Page 30 - aruba-today-20180209

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Friday 9 February 2018
'Black Panther' takes blockbusters to Africa, and the future

By LINDSEY BAHR it checks off: Complex Af-
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) rican female characters;
— For Ryan Coogler, the African language on a big
essence of "Black Panther" screen; African characters
came down to one ques- who are varied in many
tion: What does it mean to different ways and heroic;
be African? The heroism of Africans for
The Oakland-born film- themselves and not need-
maker of both "Creed" and ing a white hero — go fig-
"Fruitvale Station" had been ure — to reach their goals;
given the gargantuan task Celebrating so many spe-
of shepherding Marvel's cific African cultural-isms.
iconic superhero to the No one can really now try
big screen, with a budget to put forth some product
five times bigger than he'd where Africa is seen beg-
ever had, Hollywood's most ging for a white superhero
powerful studio behind him to come and save it."
and the freedom to make "Black Panther" has the
"Black Panther" as person- makings of an all-out a cul-
al as he wanted. Coogler tural event. "It's the biggest,
had made his name cre- blackest movie that's ever
ating films about the black been made," said veteran
experience, but both were journalist and television
about the black American writer Marc Bernardin.
experience. "Black Pan- In this Jan. 30, 2018 photo, filmmaker Ryan Coogler poses for a portrait at the "Black Panther" press And it's already signaling
ther," which opens nation- junket at the Montage Beverly Hills in Beverly Hills, Calif. a seismic shift that that
wide next week, was an Associated Press could make an impact
African story and when Coogler said. "This film for As kid you're like, well wait, hero movie. Wakanda, a big enough to change the
Coogler signed on for the me started with this ques- why? Like, so wait we're fictional African nation, is entertainment industry —
movie, he'd never been. tion of, 'What does it mean from Africa? What's that? an insulated, un-colonized not that it hasn't taken de-
Now, he'd finally get his to be African?' It's a ques- "I'm 31-years-old and I re- and technologically ad- cades to get the African
chance. tion that I've always had alized I never really took vanced country that's both King and warrior to the big
"This is the most personal since I learned I was black, time to grapple with what deeply traditional and daz- screen. Wesley Snipes tried
film I've ever made, which since my parents sat me it means to be African. This zlingly modern. "Black Pan- for years to get a "Black
is the strangest statement down and told me what film gave me the chance ther" paints a multifaceted Panther" film off the ground,
to say because I only make that was. I didn't totally un- to do that," he said. portrait of a nation in flux, bumping up against an-
films that are personal," derstand what that meant. When the wheels touched as T'Challa/Black Panther tiquated thinking about
down in Cape Town, South (Chadwick Boseman) as- how "black movies don't
Africa, Coogler remembers cends to the throne follow- travel" (code for a film's
being overcome with a ing his father's death. potential to make money
visceral feeling that he still Actress Danai Gurira ("The internationally). Even in the
can't put words to. He went Walking Dead"), who plays modern Kevin Feige-led su-
to Table Mountain and Okoye, the general of the perhero era, where seem-
thought, "I could be buried Wakanda warriors known ingly every comic book
here." In Nairobi he saw a as the Dora Milaje, grew up character is fair game for a
Maasai man, wearing tra- mostly in Zimbabwe. She film, T'Challa was pretty far
ditional clothes and speak- said she was "giddy" with down on Marvel's list ("Ant-
ing on a cell phone. "That's "childlike joy" when she un- Man" and two "Guardians
Wakanda," he thought. derstood how Coogler in- of the Galaxy" films came
"That's Afrofuturism." tended to show Africa and first). But Marvel had a plan,
And that's what he set out its inhabitants like Okoye, and introduced T'Challa in
to translate into the lan- the spy Nakia (Lupita a small but impactful part
guage of cinema in "Black Nyong'o) and the scientist in "Captain America: Civil
Panther." It's the 18th film Shuri (Letitia Wright) — and War" to set up the stand-
in the Marvel Cinematic those are just the women. alone film. And it’s currently
Universe and based on "'Black Panther' creates a resting at a cozy 100 per-
50-year-old Stan Lee and precedent that kills the abil- cent fresh on Rotten Toma-
Jack Kirby-created mate- ity of folks to misrepresent toes. Some are a little more
rial, sure, but this is far from and distort the continent," skeptical that this will hap-
being just another super- Gurira said. "The things that pen. q

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