Barack Obama began his tenure as the 44th American President and first African American
President of the United States of America on January 20th, 2009 - his tenure ended on the same day eight years later. So, apart from being the first African American President to hold the office, what made President Obama likable enough he was re-elected in 2012?
After his inauguration in January, he was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples", praising him for a new climate in international relations, especially in reaching out to the Muslim world. As the first non-white President of the United States, President Obama's tenure largely included aid for minority groups in an attempt to strengthen relations between different groups in the public. On March 23rd, 2010, President Obama signed The Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) to overhaul America's healthcare system, almost completely halving the amount of uninsured American Citizens by 2016. He also made it easier for immigrants to receive healthcare as US citizens. Yet, it was not his flip of American healthcare that made him so well-liked, rather it was his new era of foreign relations with Russia and Europe, as well as reaching out to the Muslim world.
Barack Obama faced several hostile reactions during his time in the White House, with many people making derogatory comments concerning his race, birthplace and religion. The man who would later succeed him as President of the United States, Donald Trump, regularly promoted that Obama was born in Kenya and therefore could not be an American citizen. When it was claimed that many of his backlash was due to him being a Black man, Obama denied theme claims but later alluded that his successor, Donald Trump, declaring rumours about his birthplace was definitely a large factor in the copious amounts of hate.
Whilst Barack Obama was leader of the democratic party, Donald Trump won the 2016 United States presidential elections as the Republican nominee and 45th President of the United States of America. His election sparked numerous protests, with many people outraged that Trump had won despite losing the popular vote to democratic party leader Hillary Clinton. Trump promoted campaigns and misleading/false conspiracies during his campaign, so it was a shock to everyone when he won the election. Many of the statements made by Trump have been categorised as racist and/or misogynistic. He became the first president to have no prior military experience or government service. Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, diverted military funding towards building a wall on the U.S.–Mexico border, and implemented a policy of family separations for apprehended migrants. This almost completely diminished any prior relations President Obama had built with the Muslim world, proving there was a significant different between both Obama and Trump, as well as the democratic and republican parties. Trump also signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 which cut taxes for individuals and businesses and rescinded the individual health insurance mandate penalty of the Affordable Care Act, undoing the progress President Obama had made. In foreign policy, Trump initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal.
Where Obama had made progress for minorities in the U.S.A., Trump had banned citizens of Muslim countries and put up a border along the Mexico/U.S.A. borderline to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country. Yet the true face of Donald Trump came to light in 2020 upon nationalised headlines of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. It started following the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Pamela Turner and Rekia Boyd, among others. The movement began in 2013 yet gained a large amount of attention in 2020 during the national George Floyd protests, following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police office. Republican candidates have been mostly critical of BLM, with President Trump saying, "maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing." in response to the news a Black Lives Matter protester was physically assaulted at a Donald Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama - Trump had previously threatened to fight any Black Lives Matter protesters if they attempted to speak at one of his events.
In combat to the Black Lives Matter movement, 'All Lives Matter' sprang up shortly after the movement gained national attention. Several notable individuals have supported All Lives Matter, such as Dexter Darden, Piers Morgan, Jess Glyne and Jennifer Lopez. 'All Lives Matter' reflects a view of racial dismissal, ignorance and denial, purposefully disregarding the lives of so many black people whilst claiming there is definite equality in America between a black person and a white person.
Another movement in disagreement with Black Lives Matter is the Blue Lives Matter movement (though both Blue Lives Matter and White Lives Matter can hardly be considered 'movements', it's more fitting to label them as uneducated slogans) is a countermovement in the United States advocating that those who are prosecuted and convicted of killing law enforcement officers should be sentenced under hate crime statutes. Following the shooting of two police officers in Ferguson and in response to BLM, the hashtag #BlueLivesMatter was created by supporters of the police, and it was a pro-police officer movement in the United States, expanding after the killings of four police officers by a sniper in Dallas, Texas, who cited police shootings of Black people as his motive.
So, the question remains: what any of this has to do with Marvel's Black Panther?
Black Panther is a 2018 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the 18th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Black Panther was officially announced in October 2014, and Chadwick Boseman made his first appearance as the character in Captain America: Civil War (2016). Cole and Coogler had joined by then, with additional casting in May. Black Panther is the first Marvel Studios film with a Black director and a predominantly Black cast.
Black Panther premiered in Los Angeles on January 29 of 2018 and was released theatrically in the United States on February 16, as part of Phase Three of the MCU. Critics praised its direction, writing, acting, costume design, production values, and soundtrack, but some criticized the computer-generated visual effects. Many critics considered the film to be one of the best in the MCU, and it was also noted for its cultural significance. The film was nominated for seven awards at the 91st Academy Awards, winning three, and received numerous other accolades. Black Panther is the first superhero film to receive a Best Picture nomination, and the first MCU film to win several categories. A sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, was released on November 11, 2022, while a television series set in Wakanda is in development for Disney+.
Writing for Time, Jamil Smith felt Black Panther would "prove to Hollywood that African-American narratives have the power to generate profits from all audiences", and described it as a resistance to "a regressive cultural and political moment fuelled in part by the white-nativist movement... Its themes challenge institutional bias, its characters take unsubtle digs at oppressors, and its narrative includes prismatic perspectives on Black life and tradition." Discussing the film as a defining moment for Black America in The New York Times Magazine, Carvell Wallace said that in contrast to earlier Black superhero films, Black Panther "is steeped very specifically and purposefully in its Blackness". He felt Wakanda would become a "promised land" for future generations of Black Americans, "untroubled by the criminal horrors of our [current] American existence." Historian Nathan D. B. Connolly said Black Panther was "a powerful fictional analogy for real-life struggles" that taps into a "500-year history of African-descended people imagining freedom, land and national autonomy."
Clearly, Black Panther had accumulated major success, being praised for virtually all its aspects and being labelled as one of the Top 10 movies of 2018. It grossed over $1.3 billion worldwide and broke numerous box office records, becoming the highest-grossing film directed by a Black filmmaker, the ninth highest-grossing film of all time, the third highest-grossing film in the U.S. and Canada, and the second highest-grossing film of 2018. All during the presidency of President Donald Trump, who was renowned for his racist policies and undoing the policies of the first African American president, Barack Obama.
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