this is stuff you like and "guess what I call them" sneakers Shuri, you call them
sneakers because puns are life you irrepressibly Airy teenager. you can
probably now guess today's topic even if you didn't look the thumbnail before you
clicked on it. the plot of black panther goeth thusly: this is T'Challa, his dad
died. And now in spite of being challenged in ritual combat he is king
of Wakanda and also Black Panther. Wakanda is full of vibranium which is
the most insanely amazing metal ever: it can do all the things. The central
conflicts in the film are 1. T'Challa's uncle had a kid in America who
wants to use Wakanda's resources to arm oppressed black people everywhere and
reveal their immense riches to the world in the process, oh well and 2. turns
out T'Challa's dad killed T'Challa's uncle and you know family issues.
Killmonger aka T'Challa's cousin throws him off a waterfall and becomes King which
obviously goes really really well. but wait he's not really dead, that's good, big
climactic battle scene, baddie dies while looking at the beautiful Wakandan sunset
we should share our resources with the world but not like that guy was
suggesting, hi we're Wakanda and we're here to make your lives better and take
our place in the world, the end. The male characters in this movie interest me
less than the female ones do. The thing about T'Challa is that it's not that I
don't like him it's just that his story of coming to realize that it's hard for
a good man to be King and his father isn't perfect and getting along with...
really difficult relatives is... quite similar to Thor's in some important ways
not that I've said that. and I like Thor and I like T'Challa but I really just
kind of fell in love with this four temperament band of ladies so what you
gonna do? The Four Temperament or four Element band as a concept is... well it's
basically the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. it's water earth fire air. it's
the four Hogwarts Houses if you're that way inclined. in any case it's four
distinct personality types in a group. And they don't always agree with each
other but when they work together they are much more powerful than when they
work alone. In children's media in particular, especially if it's children's
media aimed at boys looking at you Smurfs
Paw Patrol girl is kind of... it's almost a personality type. And that
personality is cute and sweet and nurturing and likes pretty things. Which
you know is fine as far as it goes but it's a bit samey. When you have multiple
female characters, which tends to mean you're in a show aimed at girls anyway
(say My Little Pony) you have to have different kinds of personalities. Almost
the entire cast of Black Panther is, you know, black and thus 'black' isn't a
personality type. And in the same way because you have so many significant
female characters 'woman' isn't a personality type. Like you have to give
the women actual... actual personalities. almost as if they were real people and
not stereotypes! Archetypes maybe but not stereotypes. In Black Panther your
protagonist is T'Challa and Killmonger is your main antagonist though they do
bait and switch you with that South African guy, and you've got Martin
Freeman in there to fill your quota for British actors in Marvel movies and then
you've got these four supporting female characters and their conflicts with
T'Challa and their conflicts with each other and their successes and their
failures and their trials and ah it's just...great. I would read an entire novel just about
these four doing cool stuff while T'Challa is away politicking. Our love
interest / derring-do spy type is Nakia. she's brave and she's into justice and
she is in spite of her protestations of being a spy without an army actually not
bad as a leader she's a Gryffindor type or possibly just
fire or maybe choleric? Which is interesting to me because Nakias color
is green, like in almost every scene she's in. Green is her colour because she
is from the river tribe... at least til that end scene. But either way she's very
different to the Ravenclaw / sanguine / Air type that is Shuri. Shuri is
quirky and clever and talks way too much, he is a CIA agent Cherie stop shooting
your mouth off about how amazing all of your stuff is! I mean I know all of your
stuff is amazing and that's great but you don't know where his loyalties lie
even if you did just save his life! I'm just saying. She's possibly more focused
than the traditionally scatterbrained Air type but boy if Shuri has an
element aside from vibranium obviously then air
would be it. our melancholic slash Earth type is OKoye, and Okoye is basically
what happens if you give a Hufflepuff a spear. Plus she also has my favourite
physical comedy moment of the entire film when she flings her wig at a baddie.
Okoye is stoic and rule-following and has a really interesting sense of humor
underneath it but she's much more Lawful Good than either of the first two. And
then rounding out our four temperament band is the phlegmatic / Water / I guess
Slytherin? type: Ramonda, the queen mother. I mean still waters run
deep but don't mistake that for weakness. she's much more passive than the other
female characters but I I wouldn't cross her. I love how different they all are and
I know that having distinctive characters especially in a Marvel movie
is kind of, you know, it's kind of their selling point, that's that's why you're
there, to see lots of different people do cool things... but I still really enjoy it.
And it is a little unusual that the movie which is introducing Black Panther
has an entire subsection of the plot where we (don't really but we're supposed
to) assume that our main character is dead. And actually for me that was a big
plus because then you get to spend more time with mostly these four you get to
see how they wrestle with their grief and their duty in different ways and how
they argue about the best course of action. And you see them doing what they
need to do and it's basically just a big warm bath of kick-ass positivity. And as
a thematic point which ties into having the four temperaments together, Black
Panther doesn't come down on one side or the other when it comes to tradition
versus innovation. Okoye is obviously very traditional and
Shuri is equally obviously very into innovation but both of them have their
strengths and the movie acknowledges the strengths of both arguments. Wakanda
comes out of hiding at the end of the film but it does so after a lot of
careful consideration of the risks and the benefits and as a result of many
factors which go back a very long way including the opinions of people like
Nakia. They make a radical break with tradition but they don't do it with the
expectation that it's going be easy and they don't do it lightly.
there is at this point in their universe a good reason to be radical
there are also good reasons to be conservative in a small 'c' "gradual
changes over time" sense. Black Panther holds these things in tension and I find
that much more satisfying than "new is always better!" I like this movie. No one
person in it has the exact right answer and the hidebound traditionalists are
just as correct as the launching themselves headfirst into the future
types. and I mean also obviously the ladies are the best. I mean who wouldn't
want a highly trained team of elite female bodyguards? I'd be well up for
that! Thank you for watching this episode of stuff you like thank you again and
always to my patrons who make all of these shows possible and I hope to see
you all next time. [house panther!]