Assignment #2

The film I chose for this assignment is Black Panther directed by Ryan Coogler. I chose this film because I was watching it with my younger brother recently and I remembered watching it for the first time last semester. An interesting aspect of the film is that displacement was shown both in a positive and negative manner. For example, the city of Wakanda goes through displacement because they are isolated from the world. People around the world perceived Wakanda as a poor country in Africa. However, Wakanda has the most valuable resource known as vibranium. According to the marvel series, vibranium is the cure to end humanity’s problems and create products that help people’s life. The leaders of Wakanda always kept it, as a rule, to never let the outside world know about their resources and displacement is clearly shown. The reason why people in Wakanda has multiple disputes on the controversy of sharing vibranium is that people want to use the resource to help others while the leaders don’t believe it’s the proper solution. For instance, displacement is shown in Erick Killmonger and his father because they want to help people of their own skin color by exposing vibranium to the world. However, T’Challa, known as the Black Panther, doesn’t want to let down the previous leaders and his roots/traditions. In the citizens of Wakanda’s perspective, displacement is shown because it is embedded in black history that those of the superior race, the Europeans, would take away the vibranium and use it for greed. This ideology that both sides have bring discomfort in their community and create tension between T’Challa and Erick Killmonger. The displacement of acquiring vibranium is both positive and negative. The positive side is that the people living in Wakanda remain safe and healthy for a long period of time. The negative aspect is that they don’t help other countries from their suffering. A statement was said by Erick Killmoger’s father that was that slavery could have possibly ended because the people of color would have better weapons to protect themselves. T’Challa at the end of the story exposed the displacement by telling people about vibranium in the United Nation conference. Another way I saw displacement in the film was women empowerment. This displacement is seen in a job way because women aren’t appreciated in our culture. But in this film we see women have powerful roles aren’t depicted with the same power as men. To sum up, displacement was shown in Black Panther and I liked to write about this because the film has a powerful message.