@detroitmechworks

1) The villain is a black man who grew up in Oakland and wants to fund a worldwide revolution against racism. I don't think I have to comment on why this casts doubt on the entire claim of the movie to be an anti-racist victory for Black people.

2) The Wakandans have amazing tech, but only for the royal family and those affiliated with them. The people, to the extent that we (briefly) see them, appear to be living the life of Third World farmers, ranchers and small merchants. I'm not just talking about the Wakandans who are providing the rest of the country cover; I'm talking about the street market which is basically the only shot I can remember of anybody who isn't some kind of aristocrat, general, or courtier. It looks like any street market in any twentieth-century Third World nation. The general shot of the city bears this out, as metallic futuristic buildings are interspersed with huts. Within Wakanda, it looks like economic inequality is the order of the day, and their wondrous technology only available to the upper classes. And we're not meant to notice, much less care.

3) The Wakandans make an alliance with a white CIA agent against the villainous African-American man (yes, I know he was born in Wakanda, but he grew to manhood in Oakland) who wants a military overthrow of racists worldwide. We're supposed to cheer for the Wakandans and the CIA agent. Casting the guy who played Bilbo as the CIA agent is a nasty touch.

4) Here's where it gets interesting. At the same time we're supposed to cheer the Wakandans, the story also treats the Wakandans, even the heroes, abysmally. This is a technologically advanced 21st-century African nation, yet they determine who is king by single combat with spears while wearing loincloths. I'm going to start a series: Things That Would Have Been Considered Racist or Sexist Before 2016, because before 2016, Black people would have shredded this movie for depicting a 21st-century postindustrial African nation as, at the same time, a bunch of loincloth-wearing primitives wielding spears. The writers don't imagine what a free African nation (one without the burden of colonialism) would have developed into, if it had the chance; they waste, shamefully, the chance to imagine that and instead rely on tropes that can easily be found in a 1948 Danny Kaye song:

Spears and loincloths? What the hell.

5. Black Panther is one of the least cool superheroes ever devised. The cool of superheroes relies on their origin stories, and their abilities. The more interesting or moving the origin story, and the more exciting and, well, fitting, the abilities are, the more cool the superhero is. That's how comic books and their derivative texts work. We can critique this, but our critique won't change how the genre works. In Black Panther's case, he becomes a superhero because he imbibes the juice of some flower. Anybody who imbibes it gets the abilities. So there's nothing special about him except the fact that he's a royal. Also, you can remove these abilities, essentially turn them on and off.

For the same reason white people doing the Wakanda Forever salute get away with it. Because they spin it as a "celebration" of identity. If you're Mocking identity...

I mean just imagine somebody did a parody movie called "White Tiger" about a fictional European nation with the greatest technology on the planet... Who just "sat out" history in isolation and were a perfect harmonious country where the only bad guy was a guy who claimed they should go out and Help the rest of the world... because the rest of the world is oppressed by evil black people...

And yet, Black Panther is up for an Oscar.