Demonstration Of Masculinity In The Film "Black Panther"
In the movie Black Panther we see a lot of different societies, cultures, characteristics and masculinity types. Specifically, Michael B Jordan’s character, Erik. In the beginning, we do not see much of Erik until his father passes away and we are distracted by some other scenes but when he enters the movie again, we see more of the man he has grown to be. When we see him later in the movie, we see how he has killed his way up to the top and the more ‘angry’ stereotype of some masculinities. One underlying tone we see in his character is the idea of the reading from week 2, The Black Male Privilege Checklist. We see towards the end of the movie, he becomes greater than anyone around him and he is willing to hurt women like in rule 89 and 90. The kinds of masculinities we are witnessing in this film with Erik: angry, physical and overly dominant as a power struggle with in himself.
In this film, you see many masculinity stereotypes that conform to black men but with Erik, it does make it look like an agreeable stereotype in the fact that in some cases, Black men are sometimes seen to be abusive and physically more dominant than other people around the individual. It broadened my understanding of masculinity because I personally believe that masculinities are conditional and environmentally learned or taught. The film is mainly casted with people of color specifically black/african american casts which does pull in other aspects to this film of popular ideas on how black men are perceived to be in today’s society. It does allow people to accept the overall stereotypical ‘black characteristics’ in today’s modern America.
The protagonists in this movie conform to the masculinity that Erik gives off in the section where he becomes king and they allow him to take over and show off his toxic masculinity and they accept it even if they know it is not right and they slowly start to conform to his rules, his abuse and his violence. Coming from a personal note, it was very interesting to see a movie where a back story lies in my hometown, Oakland. It was very interesting to see how the filmmakers made a point to include Oakland because on some parts, I could see parts of my friends and our pride of coming from Oakland, like Erik. But it was very interesting to see how they took one common theme/masculinity that you do not see that much in Oakland which is the competition with yourself to lead up to something greater. Like how Erik killed his way to the top, you see that a lot in Oakland in young boys. Not with killing obviously but more with attitudes or how they challenge themselves to do greater and then they have hard downfalls.
There are so many masculinities in this film that all lead to the same over all fight, the fight for freedom in the end of the film and I personally feel no matter the traits anyone carries of masculinities, I feel like this is always the end game. People lead up to a big fight, show off their dominance and they all fall together and men of color specifically, they all fall or none fall. Then they rise again with each other and hold each other up but there is almost always a fight between them at one point. Black Panther is the perfect film to study masculinities because most of the masculinities are circumstantial and they all relate to each other and we are able to see the difference in each one but the similarities in all.
