This brings us to the latest, and perhaps most spectacular example of this dilemma,the Disney company's movie Black Panther. I have two comments on this worldwide commercial success (the movie has grossed over a billion dollars).
-- As with some of the examples given in Part I of this analysis, the movie exploits for profit an organization that was anti-capitalist. The giveaway is the title itself. The "Black Panther" is closely linked in cultural memory to an organization known as the Black Panther Party. This was a radical organization created in the 1960s to provide for the needs of poor Black neighborhoods (the group originated the idea of the school breakfast program) and to protect residents both from criminals and the police, who were viewed as racist occupiers. The Black Panther Party became the target of violent attacks by agents of the U.S. government and eventually destroyed.
-- Having been rendered safe through its destruction, the Black Panther Party's image could be reworked and then reintroduced back into the prevailing culture. The Disney movie does just this. This is not to say that the film does not have merit. Its depiction of strong Black women, Black scientists and technicians, and the able and successful Black civilization of Wakanda are inspiring. On the other hand, the savagery that is part of Wakana's succession process is problematic.
Overall, the movie is formulaic. It is a familiar good vs. bad scenario. There is a not entirely unsympathetic arch-villain, minor bad guys who come around to be good guys, and competitive tension in the good-guy camp. We have gangsters, government agents and almost non-stop violence. Nothing particularly original here. Nor is there anything original, and certainly nothing radical, about the film's answer to the problems of poor African Americans - an outreach center in a needy urban neighborhood. By the way, this "cinematically portrayed help effort" works primarily because of the fantasy that there is a Black superpower backing it up. When real Black Panthers tried the same sort of outreach in the 1960s, they were arrested and sometimes murdered.
It is worrisome that the enthusiasm for the movie is based on a fantasy that essentially makes the tragedy of the real-life Black Panthers disappear. As the culture war now being fought in the U.S. between often racist ultraconservatives and besieged progressives shows, we need change in the real world. Fantasy can give you a momentary lift and sense of pride, but in the end the real world's problems are still there.
Part III -- Conclusion
In 1983, the Irish novelist Iris Murdoch remarked that "we live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality." Che Guevara, many graffiti artists, some of the "crazy ones" depicted in Apple's "Think Different" campaign, the original radicals of the Weather Underground, and the members of the Black Panther Party, all knew what reality was. They wanted to change it without recourse to fantasy. And, each time their attempts were stymied by a system that judged human needs solely in terms of monetary profit.
This is brilliantly demonstrated by the fact that the images of these enemies of the system have been re-presented to us as within the context of profitable fantasy. The process has been remarkably successful and remarkably lucrative. It is also depressing and, in terms of social progress, represents a road to nowhere.
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