Black Panther

The new Black Panther movie has been a global phenomenon, poised to break a billion dollars worldwide. Its success is probably due to a combination of being well made and well timed. Hollywood is riding a wave of filmmaking that is bringing those who have been historically disenfranchised (women and minorities) into the spotlight, offering bigger-than-life tales of heroes with whom many can more directly connect than ever before (check out #WhatBlackPantherMeansToMe on Twitter).

Black Panther has much to offer that is worth celebrating*. As far as Marvel movies go, fan response is mixed. In some ways it still fits Marvel’s paint-by-number storytelling, but it has a more serious tone than the Avengers, and it deeply embeds itself within the beautiful tapestry of African culture and history (specifically Kenya, Namibia, and South Africa). It also avoids a lot of the moral ambiguity of other Marvel heroes (I’m talking to you, everybody but Captain America and Iron Fist) by offering a hero of virtue and nobility for whom we have good reason to cheer almost without reservation.

Here, in no particular order, are eight things that stood out to me.

Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange has been crushing it at the box office, and rightly so. It’s gorgeous and smart, and it offers a compelling (albeit common) superhero narrative: ordinary people become extraordinary, and in the process they realize that with their great power comes great responsibility. This will require what we think of as virtues: bravery, wisdom, self-control, altruism, moral goodness, and a willingness to sacrifice self for the sake of others. There are plenty of places to read plot summaries and discussion of the movie as a movie. I would like to highlight several things that stood out to me.

THE CHARACTER ARC OF DR. STRANGE

I really like how the narrative moves Dr. Strange from a cold, rational, self-centered egoist to a man who realizes that he must be willing to give up himself for the sake of the world. What began as a myopic quest to gain enough power to heal himself becomes a calling to save the world even if he can never get what he wanted personally. By the end of the movie, he has even gone back and sought to mend the trail of broken relationships he was leaving when we first met him. 

Evil as presented in the movie is strong and mesmerizing early on - but isn't that the case with most things that tempt us? By the end, that same evil has lost its luster. The really cool people in this movie are the ones who are not only fighting for good but who are good. It's nice to have a movie that shows the rise in Dr. Strange's virtue as desirable and compelling.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CHOOSING THE GOOD

Some are arguing that Dr. Strange is actually a villain because he taps into the evil side of this power to bring about good. I didn't see that happening. Strange’s mentor, the Ancient One, is shown to be wrong for making the kind of moral compromise ‘for the greater good’ that actually draws the evil to this universe. Dr. Strange rejects this (though he does later describe her as ‘complicated’, which may be setting up a scenario in which he is drawn to the same flawed justification). 

Mordo flatly rejects the Ancient One because he believes all the power into which they tap is evil. That does not appear to be true, but his opinion makes sense considering his experience. We see his start on a path to villainy: he is willing to kill anyone who has that kind of power - once again, for the sake of the greater good. Sound familiar? In the process of fighting the kind of moral compromise he saw in the Ancient One, he has given in to the same siren song of "the end justifies the means." His concern is legitimate; his methods are not. He has the potential of becoming perhaps the most sympathetic of the Marvel villains, one whose means we cannot justify but whose ends may well be more important than we realize.