“Black Panther” is an oxymoron. Is that the word? Don't know, don't care. Panthers are already black, so if we’re trying to be too clever by half, a black panther is a black black animal. No, technology, I did mean to write that. Try to keep up. The Black Panther movement had a reason to emphasise the colour, and I think I read that it was formed shortly after the comic-book hero first appeared (I’m not suggesting a link). Back then, yeah, Black Panther made sense as a name, although for example Shaft (1971) got away with not being identified by one characteristic. As did Kojak (TV, 1973 to 1978, although his thing was more of an addiction than a non-hairstyle), and more to the point I suppose, the differently abled superhero Daredevil (the 2003 film, for example).
I suppose it says something pretty obvious that there’s no film listed at IMDb under the title White Superman, nor indeed White Spider-Man (and White Chicks, 2004, is a film about two black guys, neither of them minstrels), and I guess that White Wolverine (Angry Tanned Unshaven Wolverine?) is still in development purgatory. Never mind. [For the record, the film Panther (1995) tells the Black Panther movement’s story.] Reading a preview article*, a week or two back, about the new Black Panther film, I came across this. The article referred to last year’s Wonder Woman film “shattering the notion that comic-book films should only be made in the image of a young male audience”. Then the article suggested that Black Panther is “out to challenge assumptions of race, not gender”.
Reader, I saw the film. Both films. Wonder Woman has been around for a while (first appearance in 1941, says Wikipedia). In Gal Gadot’s 2017 interpretation, she doesn’t wear her underpants outside her tights in the approved manner for superheroes, doesn’t wear tights at all, but apart from that (and ignoring a jokey moment when she rejects a long skirt), she just goes ahead and does the superhero thing. Lots of property damage; supervillain defeated after much adversity. One of the principal villains is a woman. Can’t say I came out of the cinema feeling that my assumptions of gender had just been challenged, though. That was a superhero. In a superhero movie. Enjoyed it. Enough said.
Black Panther is another superhero film. There are references to oppression, the slave trade, and the morality of the film is all the more thought-provoking for not being the usual clear-cut good/bad divide. Martin Freeman, playing a CIA agent, is on the receiving end of the only apparently racist (it seemed to me) moment. It was oddly difficult to take sides in the central dispute, and I felt for the “bad guy”. Towards the end (stay to the very end of the credits), the punchline of the movie was, from memory, “We all have to work together as if we are one single tribe.” But for all that, it was another superhero film. Enjoyed it. Can’t say that I came out of the cinema feeling that, et cetera, race, challenged, because I’m not sure that I went in with any. The bodyguards were women, but actually, they were bodyguards. Gender wasn’t an issue. The skin was skin-coloured.
And that’s the point. I’m not qualified (sic) to talk about racism in this country, for the same reason that I don’t consider myself a feminist. But it seems to me that we shouldn’t miss the moments when our attitudes suddenly turn out not to be there any more. Is that how change happens? It creeps up on us? We get so used to thinking one way that we don’t notice that the world has changed and us with it? Part of the outrage of unequal pay, and the same goes for racism, today, in this century, in this country, now, is that it’s so incongruous. It’s not just wrong; we all know it’s wrong. Only companies and people (and political parties?) that have failed to emerge from the past tolerate gender inequality (and racism?).
They're anachronisms facing a simple challenge: change, or fade into irrelevance. For the rest of us, though, there is still a challenge, albeit a slightly more complex one: recognise that you've changed; acknowledge change. Hulk wasn't "made in the image of a young male audience", and nor were, say, the Fantastic Four. Mr and Mrs Incredible were made in the image of a hard-working family, come to think of it. There's a cover, I think, showing Captain America in a punch-up with Hitler. Most of the superheroes, in real-world terms, and this goes for Wonder Woman and Black Panther as well, are old enough to be our great-grandparents. I'd guess that they've grown out of assumptions, etc., and it's time we did too.
*Interesting article, about more than just the film. Pow! The superhero who got under my skin by Ekow Eshun, Life & Arts section of the Weekend FT, 3rd/4th February 2018.
I suppose it says something pretty obvious that there’s no film listed at IMDb under the title White Superman, nor indeed White Spider-Man (and White Chicks, 2004, is a film about two black guys, neither of them minstrels), and I guess that White Wolverine (Angry Tanned Unshaven Wolverine?) is still in development purgatory. Never mind. [For the record, the film Panther (1995) tells the Black Panther movement’s story.] Reading a preview article*, a week or two back, about the new Black Panther film, I came across this. The article referred to last year’s Wonder Woman film “shattering the notion that comic-book films should only be made in the image of a young male audience”. Then the article suggested that Black Panther is “out to challenge assumptions of race, not gender”.
Reader, I saw the film. Both films. Wonder Woman has been around for a while (first appearance in 1941, says Wikipedia). In Gal Gadot’s 2017 interpretation, she doesn’t wear her underpants outside her tights in the approved manner for superheroes, doesn’t wear tights at all, but apart from that (and ignoring a jokey moment when she rejects a long skirt), she just goes ahead and does the superhero thing. Lots of property damage; supervillain defeated after much adversity. One of the principal villains is a woman. Can’t say I came out of the cinema feeling that my assumptions of gender had just been challenged, though. That was a superhero. In a superhero movie. Enjoyed it. Enough said.
Black Panther is another superhero film. There are references to oppression, the slave trade, and the morality of the film is all the more thought-provoking for not being the usual clear-cut good/bad divide. Martin Freeman, playing a CIA agent, is on the receiving end of the only apparently racist (it seemed to me) moment. It was oddly difficult to take sides in the central dispute, and I felt for the “bad guy”. Towards the end (stay to the very end of the credits), the punchline of the movie was, from memory, “We all have to work together as if we are one single tribe.” But for all that, it was another superhero film. Enjoyed it. Can’t say that I came out of the cinema feeling that, et cetera, race, challenged, because I’m not sure that I went in with any. The bodyguards were women, but actually, they were bodyguards. Gender wasn’t an issue. The skin was skin-coloured.
And that’s the point. I’m not qualified (sic) to talk about racism in this country, for the same reason that I don’t consider myself a feminist. But it seems to me that we shouldn’t miss the moments when our attitudes suddenly turn out not to be there any more. Is that how change happens? It creeps up on us? We get so used to thinking one way that we don’t notice that the world has changed and us with it? Part of the outrage of unequal pay, and the same goes for racism, today, in this century, in this country, now, is that it’s so incongruous. It’s not just wrong; we all know it’s wrong. Only companies and people (and political parties?) that have failed to emerge from the past tolerate gender inequality (and racism?).
They're anachronisms facing a simple challenge: change, or fade into irrelevance. For the rest of us, though, there is still a challenge, albeit a slightly more complex one: recognise that you've changed; acknowledge change. Hulk wasn't "made in the image of a young male audience", and nor were, say, the Fantastic Four. Mr and Mrs Incredible were made in the image of a hard-working family, come to think of it. There's a cover, I think, showing Captain America in a punch-up with Hitler. Most of the superheroes, in real-world terms, and this goes for Wonder Woman and Black Panther as well, are old enough to be our great-grandparents. I'd guess that they've grown out of assumptions, etc., and it's time we did too.
*Interesting article, about more than just the film. Pow! The superhero who got under my skin by Ekow Eshun, Life & Arts section of the Weekend FT, 3rd/4th February 2018.
This picture was taken shortly before the snow came, see below. I had a punning caption all lined up about cranes as an endangered species, and one did collapse at the docks a while back, but just look at that sky. Snow? Not a chance.
To go on this interminably about Brexit is to express a faith in the government's ability to achieve a right result, one way or the other. To believe that Remain/Leave will deliver a definitively better future than the alternative, is to forget, first, that we're living unpredictable lives, at the mercy of events, and secondly, that the government is implemented by career civil servants, with an unavoidable bias towards the status quo, at the direction of pragmatic idealists whose first instinct is to resort to soundbites rather than evidence.
Nothing is definitively right or wrong. It's all a step towards whatever happens next. Negotiations on big international treaties and issues are invariably reported as processes towards a form of words that everybody can sign, rather than processes towards a solution. Everything is a can to be kicked down the road. Europe isn't going away, and nor are we.
Nothing is definitively right or wrong. It's all a step towards whatever happens next. Negotiations on big international treaties and issues are invariably reported as processes towards a form of words that everybody can sign, rather than processes towards a solution. Everything is a can to be kicked down the road. Europe isn't going away, and nor are we.
Friday, 2nd May, a footnote to make up for yet another Brexit rant. Yesterday and the day before, Falmouth (the UK original) ground to a halt after a few inches of snow. No traffic, most shops closed, students using surfboards as toboggans. The TV news filled up with reports from young journalists in remote places talking about sheep and stranded motorists needing to be rescued. A&E staff were reported to be bedding down in their hospitals; farmers were interviewed about using their 4x4s to bring food to pensioners. People smiled at each other as they crunched past on the street.
Globalisation has given us embarrassment about the national tendency to get excited about the weather. There are countries that get more snow, for longer, that manage perfectly well. We must look ridiculous, goes the conversation, as we try to scrape together enough snow for a snowman from around the abandoned cars. But it's not the snow that's exciting; it's the unpredictability. Went to bed last night to a snow scene; peaceful, quiet. Woke up this morning (having been woken up several times in the night) to find the snow more or less gone, temperature above freezing, and the forecast storm, Storm Emma, living up to its designation for once.
It's very windy. So windy, in fact, that you could almost put money on tomorrow being a flat-calm day, possibly thick fog but more likely a warm sun in a clear blue sky. Or maybe snow again. That's what's exhilarating. Must get some wood for my lovely little Anevay stove - tea party on the beach tomorrow.
Globalisation has given us embarrassment about the national tendency to get excited about the weather. There are countries that get more snow, for longer, that manage perfectly well. We must look ridiculous, goes the conversation, as we try to scrape together enough snow for a snowman from around the abandoned cars. But it's not the snow that's exciting; it's the unpredictability. Went to bed last night to a snow scene; peaceful, quiet. Woke up this morning (having been woken up several times in the night) to find the snow more or less gone, temperature above freezing, and the forecast storm, Storm Emma, living up to its designation for once.
It's very windy. So windy, in fact, that you could almost put money on tomorrow being a flat-calm day, possibly thick fog but more likely a warm sun in a clear blue sky. Or maybe snow again. That's what's exhilarating. Must get some wood for my lovely little Anevay stove - tea party on the beach tomorrow.