Reflection On The Comic Book The Black Panther, By Stan Lee And Jack Kirby
The first item that I chose on the scavenger hunt list was a comic book with a character of color that is non-Alien. The character depicted on this comic book is the Black Panther. The Black Panther was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The Black Panther was the first black superhero in mainstream American comic books debuting several years before other black superheroes such as Falcon, Luke Cage, Black Lightning, and Green Lantern Jon Stewart. The representation of the Black Panther paved the way for many other black superheroes in mainstream comic books as there were no other black superheroes or none with actual superpowers prior to the Black Panther.
The character name Black Panther was inspired by a pulp adventure hero who had a black panther as a helper which throws out theory that the name referenced the political Black Panther Party of the 1960’s, but due to that theory the character was briefly renamed to the Black Leopard and was reverted back since the name didn’t have as much of an effect than the original name the Black Panther. The Black Panther’s real name is T’Challa and serves as the king and protector of the fictional African nation of Wakanda.
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The Panther is a symbol of office which is head of the state it’s a hereditary title, but it still must be earned. Long ago a meteorite made of a rare mineral known as vibranium crash-landed in Wakanda. The first king of Wakanda harnessed the mineral and used it to nurture his nation. Many years later the under the rule of Black Panther T’Challa, Wakanda’s level of technological and economical achievements continued to excel far beyond those of the normal world. T’Challa concealed Wakanda from the rest of the world to prevent it from being manipulated by outsiders.
Marvel presenting the movie The Black Panther marked a major milestone. With the representation of white people in mass media does not serve as something that is out of the ordinary. In society, white people are reflected in a variety of different ways. With this representation of white people, the world shows that their possibilities of obtaining an occupation are limitless. Those who are not white have more trouble not only finding representation of themselves in mass media and other aspects of public life, but also finding representation that indicates that our humanity is varied. Relating to characters onscreen is necessary not for people of color to feel seen and understood, but also for others who need to see and understand them. When it doesn’t happen, people of color have less knowledge about it.
The movie Black Panther is about what it means to be black in both America and Africa and, more broadly, in the world. “Rather than dodge complicated themes about race and identity, the film grapples head-on with the issues affecting modern-day black life. (Time.com)” This movie may be the first mega budget movie not to be just about superheroes, but about anyone to have an African-American director and a predominantly black cast. Hollywood has never produced a blockbuster with a majority of the cast being black.
Over the history of comic books, a character being of color is not prevalent. This also links into the situation with the Black Panther. The representation of people of color being mainstream deals with social stratification, or the existence of structured inequalities among groups in society in terms of their access to material or symbolic rewards (Giddens, 192). Often people think of stratification in terms of wealth or property, but it can also occur on the basis of other attributes such as gender, age, race, ethnicity, or religious affiliation. An important aspect of social stratification is social mobility, or one’s movement up or down social class strata. This concept also has an effect on the caste system, which is a social system in which one’s social status is determined at birth and set for life (Giddens, 194).
In this system, social status is based on personal characteristics such as perceived race or ethnicity that are often based on such physical characteristics as skin color, that are said to be accidents of birth and are therefore believed to be unchangeable. Caste societies can be seen as a special type of class society, in which class position is ascribed at birth, rather than achieved through personal accomplishment. This also links to life chances as opportunities are different for a white person and a person of color for achieving economic propensity. These concepts are the reason why the Black Panther serves as a groundbreaking pathway towards social recognition as people of color are not being incorporated as much into mainstream views as much as white people. This situation can be considered under the idea of social exclusion as it is the outcome of multiple deprivations that prevent individuals or groups from participating fully in the economic, social, and political life of the society in which they live (Giddens, 218).
The representation of race, or difference in human physical characteristics used to categorize large numbers of individuals, plays a significant role in society that relates towards the display of colored people in comics. Racial distinctions are more than ways of describing human differences as they are also important factors in the reproduction of patterns of power and inequality within society. Race is much more than physical appearance. Sociological perspectives on race usually deal with a theory of racial formation, which is the process by which social, economic, and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories (Giddens, 286).
Along with this theory, the concept of racialization comes into play as it is the process by which understandings of race are used to classify individuals or groups of people (Giddens, 286). Racialization means that certain groups of people came to be labeled as establishing biological groups on the basis of naturally occurring physical features. Within a racialized system, an individual’s social life and his or her life chances are all shaped and constrained by the racial assignment and racial hierarchies. For example, an artist named Orion Martin, noted that the X-Men comics have avoided the depiction of the people on the receiving end of much real-life discrimination. The main lineup in the X-Men team has been mostly white people. Martin acknowledged to the work of Neil Shyminsky, an academic who's written about the X-Men's complicated relationship with real-life racism:
“[He] argues persuasively that playing out civil rights-related struggles with an all- white cast allows the white male audience of the comics to appropriate the struggles of marginalized peoples ... 'While its stated mission is to promote the acceptance of minorities of all kinds, X-Men has not only failed to adequately redress issues of inequality – it actually reinforces inequality. (Npr.org)”
People of color can be compared to as mutants in the X-men series as mutants are portrayed as a minority of superpowered humans that are discriminated on against by their government and fellow citizens. The representation of this exemplifies that the Black Panther served as a great step in the positive direction. With white people trying to marginalize people of color in comics or films, the Black Panther having a cast that the majority is people of color will display that people of color are being acknowledged in society and will be able to show what they actually want people to see about their ways of life instead of white people making up a storyline about them that is not necessarily true and marginalizing their race. Finding this printed comic of character of color that is non-Alien was something that has many layers of information that one would not have thought of by just looking at the picture.
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