Today, Explained - Black Panther is (still) the most important movie of 2018

Episode Date: December 26, 2018

We called it! Sean Rameswaram attends a "Black Panther"-themed engagement party and speaks to Evan Narcisse, writer of the "Rise of the Black Panther" comic books, in this holiday rebroadcast. Learn m...ore about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Right after we launched Today Explained, we put out an episode about the movie Black Panther. It was actually the second episode of the show we ever released. It was called Black Panther is the Most Important Movie of 2018. Just after we released the episode, a family friend of mine messaged me and said, Hey man, one of my close college friends actually produced that movie. He's one of the reasons that movie exists. And I was like, cool. Tell him to listen. Tell him to check it out. Tell him thanks. It's produced that movie. He's one of the reasons that movie exists. And I was like, cool. Tell him to listen. Tell him to check it out. Tell him thanks. It's a great movie.
Starting point is 00:00:29 The family friend said he would. And later that day said, this is what he says. That's a lofty title for an episode. Maybe it's the most important movie in 2018 so far. The year still has a lot of gas in the tank. Well, I want to tell this friend of my family friend who produced Black Panther that the year has come to an end and Black Panther is the most important movie of 2018. It made a billion dollars. The costume is down here at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture in DC. There have been scholarships in Africa set up in honor of the movie. It's been nominated for Grammys and Golden Globes. The Oscars changed their rules for Black Panther. But more so than any of that, on Halloween
Starting point is 00:01:17 night, seeing the amount of kids who came to my door wearing Black Panther costumes and screaming Wakanda forever. Just how often is it palpable how much a movie has changed people's lives? So, it's the end of the year. We're looking back at some of our favorite episodes, and we wanted to bring you this one. I'm Sean Ramos-Verm. This is Today Explained. When I was seven, eight, nine years old, my prime comic book years,
Starting point is 00:02:08 the store in my neighborhood that sold comics did not have the best selection. You had your Batman, your Superman, your Spider-Man, Archie. Seeing someone who looked like me didn't really feel like an option. And that didn't even feel weird. Most people I knew hadn't heard of Sri Lanka, the country where my parents were from. Most people I knew couldn't even say my last name, so it felt pretty normal to dream of being a white guy. My brother wanted to be Batman, so I was left wanting to be Spider-Man. Anyway, fast forward a couple decades, it feels like there's a new superhero movie every other week. I'm not holding my breath for a big South Asian superhero movie, but it sure is
Starting point is 00:02:45 nice to finally see Black Panther. Black Panther already feels like the most important movie of murdered my father, I also wear the mantle of king. Black Panther already feels like the most important movie of the year. And to understand why, you have to understand who Black Panther is. Your Highness. Under the Black Panther mask is T'Challa, king of a fictional African nation called Wakanda. What do you know about Wakanda? Wakanda is the most advanced country in the world
Starting point is 00:03:31 thanks to this crazy fictional super metal called... Vibranium. It's stronger than steel and a third the weight. It's completely vibration absorbent. It powers their trains, it powers their weapons, and it's the special sauce in Black Panther's superhero suit. Despite all of its sophistication,
Starting point is 00:03:50 Wakanda keeps a low profile. Most people don't even know it exists. As a result, no slave trade, no colonialism, just this dream of black excellence. Black Panther shows up for just a few scenes in Captain America Civil War. But you know when an exciting new superhero shows up for a few scenes in a Marvel movie?
Starting point is 00:04:12 Big things are ahead. Just one year later, we had a trailer for a standalone Black Panther movie. I waited my entire life for this. The world's gonna start over. I'm gonna burn it all. We sitting here looking at this dope-ass Black Panther poster. For some fans, seeing the poster alone, just the poster, was almost too much to take. This is what white people get to feel all the time.
Starting point is 00:04:40 All the time! All the time! Since the beginning of cinema, you get to feel empowered like this and represented. This? This is what y'all feel like all the time. Since the beginning of cinema. All the time. You get to feel empowered like this and represented. This? This is what y'all feel like all the time? I would love this country too. Before Black Panther even came out, it felt like a game changer. But if there were any doubts, this weekend drove the point home. Representation matters, and it's good for business. Welcome, welcome.
Starting point is 00:05:04 People were dressing up to go see this movie. I'm actually wearing a dashiki, and she's good for business. Welcome, welcome. People were dressing up to go see this movie. I'm actually wearing a dashiki, and she's wearing a matching skirt that I had made down on 125th Street in Harlem. People were renting out entire theaters for private screenings. It's a whole room full of gorgeous black people right now. A couple of white people, too. And a couple of white people. People were celebrating their major life events at Black Panther. I'm Terrence. This is Tiffany.
Starting point is 00:05:28 This is our engagement party. I went to the Alpine Cinemas in Brooklyn the night Black Panther opened. Terrence and Tiffany seemed more excited about the movie than their own marriage. Is there a chance it doesn't meet your expectations? No chance. None whatsoever, I believe in it. I've always been a big fan of Chadwick Boseman. I've actually got a crush on him since he was on Lincoln Heights.
Starting point is 00:05:55 I'm sorry to hear that. That's cool, that's cool. She knows about me and Rihanna. Rihanna doesn't know about me and Rihanna, but she knows about me and Rihanna. You know, our family is here. Our friends are here. Our co-workers that support us and our Black love. So that's what it is. Yeah, I know what she said.
Starting point is 00:06:13 Pretty much on point. I don't think I've ever been in a more rapturous movie theater than Terrence and Tiffany's Black Panther screening. People were yelling, people were crying, people were laughing. And it wasn't the kids in the theater freaking out. It was their parents. The ones who grew up wishing they could see themselves saving the world. Black Panther made a ton of money over the weekend. Over $200 million.
Starting point is 00:06:47 It broke all sorts of records, including the biggest long weekend haul ever. Kendrick Lamar's soundtrack is the number one album in the country. Michelle Obama endorsed the movie on Twitter. Congrats to the entire Black Panther team. Because of you, young people will finally see superheroes that look like them on the big screen. I loved this movie, and I know it will inspire people of all backgrounds to dig deep and to find the courage to be the heroes of their own stories.
Starting point is 00:07:15 So what took so long? Why were there three Iron Mans, six Spider-Mans, and an Ant-Man movie before this? I asked the guy who's writing the Black Panther comics right now after the break. This is Today Explained. I hear people like true crime podcasts. Murderville is one you should check out. It's from The Intercept. It's hosted by two veteran investigative journalists, Liliana Segura and Jordan Smith.
Starting point is 00:08:04 Together, the two of them have more than 30 years of experience investigating wrongful convictions specifically. And in this show, they look into one that happened in Georgia, a small town in Georgia where a brutal murder occurs, and everyone is shocked. The cops pin it on the new guy in town. They throw him away in prison, but then another murder happens, and another. In the end, there's four bodies, two away in prison, but then another murder happens, and another.
Starting point is 00:08:25 In the end, there's four bodies, two convictions, one man in jail for a crime he probably didn't commit. In the six-episode series, Segura and Smith uncover what happens when rural law enforcement and state investigators lock up their first suspect while leaving another man free to kill. Find Murderville wherever you find your podcasts. So yeah, we know that Black Panther is more than just another comic book movie, but what took so long to make it?
Starting point is 00:09:06 If you were a superhero, what would you call yourself and what would your power be? Oh man, the Haitian sensation. Probably super speed. Evan Narcissus is a Black Panther fan going way, way back. Probably nine or ten years old. Now he's a grown-up and writes about comic books for io9. And I'm also writing Rise of the Black Panther for Marvel Comics. So he seemed like the right person to ask what makes this particular story
Starting point is 00:09:35 and character and movie so gosh darn important. You know, Sean, I'm almost genetically engineered for this moment, right? This movie hit me so hard. I wept the first time I saw it, and I wept probably exponentially more the last time I saw it. It's very personal. It's very metaphorical. It feels like a big slice of myth and Shakespeare and blackness all layered on top of each other.
Starting point is 00:10:06 I had high expectations that I tried to temper, and it exceeded those expectations. There's one character called M'Baku, who in the comics is a supervillain called Man-Ape, and he's played by Winston Duke. I was lucky enough to go to the premiere in L.A., and I talked to him after the movie. I was like, you know, growing up,
Starting point is 00:10:25 we used to make fun of this cat. Like, he was a clown. Come, Black Panther, and face the man ape! And I said, nobody's gonna do that now. Nobody's gonna laugh at this character now. And that's by virtue of his performance and the way that Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole, the other guy who wrote the screenplay, conceptualized this character.
Starting point is 00:10:50 They knew that, yes, there's a history of stereotypes calling a black guy an ape. So let's not do that. And furthermore, let's make this guy ideologically sound in terms of his argument and the plot. They radically reinterpret these characters in some ways that are better than the comics, which pains me to say as the guy who's writing Black Panther comics now, but there's a few things that they do in there and I'm like, damn it, I wish I could've done that.
Starting point is 00:11:17 Tell me what made you cry, Evan. Oh, man. I mean, literally the first line. What's the first line? A little boy saying, Baba, tell me a story. And then he just starts talking about Wakanda and the history of Wakanda. And, you know, the thing that the movie does is, if you come from somewhere else that is not America, if you come from another culture that is not white, and if you feel a longing for that place, and your sense of self in that place, or your sense of self having to simultaneously exist in two places at once, if you feel any of those things, this movie is going to hit you like a ton of bricks. you talked about the movie being sort of steeped in metaphor and myth. What is Wakanda?
Starting point is 00:12:29 What does it mean? In the real world, Wakanda is basically the dream of a black culture, of a black people that's never been compromised by white supremacy, by colonialism, by racism, discrimination. And that's a powerful idea that has some historical reference, but not on the scale that we see in the movie. It's a space of completely free Black agency where you don't have to worry about what looks respectable or palatable or certain standards of beauty. Why didn't anyone in this hyper-capitalist society think of this 30 years ago? I'm confused. Because there's a bunch of bullshit attitudes
Starting point is 00:13:11 and preconceived notions and quote-unquote conventional wisdom about what plays across the world in terms of Hollywood output. And that's, you know, white people. But nothing about the Black Panther is designed to be a repudiation of other groups' humanity. It's primarily a celebration of Black humanity. And, you know, one of the things about Black Panther that's exhilarating and
Starting point is 00:13:41 frustrating at the same time is this is a perfect storm, okay? We got Ryan Coogler, who's coming off Creed. You've got the cast, Chadwick Boseman, who's a ridiculously talented performer, Lupita Nyong'o, Daniel Kaluuya. But then you've got older generations of actors like Forrest Whitaker and Angela Bassett. This movie took a very specific planetary alignment to make happen and what i
Starting point is 00:14:07 want is for the next movie that has similar goals or ideas um to not need a perfect storm to happen you know like this shouldn't be this feat of institutional bravery to put out a movie but it has mostly black people in it right black. Black audiences will show up, you know, and non-black audiences too, you know. Evan, what do you think this movie means to kids? I mean, when I was young, I saw some lesser black superhero movies. I saw Blank Man. Get ready to rumble! Meteor Man.
Starting point is 00:14:41 Meteor Man's in town! I saw Blade. There's worse things out tonight than vampires. Like what? Like me. I saw Spawn. You sent me to hell, Jason. I'm here to return the favor.
Starting point is 00:14:57 It was a real rough run for a minute there, right? Blade is okay. I'm wondering, like, what do you think it'll mean to see this all-star cast and then this all-star soundtrack and like actually get to go buy toys that are centered around a black hero for kids you get to save the world you get to change the world you know the thing about superheroes is that they're by their their very nature, they are aspirational, right? So often, these meditations about what human beings can and can't do happen through white faces. And to have it happen through black faces is like, ridiculously meaningful. Like it's so important to have a
Starting point is 00:15:41 villain who's like semi sympathetic, charismatic andetic, charismatic and compelling and a black guy and have him pit off against a hero that is compassionate, clever and in a loving relationship with his sister and his mom and have these huge stakes be part of it, too. That lets you know you can change other people's lives for the better like that's important messaging to experience from kids of um any group any background but black kids so rarely get that directly beamed right at their heads and their hearts and that's what's really important about this movie Evan Narciss writes the comic book series Rise of the Black Panther for Marvel. Shouts to Keisha TK Dutece for inviting me to her friend's engagement party in Brooklyn, and to Vox's Christina Anamashan for lending her voice to today's episode. I'm Sean Ramos-Furham. This is Today Explained. title. Look at me crazy cause I ain't invite you. Oh, you important. You the moral to the story.
Starting point is 00:17:05 You endorsing motherfucker. I don't even like you. Corrupted man's heart with a gift. That's how you find out who you're dealing with. A smart person that you I'm building with. I want the credit if I'm losing or winning on my mom. Sean, Julie Bogan, social media manager. Great show
Starting point is 00:17:21 launch. You know what else would be great? If you didn't forget to plug the Twitter account. Today underscore explained. Capisce?

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