Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a rewrite of Hollywood’s superhero movie script. British professor Diana Adesola Mafe recently participated in an academic roundtable that provided a critical dialogue on this issue and another film set in an African kingdom, The Woman King. She claims that Wakanda Forever is a groundbreaking film. We asked her why.
Why are these two movies so talked about?
As big-budget productions featuring black female heroes, The Woman King and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever are poignant in the conversation about African representation in Hollywood and the roles that women and girls can and should play and is arousing a debate. They are well suited to discuss a wide range of topics, from the importance of historical accuracy to the power of imagining alternate histories and fanciful futures.
Why is Wakanda Forever important to you?
One of my main areas of research is the representation of black women in literature and popular culture. My 2018 book, Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before: Subversive Portrayals in Speculative Film and TV, is about black women in exactly her sci-fi and fantasy roles. I’m always looking for films that push boundaries, challenge stereotypes, and put Black women at the center of the story.
Wakanda Forever does that by presenting a superhero action movie starring a black woman. The film is set in the fictional African kingdom of Wakanda. There, the people mourn the death of their king and fight to protect their land and resources, especially the powerful metal vibranium, from the world powers.
It is the first Hollywood film to introduce a black female superhero on such a grand scale, backed by a US$250 million budget and the global reach of a corporate giant like Marvel Studios. The poster alone tells viewers that this movie is going to do something different.
Of course, the film isn’t perfect, and director Ryan Coogler has been open about the fact that he initially set out to make a completely different, male-centric film. The untimely death of original Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman required an overhaul of the script and the reveal of Letitia Wright’s Shuri as the new Black Panther. However, the history of the film’s production does not change its status as a pioneer in black female representation, especially in the superhero film genre.
In your paper, you discuss “the act of seeing.” Please tell me about it.
One of the enduring assumptions of early Hollywood cinema was that the audience was white. To put this another way, there were very few filmmakers targeting black audiences, and very few still envisioning black women as their primary audience. Although this has changed over time, the default white male gaze often remains implicit in Western films, both on and off screen.
Films like Wakanda Forever deliberately appeal to black audiences and boldly cast black women in the spotlight as active players in the plot, rather than looking away or marginalizing them. I’m showing it. The film’s black female characters constantly look back at the viewer and at each other through the camera, rebelling against Western film traditions that marginalize and objectify black women.
Are Hollywood’s diversity issues really improving?
Simply put, it’s both “yes” and “no.” Given that the U.S. film industry dates back more than a century, it has become increasingly diverse both in front of and behind the camera, not just in terms of race and gender, but also ethnicity, sexuality, age, and more. Wakanda Forever would not have been considered a blockbuster hit or an Oscar nominee 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago. Thanks to the first Black Panther movie, Hollywood now realizes that an all-black superhero movie can gross more than $1 billion and win an Academy Award.
But the success of one or a few films doesn’t mean major changes in the industry. For example, Marvel just released The Marvels, the first film directed by a black female director, Nia DaCosta, but the fact remains that black women are underrepresented in the industry.
Organizations such as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have provided new (and controversial) strategies and standards in terms of equity and access. To be eligible for an Oscar starting in 2024, films must meet diversity goals in areas such as “on-screen representation, theme, and narrative” and “audience development.” Hashtags like #OscarsSoWhite and academic studies like the UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report continue to track not only progress but also ongoing challenges on diversity issues in Hollywood.
