Story of Home: The Paternal Legacy of 'Black Panther'

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However, in addition to these diegetic questions, there are also the recurrent set of troubling questions which many general viewers and scholars have asked: 'Why is the African-American character (Jadaka/Erik Stevens/Killmonger) yet again criminalised? Why does he have to die? Why was he not redeemed?' When these questions, or different versions of them, were posed to Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan, they said that the debate about the African-American and African identity of Killmonger and T'Challa, will continue after the film, that there should be a conversation about them. The film requires – incites – the audience to figure out why Killmonger had to die, or rather, more accurately, why he chose death. Thereby the film also becomes in a sense a 'film for discussion,' not unlike some political activist films of the 1970s!

About Senses of Cinema:

Senses of Cinema is an online journal devoted to the serious and eclectic discussion of cinema. We believe cinema is an art that can take many forms, from the industrially-produced blockbuster to the hand-crafted experimental work; we also aim to encourage awareness of the histories of such diverse forms. As an Australian-based journal, we have a special commitment to the regular, wide-ranging analysis and critique of Australian cinema, past and present. Senses of Cinema is primarily concerned with ideas about particular films or bodies of work, but also with the regimes (ideological, economic and so forth) under which films are produced and viewed, and with the more abstract theoretical and philosophical issues raised by film study.