Shuri gets wind that T’Challa is considered a sex icon and immediately dedicates her social media presence to videos and pics of T’Challa that disprove that Erroneous opinion
Shuri sprinting away after she posts a video of T’Challa dropping a muffin on the floor, looking around, and picking it up to eat it: BROTHER I AM MAKING YOU SO RELATEABLE, OKOYE STOP LAUGHING AND PROTECT YOUR PRINCESS
Queen Ramonda is very happy to supply whatever baby photos Shuri needs
she posts the video of T’Challa kicking the Black Panther suit and getting blasted across the room, and someone replies “he’s still daddy af” and she doesn’t shut down the internet so everyone can think about what they did but she considers it for a really really really long time before sending that tweet to Nakia with the comment “joining the world was wrong”
Ok seriously we’re not appreciating M’Baku enough?? Boy challenged T’challa, lost, accepted it and left. Then like 3 days later the king washed up on his shore and he’s like “aye I could use this to become king but nah let’s save the guy until he gets better” so now he has an unconscious, barely-clinging-to-life king in his living room, but he does everything to save him. Then the servants of that king show up, offer him the throne and the Black Panther serum which would pretty much make him invincible, and what does he do? Does he go “Mhm ok niiice” and accept it, thus becoming rightful king? Nope! He shows them the dying T’challa, who they bring back to life with the serum and leave. They ask for his army, but he doesn’t want to risk his people, but in the end realises they should stick together so he barges into the battle like the fucking Icon™ he is ok I just love M’Baku let’s give him the appreciation he deserves
M’baku is the personification of honour imo. You won’t find a defeated warrior with pride and honour like his that easy. Respecting his rival, the needs of his people and Wakanda itself??? Putting all that over his ego???? Someone raised that man right yo.
At the same time, we can’t forget T’Challa’s role in all this. He had M’Baku at his mercy, and could have easily killed him or gone out of his way to humiliate him. Instead he treated him as a fellow warrior with honor, and assured him that he respected his leadership of his tribe. That very much planted the seeds of M’Baku’s respect for him, and wound up serving as his own salvation.
It’s the rarest of unicorns – two competing alpha males whose masculinity isn’t toxic.
Shuri shouting out the floor is lava and recording the confusion among the avengers wondering why tchalla king of Wakanda hopped up on a counter cause goddammit his little sister pulls this shit all the time and peter is stuck on the wall because he’s also a child of the internet and understands the meme life and now his fate is sealed there will never not be a time Shuri isn’t camera ready and yelling out the floor is lava to see the wackiest places she could get peter to stick on
T’Challa ignored her once so she developed synthetic deployable lava and the next time she yelled the floor is lava it actually was. T’Challa lives in fear now because he knows if he doesn’t pretend the floor is dangerous, it will be.
y’all notice how black panther quietly but fervently rejects western assumptions about women in non-western countries by not only displaying Wakandan women in a variety of influential positions but by making clear that only outsiders question them
women are shown in all levels of Wakandan society – Ramonda as a trusted advisor for her son, Shuri as the country’s leading innovator, Okoye and the Dora as respected warriors, Nakia as a spy and philosophical compass, unnamed women who serve as tribal representatives and spiritual leaders. it is not at any point suggested that their gender is a barrier to achieving anything in Wakanda.
there’s a moment during T’Challa’s crowning that’s small but very good, when M’baku questions letting a child handle the country’s technological advancement. he specifically calls her a child, not a girl, questioning her youth and perceived lack of respect for tradition but not her gender, which flies in direct defiance of many western assumptions about how masculine non-western men like M’baku treat women and girls.
that moment, as far as I recall, the most any Wakandan man ever directly disrespects a woman. a lot has been made of how much faith T’challa places in his female relatives and warriors, so I won’t rehash that, but it’s Good.
Ross briefly insults Okoye with his assumption that she doesn’t speak English, but 1.) the narrative and the audience both understand this to be an ignorant statement on Ross’ part for which he is promptly put in his place by Okoye herself and 2.) Ross immediately learns and does better. when he wakes up in Wakanda his disbelief is only for the level of the technology, not that a teenage girl is the mastermind behind it, and during the final fight he defers to Shuri’s guidance despite his piloting expertise.
a lot of words have already been written about Killmonger’s treatment of black women: the casual murder of his partner, his disregard and abuse of a spiritual leader, the slaughter of a Dora. it’s just one of many parts of his ideology that mark him as fundamentally misunderstanding Wakanda and being an Other in the kingdom.
Wakanda is a futuristic fantasyland that makes absolutely no narrative room for men who don’t respect the authority of women.
In addition to the Killmonger point –
I love how it circles back to the cultural disparity between Wakanda and the Western world. It demonstrates how similar ideologies – the drive for resource sharing and international responsibly – can appear so vastly different (ie Killmonger and Nakia). It speaks to the cultural environment in which they existed. I believe Killmonger to be a reflection of the internalised toxic values Western society presents poor Black boys – essentially following the well trodden path from vulnerability to violence.
On that last comment, the narrative also specifically positions Erik as a tragic character. He is clearly the villain because his values are warped but the tragedy is that he didn’t have to turn out that way. The difference between the three heirs to the throne and how they approach each other (T’Challa, Shuri and Erik) comes down to culture.
Question of Smoke 