Resisting the Revolutionary Call

Abstract

Many people argued that Black Panther was a revolutionary film, a claim that somewhat obscures that it was success under capitalism that made Black Panther seem more radical in content than it actually was. Placing director Ryan Coogler within the ranks of radical filmmaking ironically undercuts the challenge of sustaining a successful Black commercial vision that can still contain interesting ideas about Black life. This essay explores the differences between framing Black Panther as an example of independent Third Cinema vs. commercial Hollywood cinema and argues that the conditions of production make radicalism unlikely, but that does not mean that the loved media object is not politically interesting, or that the tension between adhering to ideology and resisting means it is less important than a radical and disruptive cultural production.