Black Panther Knocked My Socks Off, Here’s Why *Spoilers*

Yeah, yeah. You’ve heard that Black Panther is a great movie. But then again every year we’re given a list of “great movies” by The Academy aka The Oscars and half of those are shit (sorry, mom…but they ARE) so how are we supposed to know fact vs. hype!?

Well, I’m here to tell you that Black Panther is not a hype movie. It is, in fact, an absolute masterpiece. Now if you haven’t seen this movie already get off your phone/computer and get your butt to the nearest theater. I’m not responsible for spoilers spilling out throughout this post. You’ve been warned.

1. Non-traditional roles

I love that from the beginning the roles that each character plays aren’t defined by what they look like or what gender they are. My empowerment gauge, as an African American woman, was pretty much breaking as I was watching this movie and what I loved the most about that is that it wasn’t forced. Nobody was trying to write empowerment into this movie. The very fact that the characters were given actual characters instead of stereotypes was enough in itself.

2. Costume magic

Crying over clothes is not anything new to me. I’ve loved fashion and costumes since I was old enough to walk *cue video of me strutting in dresses from the 80s and my mom’s high-heels when I was four years old*. The costumes in Black Panther are on a whole different level. I mean, seriously. WHAT. Every stitch, every accessory, every bead and face painted dot. I’m tearing up right now. The detail that was put into this movie’s production is unprecedented. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it before, and I don’t know if we’ll ever see anything like it again—we can only hope.

3. The great and powerful Shuri

Shuri is the superhero we’ll never deserve. A princess (aka T’Challa’s sister) is the perfect blend of sass + intelligence with the fashion sense of a style god. Shuri is the tech genius behind Wakanda’s source power and she basically invents everything in the country. From start to finish her character completely steals every scene she’s in and I honestly think there’s a very good chance I’ll be cosplaying her in the future.

4. Shit we haven’t seen

Praise the great and glorious Marvel gods, there were actually several moments in this movie where technology or situations went BEYOND what we’ve seen in any Marvel movies before. As a writer/storyteller I usually predict 99.9% of the things in movies buuuuuuuut I was super pleasantly surprised by the plethora of new things that popped up. This included seeing a car that’s being driven from another location, by another driver and bad-ass armored Rhinos to state just a couple. I mean come on!

5. There are actual consequences to actions

Like yeah, some people die in other superhero movies but it never really MEANS anything. It usually just feels like a way to push the plot forward. One of the things that I loved so much about Black Panther is that there were very real repercussions for choosing a side. People died. And I think that it’s really important in today’s world to see that doing what’s right doesn’t always mean a path of flowers and roses. It means there are consequences, and shit goes down. Rise up.

6. T’Challa + Nakia = <34Evr

Something that I thought was really beautiful in this movie was how T’Challa doesn’t ask his love interest to give up on her dreams when he asks her to be with him. In fact, he creates a way for them to be together while still pursuing their individual callings. To me, that is the height of romance…especially when we’re talking about strong, “stubborn” women.

7. Africa isn’t a country

One of the coolest parts of this movie was the acknowledgment of different types of African culture, expressed particularly through the clothing. I loved seeing the variety that was represented!