for an extended period of time, I am not speaking on behalf of any communities. In addition, strictly speaking, I am not a fan of the Marvel series, so my limited knowledge of its worldview may misguide my analysis. This commentary is written through my own perspectives and thereotical assumptions, which may be totally wrong or inapplicable. Like most others, I hope all people will collectively move forward towards a better future, and 99.9% of the disagreements are just over the means. The arguments put forth in this article also naturally have their limits. Not all tiny instances of culture can be traced to a certain level of technological progression. For example, I don’t think either chopsticks or forks are more culturally advanced than one another. But still, I believe this framework has merits, and can benefit our society in crucial ways. It force us to be relevant, progressive, and suspicious of inertia. It refuses to blur or bypass important arguments, and it aims to include the most number of participants in the debate of progress and representation.

—-Atlas, 2025.03.25