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selec posted:The ending of Black Panther was the most cynical deployment of identity politics in a long time in a movie. I feel this is a little unfair because this is a fundamental problem with superheroes and any sci-fi (Or "sci-fi") that is meant to be set in a world recognisable as our own. Superheroes present huge, world changing events - development of incredible technologies, it turns out magic is real, aliens exist and invade repeatedly, the entire world is almost destroyed over and over again - but also ordinary people live lives just like yours, and you can indulge in the fantasy that you might see one of your favourite heroes running, swinging or flying down your own street. So this means that actual, wide-scale societal change cannot be shown. Because people can relate to world where some crazy hosed up poo poo happened somewhere, but not to everyone. One can imagine that there might secretly be an African technological superpower off in a corner of Africa you've never heard of. But Wakanda cannot succeed in global black liberation because then that would mean that your life, personally, would likely be very different. This is something you see in Batman fiction a lot too. The idea that Batman is mocked because he has completely failed in reducing crime in Gotham, or even worse, actively caused it by bringing about an escalation of the scale of violence. I'm not saying that a masked billionaire personally beating up the underclass would be a good idea, but these criticisms don't come out of any real sociopolitical analysis of Batman. Batman continues to have to fight theatrical villains in Gotham because the stories would end otherwise. Just like Wakanda cannot liberate Africa and its diaspora, Batman cannot end crime in Gotham because they would create worlds that are no longer relatable. Obviously the MCU has significantly broken this rule now with the Snap, a traumatic event that effected everyone on the planet at once. But while those effects have been explored somewhat, they're already receding into the past and "normality" is reasserting. Other than a handful of throwaway mentions and some signs on walls, the Snap is irrelevant in Shang-Chi. This is pretty dangerous for the MCU as it means that stakes feel increasingly unreal - it's moving towards to tone of the comics where nothing is permanent, colossal disasters happen all the time, characters can die and come back with no problems, and no one can actually say for sure if any past event actually "really happened". People wonder all the time when the MCU bubble will burst and I'd say it's when this stuff overwhelms it and people lose interest.
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Nov 3, 2021 14:04
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 12:38 |
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