Black Panther uses “African Futurism” to make western audiences see one thing clearly: to imagine the future is not only the right of some people.On the map of Africa, go east along the Congo Basin and find the dense jungle in the south of the Ethiopian Plateau, where is Wakanda.Now, imagine a fairyland that the western colonists have never set foot in – no plunder, no racial hatred, the constant flow of airships, frequent medical miracles, and the exploitation of rare material “Zhenjin”, making it the most powerful country in the world.
This scene is like saying that if you don’t destroy it, Africa will become like this.
In Black Panther, African descendants are imagining what they will look like 10, 20, or even 1000 years later.
This is the oldest birthplace of human civilization on the blue planet. If there were no war, colonization, hunger and poverty, what kind of wonder would be born
The answer is the future we never imagined.
Vakanda’s Secret History
-Energy: there is gold flowing everywhere
Wakanda is an imaginary African country in The Panther, and its wealth comes from “Zhenjin”. This hypothetical metal can provide power for weapons and clothing.
In the tradition of African aborigines, a thing often has many uses. If you see someone wearing a beautiful piece of fabric, the fabric may not only protect the body, but also rely on the fabric to record culture and history.
Based on this feature, the war clothes of the Vakandar people are both beautiful and functional.
The shimmering silver luster on the Panther suit is inlaid with vibrating gold to resist bullets and explosions.
The border tribes were covered with blankets, and the patterns of vibrating gold turned the fabric into a shield.
All the above technical works are the masterpieces of a woman: Princess Surui, the sister of King Techara. This girl is “Elon Musk” of Wakanda. As the chief technology officer, she is responsible for the research and development of various black technologies.
Her gloves can use the power of vibrating gold to launch shock waves, and the coolest shape of the work may be the ring blade of warrior Nagya.
-Clothing: they wear “full dress” all year round
Ruth Carter, the costume designer, said that the costume of this film is the wisdom borrowed from the residents of the whole African continent.
It has to be admitted that Africans have the gift of imitating gods in the use of colors and patterns.
Carter designed the “Panther War Clothes” with raised triangular dark patterns all over the body. She believes that the triangle is the most representative geometric figure of African culture, which makes Techara not only a superhero, but also more like a king, the king of Africa.
This tribal elder in an emerald suit wears a matching lip plate, which is a body decoration found in Suri and Mursi tribes in Ethiopia.
The blankets of border tribes are the traditional clothing of the sheep herders in Lesotho, South Africa. They graze on the plateau all the year round, and the colorful thick blankets and boots help protect the body from the cold.
The Royal Women’s Guard wore red combat robes, and the neck ring protected their necks and showed their identity level.
It is decorated with beaded cloth, referring to the beaded ornaments of Masai women in East Africa, which can be passed to their daughters by soldiers.
Lupita Nyeono, who plays Nagya, said that cultural diversity is very useful in this film. When you look at the clothes, you can imagine their way of life. This is part of the role.
-City – Golden Fairyland in the Deep Forest
Golden City is the capital of Wakanda. It has two main types of public transport: rail cars and maglev trains, both of which satisfy people’s imagination of the future train.
Of course, with the help of Zhenjin, the power of the vehicle is much greater than that of the real world.
There are three main types of aircraft in Wakanda:
Talon Fighters, similar to fighter aircraft.
Dragon Flyers are dragonfly bionic helicopters.
The Royal Talon Fighters is the “Air Force One” of Wakanda, whose top view is inspired by the African mask.
The sparkling glass skyscraper originated from African architecture, and the traditional thatched roof is preserved above it. The scaffold of Timbuktu and the pyramid of Mali are also reference objects.
Like many African countries, Wakanda divides administrative regions by tribes, and each tribe has its own decoration and representative colors.
Art director Hannah Beachler wrote a 500-page set bible, in which the inspiration of the merchant tribe came from the Berber people in the Sahara Desert. The mining tribe imitates the Himba people in Namibia, who are famous for their hair ornaments and bodies covered with red mud.
The future belongs to Africa
Black Panther has become popular on the Internet with its unique aesthetics, which is due to the fact that African-American actors and creative teams (which is very rare in American movies) have overturned the western design preferred by contemporary science fiction.
Putting the black race at the center of the future world is actually a trend of thought born in the 20th century, called “African futurism”. It spans science fiction, music, art and mythology, combines the technology at that time, and imagines the future of mankind from the perspective of African Americans.
The writer Mark Dery coined the term “African Futurism” in an article called Black to the Future in 1994. He quoted at the beginning of the article that “whoever controls the past is equal to controlling the future; whoever controls the present is equal to controlling the past”, and then questioned:
Why are few African Americans writing science fiction?
Why are blacks almost invisible in the world of tomorrow depicted by Disney, Marvel and Hollywood?
Why does the future belong to white people?
Indeed, science fiction, especially the American science fiction in the golden age, often codes the colonial people and their culture as “aliens” or “others”.
For example, in the old version of Star Trek, Klingons have a face of Manchurian style and are famous for their barbarism.
The sand people in Star Wars, dressed in Arabic robes, are not easily offended.
Unfortunately, this tradition continues to this day. The alien tribes in “Avatar” and “Star Agent: The City of Thousand Stars” are just a mixture of Native Americans and Africans.
The Panther was born in 1966 and co-created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Although the metanarrative is rooted in New York, it was initially interspersed with many stereotyped images of Africa, but later it began to study Wakanda’s geopolitics from the perspective of globalization.
The film version of “Panther” goes further. It really depicts a superhero from the perspective of “Pan Africa”, interweaves Wakanda’s advanced technology and African civilization, and deconstructs Africa’s tribal culture, artistic style, lifestyle, social form
For example, in Wakanda, tradition and innovation are not mutually exclusive. The ancient culture of this country and its advanced technology in the 21st century are developing in parallel.
However, in the real world, postcolonialism often gives priority to western philosophy and design, and does not allow traditional culture to exert its potential. It seems that there is not much African shadow in the communication officer Uhura on the Enterprise; Go for a walk in the street. Few African Americans know their origins.
When African descendants are invisibly enslaved in the United States or their own territory, they are also deprived of African language and identity.
Wakanda is not affected by any particular African culture. In Marvel Universe, it is the settlement of African immigrants around the world. In the design, priority is given to “non-white”, “non-western ideology” and the sub-culture of black Americans.
The Panther is both a returning king and a superhero. This character and his real identity are not separated as “the superhero in the western individualism paradigm”.
Although Batman is an urban hero, he is also an upper-class celebrity who has inherited a rich family fortune, which cannot resonate with white readers.
However, the Panther is passed on through continuous blood relationship, which is the result of the integration of Western superheroes with tribal civilization. It reminds them of their roots and is a luxury rarely obtained by African American readers.
There is no denying that the black leopard is the best example of “African Futurism” in recent years.
Women, cheetahs, pyramids and stars
William Gibson once made a precise prediction: the future has come, but it is not evenly distributed.
In other words, the future is biased and ignores a few people.
But now, the descendants of Africa are imagining a new world of tomorrow, telling the stories of women, cheetahs, pyramids and stars in their languages.
In addition to The Panther, a series of science fiction, music, clothing and artists from the African continent can prove this.
In the album “Lemonade” last April, Beyonce led a group of women in ethereal white dresses to establish a utopia composed of black women.
Kendrick Lamar and SZA sang the final song “All the stars” for “The Panther”, in which four women like Nubian gods fell from the sky like alien messengers and stood in the golden floating temple.
The artist Sun Ra, the originator of “African Futurism”, said that he was an emissary from Saturn, wearing futuristic ancient Egyptian clothing, and using electronic synthesizers and jazz to tell the story of the universe.
Rap singer Killah Priest’s single “From the Past to the Present”, with the theme of time travel, also traces back to the era of the pharaoh:
Memory is erased from the slave ship
I saw my princess in the distance
Hold the baby and burn incense
……
We used to wander between mallows
We used to herd sheep, now we fight
The 2016 Nebula Award awarded the best novelette to the African-American writer Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti.
In the book, the girl named Binti is a Namibian Simba. She was admitted to the Star School and took a series of adventures with the ancient technology brought by the earth.
Of course, it also includes The Panther, which depicts many black women. In name, Wakanda’s hero is King Techara, but his bodyguards, consultants and chief technical experts are all women.
Wired magazine even commented that in Panther, the future belongs to women.
However, the future in the eyes of African descendants should not fall into a certain aesthetic paradigm, nor do we need to define it.
Each of them is a unique entity, exploring their own space in popular culture and contemporary history.
Science fiction writer Tochi Onyebuchi wrote after watching The Panther:
“African Futurism is like the chariot that turned into a spaceship. We are no longer the alien aborigines whose homes were invaded, and no longer the target of genocide by outsiders.
No, we are explorers. We can fly spaceships.
The history of African Americans has been systematically destroyed. We must rebuild ourselves with a blank slate. We took our street hip-hop and slang with us, and wore a park-style, jewel-encrusted blanket on our shoulders.
We can freely go to the future and become citizens of the universe. ”
At the end of the film, Wakanda decided to announce his existence to the world and share advanced technology.
A UN official asked: What can a country full of farmers bring to the world?
King Techara laughed but said nothing.
