‘Black Panther’ Movie Brings Afrofuturism to the Mainstream

The Black Panther movie adaptation, based on the Marvel comic book of the same name, has been getting more recognition than I recently thought and that’s definitely a good thing! It is probably the big budget sci fi movie that stars black characters and made by a black director (Ryan Coogler) that has broken the most records. It definitely shows that people of colour are becoming acknowledged for their work in speculative genres. It’s bringing to light the sci fi/fantasy community among people of colour, breaking the too long-time impression of the genre being a white person’s. Along with that, it’s also bringing to light the speculative movement known as Afrofuturism and so making the movement less marginalised. Afrofuturism is the intellectual movement of scientific and technological speculation by people of African culture. That’s probably too simple of a definition. However, an article at BBC.com entitled “Afrofuturism:Why black science fiction can’t be ignored” explains it really good which I think you will find fascinating!

Yes, I did see Black Panther when it released back in March and thought it was super! And do mind the pun—it was a super hero film that was made really good.

Afrofuturism is doing for speculative film what “blaxploitation” was doing for the same in the 1970s, only better since Black Panther is bringing Black sci fi and fantasy to the mainstream more than ever! Because of that, I think there’s going to be a lot more big budget films in the genre by people of colour and really well-made ones too like Black Panther.

Until next time . . .

Diamond-shaped spaceships float above desert pyramids.

Photo Credit: Pixabay.com

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