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Reviews & Reactions From Black Panther Screenings Are Pure Wakandan Joy

Representation matters!
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Vivian Kane
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Published: Feb 16, 2018 01:39 pm

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Reviews of Black Panther have been coming in for the last week or so with near-universal praise. It’s has been called Marvel’s best movie and the best movie of the year by too many critics to count. Overwhelmingly, reviews have talked not just about the incredible film that it is, but about the experience of watching it and about everything it represents, specifically for black audiences.

Just to pull from a few of my favorite reviews:

Jamelle Bouie at Slate wrote, “The best superhero films don’t transcend the genre as much as they embrace it in all its respects. […] With its aesthetic ambition, depth of imagination, and genuinely challenging themes, Black Panther belongs with this group. It doesn’t just capture the essential qualities of the character, it expands on the concept itself, standing as a film that matters for what it says as much as what it is.

Kenda James at Shondaland wrote, “In two hours and 15 minutes, Coogler and his co-writer, Joe Robert Cole, tackle the rippling effects of colonialism, racism, isolationism, and what it means to be brought up in a world that favors Western Whiteness over all else. The conflict in Black Panther hinges on the idea that racism is an evil that begets evil, and that oppression by white supremacy is radicalizing.”

Jamie Broadnax at Black Girl Nerds wrote, “The final word: it’s afro-futuristic and Blackity-black as hell.  It’s everything I’ve ever desired in a live-action version of this popular superhero and yet so much more. Quite frankly, the experience is indescribable.

TK at Pajiba wrote, “Believe the hype. Because Black Panther is fucking amazing. It’s not amazing “for a superhero movie” and it’s not amazing “for a black movie” or any of that shit. It’s amazing because it’s a beautiful, meticulously created, gorgeously shot, incredibly detailed, terrifically acted, brilliantly directed movie. It’s funny and exciting and wondrous to look at. And that it is all of those things, with a virtually all-black cast save for Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue and Martin Freeman as CIA agent Everett Ross, and that is an achievement because no one has ever given this type of movie a chance to even exist before. Never mind to completely cut loose. Marvel appears to have given director Ryan Coogler full rein to create a vision of his own, and that vision is utterly breathtaking.”

We’ve been hearing this kind of praise from critics, but last night, the general public got to experience Black Panther in theaters, and the excitement was overwhelming. Technically, today is opening day for the movie, but Thursday night screenings were packed with eager crowds.

Black audiences went all out, from traditional African dress to movie-inspired costumes to drums in the theaters.

Last week, the hashtag #WhatBlackPather means to me went viral, highlighting the importance of representation in entertainment. Last night, the pride of seeing black faces represented in a mega-blockbuster superhero movie was in full effect.

I will never get tired of seeing pictures of kids dressed in Black Panther attire (I still scroll through pics of girls dressed as Amazons), but the importance of representation isn’t limited just to kids. There are a lot of ways in which Black Panther is groundbreaking, not least of which is the ways in which its incredible success is both inspiring and sure to open some doors in Hollywood that weren’t open to black people before.

Have you seen Black Panther yet? Was your screening this exciting?

(image: YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty Images)

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Image of Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.
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