The Women of Wakanda

When I saw “The Black Panther” on opening weekend, I was in awe of the many beautiful and brilliant layers of storytelling going on. I’ve been reflecting on how much it moved me, and have seen various reviews, smart analysis, and deep thoughts being shared as this unprecedented, record-setting phenomenon spreads. (The best overall review I’ve read is from Awesomely Luvvie, here, and I loved this insightful piece on Killmonger from Nourisha Wells; check those out first.) I am learning and being re-reminded of so many important realities throughout these discussions, and am just loving the joy, celebration, and representation happening on the screen, in theater lobbies, online, and on the soundtrack.

As I reflect on the impact of “The Black Panther” and prepare to go again with my daughter in tow tomorrow, the thing that I keep coming back to again and again is the power, wisdom, life, and fire of the women in this film. Much good ink is being shared over the core roles of King T’Challa and Killmonger, what types of masculinity are embodied, the ancestors, the disapora, etc., and I am for all of it. But, it’s the overwhelming glory and bravery of the leading women that most motivate my return to the theater. Their characters and how they were embodied on screen felt wholly unlike anything I have ever witnessed in film before. “The Black Panther” was the most female-driven movie I’ve ever experienced, even in comparison to films with (white) female leads, like “Wonder Woman,” or with one or two strong women of color characters (recent “XMen” or “Star Wars” films, etc.) In Wakanda the four main women characters were not necessarily the lead roles, but these supporting characters dominated the movie: Shuri (Tech Overlord and Princess), Ramonda (Matriarch and Queen), Okoye (Head of the Guard/Warrior), and Nakia (Spy/Advocate and ex-girlfriend, also my personal fave.) These Women of Wakanda took my breath away and here is why:

(Spoilers Ahead)

– In Wakanda, the women were never sexualized, minimized, or given tired, small, or standard roles. They inhabited new spaces – but not as teaching tools, or in an over-explained, heavy-handed way – but just because we were witnessing who these women were. No one narrated why Shuri, the youngish Princess was running things, given access to run the entire country through her tech and resources – we just witnessed her doing this excellently. In seeing her fulfill that space, our assumptions about who is given the legitimacy of being the powerful right-hand “man” in every other super-hero/action movie was challenged. Shuri played the role of confidante, techie, weapons expert, transportation and speed engineer, and the top brains who amplified the central super-hero figure’s power.

– In Wakanda, the women were leaders, warriors, creators, activists, sisters, daughters, and almost lastly – wives or love interests. I have never seen the role of women in romantic relationships with men so downplayed, or more accurately – so put in right relationship with all of their other roles/identities. When Okoye said she would kill, without question, for her country while jabbing a spear at her significant other, he responded by surrendering his weapon and kneeling on the ground which effectively ended the rebellion. I gasped out loud at the sheer force of a visual storyline showing the strength of a woman warrior subduing even her own romantic partner, and his willingness to back down in battle. And the power rumbling underneath this scene was not found just in her asserting herself over him, but in her saving an entire people by maintaining her strength in the face of his appeal to adapt herself for their relationship. Boom!!

– In Wakanda, the women were black – and African – which means that they had particular speech and certain sideways looks, inside jokes and amazing clothing, unique habits and cultural history, and *natural hair* – none of which was dependent on White Hollywood or White America. They moved, dressed, decided, prayed, led, fought, has compassion – everything – in a way that was disruptive to the white assumptions about women that usually dominate films. While we do see some black-women-as-leaders roles in film/media (portrayed in varying degrees of accuracy and health), in Wakanda the powerful black women were drenching every aspect of the plot and storyline. These characters were also inhabiting varieties of self-determined identities as black women who had not been under colonization/American racism, showing a freedom and command of their spheres that was breathtaking. This made these black women specifically accessible to and representative of other black/African women, and also universally accessible to other women of all ethnicities who yearn to see women/ourselves this way and to learn from black/African women. Additionally, the women of Wakanda’s blackness and African-ness was integral and important to their roles – no sidekicks, thin representations, or exotic fixations of black women were ever on the screen.

– In Wakanda, the women stood up to the men, rescued and led the men, were in partnership with men, and even helped restore men to being better men throughout the film. One of the most emotional scenes for me was near the beginning when Nakia is rescuing the girls who have been kidnapped and she also intervenes to “rescue” the boy-turned-child-soldier who had just moments ago been holding them all captive. Nakia stops the guards right before they kill this boy and instructs the newly freed girls to also take him back to his tribe, to be restored and cared for by women, in other words. This spares the boy’s life from death, but also presumably spares him from growing into another man who inflicts violence on women/the world as the fate of a forced child soldier would have been. That small 1-minute turn of action was more powerful than most movies can convey in a full 2-hour feature, in terms of showing the necessary role of women advocating and restoring both women and men to justice and to community.

– In Wakanda, the women were Royalty all on their own, not only because of their relationships with men – a Princess/second in command running the country, a gifted political leader/activist that followed her own vocation but also confidently speaks to influence the King, the Head of the Royal Guard who literally protects and enables the King’s leadership, and a Queen who is mother, gatherer, guardian of tradition, and empowers her son on the throne. These ways of being royal always had an eye toward serving not just their personal ends but greater kingdom needs. When Nakia secretly saved a portion of the heart-shaped herb (purple flower liquid), she was effectively preserving the power that would revive and then restore the King to the throne. It was not a desperate, love-sick kiss between lovers that restored royal power as in some films, but a stealth mission initiated and carried out by a female protectorate that brought the King back to life.

– In Wakanda, the women were portrayed as the ones who could see the big picture and lead others into restoration and redemption. Multiple times the women led teams, tribes, and rescue missions, or saved entire groups, thought ahead and strategized, and argued with male leaders – all pivotal pieces to what was needed to preserve the wider family, community, or world, not just conserve personal power. Their whole community needed and depended on each of these women for their vision, not their fashion or fragility, but their perseverance. And most striking, it was Shuri’s genius that created a new suit for the Black Panther that absorbed the violence hurled at him to turn that energy into fuel for more strength along the journey. Turning what was meant for harm into restorative strength? That’ll preach! And this is the essence of a core strength of the black church in America, if it were a super-cool suit contained between a panther tooth and claw necklace.

– In Wakanda, the women were multidimensional characters – strong and playful, funny and smart, witty and beautiful, and it was Shuri who “drove” the fast car in the major chase scene!! These felt like real women who I knew, as they talked to each other in certain tones, teased the big brother, gave knowing looks – I kept thinking, there goes my sis, I know you!

– In Wakanda, the women were deeply connected to each other. The four main female characters all instinctively looked over, watched for, asked about, and moved as a team together for most of the movie. When they parted ways over their allegiance near the end for a time, this rupture in their common goal was felt as a conflict, because it was assumed that they were with and for each other as the norm. The resolution of the plot involved the four women all being back together on mission, and backing up each other once more.

– The Women of Wakanda also had crazy good one liners – “Colonizer,” “I call them Sneakers,” “Did he freeze?” “She can when she wants to,” “Just because something is good doesn’t mean it can’t be improved upon,” “Why do women wear these on their heads?” and my favorite, “My stubbornness is what would make me a good Queen – if I wanted to be.”

Within Wakanda, there were also smaller women’s characters given places of value and influence – including wise women/spiritual leaders tending to the Vibranium, younger girls helping prepare and care for the sand used in the spiritual work, and two of the five tribes were also female led. It seems everywhere you looked in Wakanda women were given space, strength, honor, and in turn, the whole community flourished.

Interestingly, the women in the film who were not in Wakanda – Killmonger’s (African-American or mixed?) girlfriend, the Korean woman who gives passage into the Busan casino, the kidnapped African girls in the back of the truck – were not positive or empowered. In contrast to Wakandan Women, these female characters typified the careless way women are treated and sometimes treat others, and their only value was in service to the aims of the men related to them ; the aims of access to power through getting their hands on vibranium (in the case of Klaue and  Killmonger), and access to we assume forced marriage/sex (in the case of the kidnapped girls.) I also noticed that there were no white women in the movie, even though there were two white men supporting roles. It is important to name that it is rare that I do not see myself/see white female roles on the big screen. Even though I often do not like how I see them portrayed, white women are almost always highly visible in Hollywood productions. In the world of Wakanda, only the sisterhood of Black African women is needed for power, strength, and community. (The role of white women with/for/alongside/in place of/against women of color in movie scripts, and in life, is a whole other post all on its own.)

I am so grateful for these portrayals of women in Wakanda, and for the ways it has potential to shape me, my daughter and her generation, and all women. I am especially grateful for the deep ways that the portrayal of the Women of Wakanda are already impacting African American women. It is worth celebrating these Women – even amidst the broader conversations about the movie’s message, characters, politics, etc. – because these women in many ways are very real. Women like those in Wakanda have already brought life and strength to our real world, and this movie is one of the first places that their personhood is so clearly centered and given breath. These Women of Wakanda are real, they are capable, they are brilliant – these women have already built our world, our churches, our families, our governments, our technology, our justice efforts, and our communities for centuries; it is about time that we see them, really see them. I am hopeful that this movie is one small bright spot in the world that needs to better see, center, and follow these real women every day, on and off the screen.

#WakandaForever