The cast of Black Panther tweeted out a series of character posters today and they are…stunning. So many people are so excited for this movie…Ryan Coogler looks to have made a very different kind of MCU movie, and I don’t mean just because most of the cast is black, although that’s an important advancement for the superhero movie. The tone in the trailers has been that of a sophisticated spy thriller. Black Panther also places the Afro-Futurist movement firmly into the mainstream of pop culture, as revealed in this interview with star Chadwick Boseman at CNET
You spent a lot of time thinking about how the king of an advanced African nation speaks, specifically your accent, your intonation. Tell us about it.
Boseman: People think about how race has affected the world. It’s not just in the States. Colonialism is the cousin of slavery. Colonialism in Africa would have it that, in order to be a ruler, his education comes from Europe. I wanted to be completely sure that we didn’t convey that idea because that would be counter to everything that Wakanda is about. It’s supposed to be the most technologically advanced nation on the planet. If it’s supposed to not have been conquered — which means that advancement has happened without colonialism tainting it, poisoning the well of it, without stopping it or disrupting it — then there’s no way he would speak with a European accent. If I did that, I would be conveying a white supremacist idea of what being educated is and what being royal or presidential is. Because it’s not just about him running around fighting. He’s the ruler of a nation. And if he’s the ruler of a nation, he has to speak to his people. He has to galvanize his people. And there’s no way I could speak to my people, who have never been conquered by Europeans, with a European voice.
Black Panther opens on February 16th as part of the Fourth Wave of the MCU.
Chadwick Boseman as the man himself, T’Challa, Black Panther
Danai Gurira as Okoye
Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia
Laetitia Wright as Shuri, T’Challa’s sister and the smartest person in Wakanda.
Angela Bassett as Ramonda, T’Challa’s mother
Forest Whitaker as Zuri
Andry Serkis as Klaw
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