Black Panther: A Controversy about Nothing:
A whole lot of people are outraged about the new Marvel Superhero movie, 'The Black Panther'. I'm not, but I'll dive into that in a moment. Let me just address the people on the lunatic fringe on both sides for a moment...
People on one side of it are saying... "If you're a privileged white male, with your privileged white... privilege. Don't watch it. Because you won't understand the subtext. Because you're a white male... Who's dumb... and white..."
On the other end, you have a bunch of stupid assholes saying, "The Black Panther? Why's he have to be black? Is this just another one of those SJW, holier than thou, virtue signaling, Hollywood pieces of political, snowflake bullshit!?"...
Everybody needs to just calm the fuck down for a minute and take a step back... First and foremost, Let's take a look at this film for what it is... It's a superhero movie. It's not fucking 'Roots'... If people are trying to find some deeper meaning in a superhero movie, that might be an example of why we have a problem to such a degree that we do right now... Second, the premise of this movie doesn't even slightly bother me. If for no other reason, let's go back to 1998 for a moment...
Remember that movie called 'Blade'? That movie based on another 'Marvel' superhero property, about a half human/half vampire, all badass motherfucker who dispatched vampires for fun and retribution. Well that character was black too... And nobody gave a shit... Does this fact strike anybody else as odd given the current social and political climate? It should... because it points out one striking difference from 1998 to 2018. Why do we care?
When I went to the theater with my friends back in 1998 to see 'Blade', I didn't leave the theater discussing why the main character was a disenfranchised, black, half human/half vampire who if only he had the privilege of being white, could've been a full-blooded vampire. That would've been fucking stupid! And it's stupid now! Because identity politics is stupid. And I'm glad it didn't exist back then to ruin my experience of a good superhero movie...
Black panther is a superhero movie. Nothing more. Give your identity politics a rest for a day and just watch a movie without thinking too deep. The problem with people thinking too deep, is that the vast majority of them are lacking the proper equipment, and that just leads to them hurting themselves in the process...
And that's probably why we have so many malfunctioning pseudo-intellectuals out there telling us how much we're supposed to care about nothing as if it's actually something...
