"I have been wanting to make this video for 4 years."

November 12, 2022 9:12 AM

F.D Signifier [previously 1, 2] is back with another Black Media Breakdown video essay: You're Wrong About Black Panther (2018) [1:20:57 YouTube video, auto-transcript only]

00:00 Bad Takes Montage
01:05 Why I ever became a YouTuber in the First Place
07:08 A short history of Black Panther in comics
12:30 The environment leading up to the film
28:10 Breaking down the movie's themes
59:45 The film's most inexcusable flaw
01:10:03 Reconciling the good with the bad

Some other content for further learning:

• Black leftist criticism of the first film
• An overview of Pan Africanism
• Patrice Lumumba
• Afro Futurism
• The Divine 9

If you want to support F.D. Signifier directly, I encourage you to check out his Patreon page.

posted by lazaruslong (8 comments total)

I want to invite my fellow mefites -- especially white folks that might have a Black Panther politics hot take ready to go -- to please watch the full essay first. F.D. is in excellent form, with insightful and deeply grounded meta-analysis that I hope you find as satisfying and thought-provoking as I did.
posted by lazaruslong at 9:13 AM on November 12, 2022 [18 favorites]

The US Academy and the Provincialization of Fanon
posted by 3.2.3 at 11:05 AM on November 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

The comedian David Gborie, who has at least one parent from Sierra Leone, once mentioned that he didn't really like Black Panther because of its implicit stance that the fictional Wakanda is perhaps the only beacon of 'advanced' society on an otherwise backwards continent.
posted by cubeb at 2:51 PM on November 12, 2022 [7 favorites]

The whole video was fascinating and I'm now digging into his other videos.

What's a "GDI"?
posted by fatbird at 6:29 PM on November 12, 2022

fatbird: “What's a "GDI"?”

A "God-damned Independent," i.e. someone not affiliated with a fraternity or sorority. I looked it up, solving the mystery of why Master Shake called Frylock that in the “Frat Aliens” episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force in 2003.
posted by ob1quixote at 8:32 PM on November 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

fatbird: “What's a "GDI"?”
A "God-damned Independent,"

As a Canadian I really didn't understand the power of Frat/Sorority culture in the US until I met someone who was an "independent" and they explained how the independents on their campus were a cohesive social group that hung out together and coordinated events for themselves just like a frat.
posted by srboisvert at 2:27 AM on November 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

As always I enjoyed his piece. Of all the sections, I have the most familiarity with the 'diaspora wars' but with regards of the movie, from the other direction. I think in his description of the dynamic he did a Killmonger in downplaying the African pov (which I'm not saying the movie fully embodied either) -- there's little acknowledgment that within that dynamic ESPECIALLY for those who aren't professional class residents of a first world country, Africans (just like Asians) noticed the "-American" part of the behaviour of the community, and it's not just feeling slighted that Americans act like Africans are so backward (due to racist and colonialist mainstream messaging) but that behaviour is the expression of actual geopolitical power such as Americans can do soul searching visits on the continent when they can afford it but Africans can't even do that on a whim because of passporting issues.
posted by cendawanita at 6:45 AM on November 13, 2022 [7 favorites]

This is pretty amazing: Bo Burnham's Inside and "White Liberal Performative Art"
posted by fatbird at 1:13 PM on November 13, 2022 [1 favorite]