I’m seeing all these redditors coming in to every BP thread to say “Oh ya, I’m happy for it, but it was just another average comicbook movie. Nothing special really.” So for those that don’t get it, I’m going to try and explain what makes this movie special and why it resonated so much with a black audience (and not just because of the cast) and critics.

First and foremost, this movie is ABOUT something. This sounds like strange praise, but look at most superhero films, especially Marvel ones, and consider how little of them have anything to say about what is going on in our world. Black Panther took on the legacy of colonialism (weirdly, Thor 3 did too), the destructive influence of African diaspora, U.S. imperialism, and black inner city struggles. When Killmonger talks about being a kid from Oakland running around believing in fairytales because he dreamed of a place like Wakanda, or talked to his Dad about how “everybody dies around here”, that stuff has way more resonance with black audience members than white audience members. Like, there’s so much stuff that flies over people’s heads in this, it’s amazing. I actually got emotional at the ending with the kid asking T’Challa who he was, but all of my white friends saw that as just another superhero movie ending. Pride at who you are and who you can be has more resonance with the black community because so much of our history has been shaped by what has been done to us rather than the other way around. It emphasized world and character building. Think about how empty and unmemorable so much of the supporting cast, especially the female supporting cast, in super hero films are. In fact, one criticism of this film is that it feels like Black Panther himself is overshadowed by his supporting players. People will remember Shuri and Okoye, but even the biggest fans of TDK (and that’s my fave comic book film ever) have to admit Rachel wasn’t anything special. The world and character’s were drawn with nuance and empathy. Wakanda feels like a lived in world with the different tribes and its customs. Killmonger feels like a textured villain because his struggle feels grounded in understandable motivations, but his methods are inherently corrupt because he spent all his time destabilizing the world on behalf of U.S. hegemony (side note, the fact that they made a ‘Black Panther’ in the American sense a sympathetic villain in a mainstream superhero film is revolutionary in of itself). There are a ton of little touches like that which make the film’s world feel more real. The score was incredible. Nothing more needs to be said here. Marvel films have terrible music on average, and this film’s music was fantastic. The things casual audiences didn’t like are less important to critics. Poor CGI battles and a lack of humour really stuck out to casual audiences, but most critics I’ve read actually wished they spent more time talking things out in the second act than they did fighting. What critics like about the film is that it challenges its hero and the status quo of its world in a way that most comic book films don’t. This movie could have been a simple story of T’Challa being king, fighting a challenger, and learning an empty platitude about how you need to rely on your friends to be a good king. Instead we got a movie where the hero had to reckon with his father’s and his nation’s past, and in a way that wasn’t undercut with a quip or gag in every second scene.

If you came away from this movie believing it wasn’t anything special, that’s fair. Not everyone comes from the same background, nothing has a universal appeal. But hopefully, by the end of reading this long ass post you’ll understand why this movie feels so revolutionary to so many people beyond just the make up of its cast.