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Clergy’s view of Black Panther
What you need to know:
- How are see it. Mythologically speaking, the story is a longing to return to the Garden of Eden and the original harmony of humanity. All the themes are there if you are alert. As Christians, we know we are never going back to Eden the garden, but a future heavenly city instead. But that is in Wakanda too - wonderful advanced cities. And that Luo sister Lupita Nyongo is how Eve must have looked like in Eden?!
The movie, Black Panther, premiered two weeks ago and it has been on every movie goer’s lips. It has had different interpretations. In Uganda’s case, it is because of one of the main actors whose parents are migrants from Uganda. However, for Rev Canon Benjamin Twinamaani, a rector at Grace Episcopal Church in America, the movie has a spiritual connotation.
“I took three hours of my day and took a trip to the African kingdom of Wakanda in the new movie Black Panther (even though there are no Panthers in Africa, just their cousins the leopards). Here are my impressions as a theologian and an African living in the Diaspora.
Remember this is a comic book story from the 1960s and 1970s that created a super hero of African descent to join the ranks of White male only Superman and Spiderman.
The audience was 90 per cent plus mellennials. All races, both genders. This tells you the power of mythical stories with this generation. To know your young people will find a way to make significant impact and change in the world, but without personal suffering.
Mythologically speaking, the story is a longing to return to the Garden of Eden and the original harmony of humanity. All the themes are there if you are alert. As Christians, we know we are never going back to Eden the garden, but a future heavenly city instead. But that is in Wakanda too - wonderful advanced cities. And that Luo sister Lupita Nyongo is how Eve must have looked like in Eden?!
Anthropologically speaking, it is a story for pan-African global liberation from oppression through advanced technology. Especially the liberation of Africans in the West.
The ever present suspicion between African Americans and continental Africans is very direct. Nkwame Nkrumah would have loved this movie and cried all through it. And the global thirst for African resources for advanced technology is all throughout the story.
Spiritually speaking, the movies is a complete African Traditional Religion ART. There is death, resurrection, ancestor worship and a direct seamless link between physical life and life after death.
Other themes include heroism, political power African style, and coup and civil war motifs. Family loyalty, patriotism, and broken family issues with redemption for some and non for others.
Women are strong characters in this story! This story will impact your daughters. For the young people, it will raise positive regards and interests in African civilisation. It will boost morale for African-Americans better than Roots.
For old people, they will dismiss it as fantasy because there is an enduring ideology to dismiss Africa as producing anything advanced in any field.
Speaking of technology, it is clear now over here that the new technology has overtaken money in the hierarchy of popular gods. The language is very clean and no sex (for the squeamish).
Surreal hearing African-American actors speaking Ibo, Xhosa and other African lingo plus English with African accents (South African mainly).
But there is combat violence indeed. The millennials phenomenon over here is real driven by their numbers. There are so many of them that they will change everything here.
So economist track them diligently since by their sheer numbers, once they start to have children (the forerunners have just started getting children) even if each just had one child, that alone will change the economy permanently. Better invest in baby products.
We learn of their habits from the economist, but our own elite youth are xenophobic enough to value their Western counterparts’ casual values.
For families that are brave in intra-family communication, Blank Panther presents an opportunity to discuss the themes of rejection and abandonment, two if the deepest psychological wounds children experience.”
The Reverend Canon Twinamaani the rector at Grace Episcopal Church in America
