Holes Shaped Like Our Fathers

“Tell me the story of home.” Black Panther’s opening dialogue, of a father telling his son (and us, the audience) the story of Wakanda, serves to set the scene for the film. It’s a great opening, exposition-wise, and gives us context before the first action scene of the story (set in Oakland, 1992)—but it wasn’t until the day after I saw the film that I realized something. Namely: that the boy asking for a story is the child who will become Killmonger. He longs for a home he has never seen, and is relying on his father to illustrate his… [Continue Reading]

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