This column contains spoilers, but the movie’s been out for several years now. It’s on you if you haven’t seen it.
As a life-long nerd, I’ve often found sci-fi, fantasy, and other fictitious media avenues through which to understand current events. Few movies describe our current cultural moment as well as “Wakanda Forever,” the sequel to Marvel’s hit “Black Panther.”
In “Wakanda Forever,” we find a grieving people. King T’Challa has died, and this African country is trying to figure out how to move on. At the same time, they are facing new political tensions. The rest of the world now knows they exist, and the leaders of the United Nations want Wakanda’s resources.
Namely, they want vibranium–a nearly-indestructible metal with mystical properties. The world’s largest-known vibranium deposit rests under Wakanda’s soil. The Queen Regent of Wakanda, nervous about both the safety of her people and how imperialistic leaders would use this powerful resource, denies entering into any trade agreements with other countries.
So, these countries start drilling the ocean floor in hopes of finding other vibranium deposits. Workers stumble upon different people who retaliate violently to protect themselves.
As the movie progresses, we learn that these people are from the underwater kingdom of Talokan, descendants of the ancient Mayans who took to the water to escape the terrors of European colonization. Their kingdom was also rich in vibranium, which enabled them to breathe underwater.
Talokan had gone undetected for centuries. Now, the UN’s efforts to find more vibranium threaten to expose it. Their king, Namor, is willing to do anything to protect his people.
By all means, the Wakandans and Talokans should have been immediate allies. Their ancestors had both been forced into hiding because of the terrors of European colonialism and the slave trade. They were both kingdoms whose existence was threatened by the greed of other global powers.
But those same global powers pitted these two kingdoms against each other. Behind the scenes, CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine pulled strings to make it appear as if one kingdom attacked the other and vice versa. As a result, there were several battles between the Wakandans and the Talokans, culminating in a fierce, near-death duel between Princess Shuri of Wakanda and King Namor of Talokan.
I’ll leave out who won, so at least one thing isn’t spoiled for you.
What was most interesting to me when the film came out was how it was talked about. People on social media discussed how compelling Namor was as a villain. Even the marketing for “Wakanda Forever” labeled him as the newest Marvel villain. But the entire time I watched the film, I kept thinking, “Isn’t the real villain the CIA Director who pitted these two cultures against each other at the bidding of the United Nations?”
What we’re seeing in this movie is an imperial strategy as old as time: distract the people from the system that’s threatening them; divide the people into factions; convince one faction that the other is their enemy, and vice versa; watch them destroy each other; reap the spoils for yourself.
Does that not seem eerily familiar to you? Art imitates life, after all.
President Trump and other far-right extremists are playing de Fontaine, and the American people are falling for it hook, line, and sinker. Our roles may not be as flashy as Wakandan vs Talokan, but they are split just as starkly into binary categories:
Citizen vs immigrant
Cis vs trans
Conservative vs Progressive
As one campaign ad in my state currently states, “they/them” vs “us.”
All the while, the real villain is pulling our strings so we don’t even notice how he’s robbing us blind. We may not have vibranium to lose, but we have paychecks, groceries, homes, and livelihoods to lose, and people are losing them left and right.
Now, with our eyes wide open, we’re about to see him take SNAP and other crucial programs from under-resourced families. He doesn’t even have to do his work in secret anymore.
If we are to change this moment in American history, then we have to stop letting the grifters in charge tell us who our enemies are. We have to break out of these false binaries, befriend the human we’ve been fed lies about, and understand them to be our neighbor. I’m not sure we can beat “de Fontaine” and get our rights back any other way.
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A bivocational pastor, writer and spiritual director based in Williamsburg, Virginia, she currently works as a Spiritual Director at Reclamation Theology. Cawthon-Freels is the author of Reclamation: A Queer Pastor’s Guide to Finding Spiritual Growth in the Passages Used to Harm Us (Nurturing Faith Books), and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
