The movie 'Black Panther' has many contexts surrounding it. One of these many contexts is that of the cultural context. In this blog post, I'll be going over a brief history of Comic Book Movies, a beginner's guide to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which will be shortened to the MCU for convenience's sake, why its's become so successful over the years, and the issues surrounding representation within the MCU itself.
Firstly, I will be starting with a very brief history of Comic Book Movies, and their inception.
The first ever movie that was derived from a comic book was Captain Marvel, created in 1941. The original comic book version was created by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck for the comic book magazine, 'Whizz Comics' #2 in 1939. As the comics themselves were in an episodic format, naturally, the movie tried to emulate this on the big screen. It wasn't good. It was awfully stop-start-y, and there were many cliffhangers. The movie had timing issues within it, mainly because of the episodic format of it. Nevertheless, a precedent was created, the brickwork, layed down. A shift was happening in the films industry, spearheaded by this shoddy attempt at an adaptation.
Afterwards came a Batman serial, split into fifteen chapters. It was created in 1943, just two years after the very first movie featuring a superhero that was found originally in comic books. Superman joined the roster about five years later in 1948, bringing with him his own chaptered saga. The first Marvel representative of the comic book world to get his own movie on the big screen was Captain America one year after Batman, in 1944. However, things were already becoming stale. The episodic shorts which superheros were becoming synonymous with, in which you would have to tune in to every screening at the cinema to get the full experience of the comic books in film form were getting old, and people already weren't a fan of the constant cliffhangers. It would take just under three whole decades before a relatively big breakthrough was to even happen to the comic book movie industry... In 1978, the big breakthrough happened, done using DC's most iconic character: Superman. It was a huge success, and a sequel was made just four years later, in 1981. However, various spin-offs and failed sequels had killed the trend before it had even fully started. But yet another comic book superhero-turned-movie giant was there to help the genre of comic book movies get back up on its feet. In 1989, Tim Burton's take on the man of bats shook the industry to its core, becoming a huge staple in popular culture. Even though DC had been able to get movie after movie out, Marvel were struggling. The only thing from modern Marvel that was attempted was a 1990 version of Captain America.
But in 1992, a sequel to Tim Burton's Batman came out, even grittier than the last. Then, in 1995, another sequel. And THEN in 1997, another one. It was clear that DC were trying to get every last penny out of the franchise. Only one Marvel movie came out during this time, which was the Fantastic Four, 1994. Apparently though, it didn't even hit the big screens. The reason is different, depending on what you look into.
After this, the MCU was to finally find it's footing in the films industry, with the Blade movie becoming an unexpected financial success for the company. Then followed X-Men, which earned $157 million in the box office. Following after that, the Spiderman franchise finally found itself out of legal hell, gaining $400 million in the U.S. by itself.
2008 was the start of the ever-beloved Marvel Cinematic Universe, starting with Iron Man. All of the names people know from the MCU were then introduced to theaters, with Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, and many more to come. This spelled the beginning of a film giant. And even to this day, comic book movies, and superhero movies in general are more popular than they were before.
Now, a little bit of a beginner's guide to the MCU. A bit of it has actually already been explained within the history of comic book movies section, but this isn't about the characters, or the movies, since I know next to nothing about them, even with any considerable amount of research. And to be fully honest, the MCU has never intruiged me, so it won't be about the movies themselves. This will be about how it came to be, and how it has become so successful over the years.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU, if you don't want to keep typing it's full name out all the time, started in 2008, when the very first Iron Man film was released. For the first entry into a long line of movies to come, it's success at the Box Office is nothing to scoff at, earning itself $585.2 million. It was acclaimed, both by fans of the superhero genre in general, and critics, gaining a very close to perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes of 94% as of the time of writing, which is a massive feat for the very first movie in an entire franchise. This was also a kick-start to the career of who is now one of the most well-known actors in this day and age: Robert Downey Jr.
There are also several 'phases', probably indicating periods of time within the MCU where turning points and plot devices were used and ended, only to start the next phase with a new story line. Right now, as of the writing of this blog, Phase 3 seems to be the one that has been the most recently ended phase of the MCU. The end of the third phase came about with the release of Avengers: Endgame, which was stuck in a near perpetual battle with Avatar to become the highest selling movie in the Box Office. Eventually, Avengers: Endgame won the battle, earning over seven times the amount of money it took to create the film itself. It earned $2.798 billion at the Box Office, just surpassing Avatar's $2.79 billion.
So that begs the question: Why on Earth is this huge franchise so beloved by so many? Well, there are many reasons why.
Firstly, the MCU breaks conventions time after time after time, so that no movie within the franchise ever feels like it's following any sort of storytelling pattern or generic plot. Everything feels new, and in the current movie climate, that is extremely difficult to do.
The MCU has also been able to find a way to keep the consumers' curiosities alive, when it comes to their storylines. That doesn't mean it relies solely on cliffhangers to continue the stories that it lays out. This just means that audiences are able to be captivated by the world in which the MCU has created, the characters in which it's introduced from the pages of a comic book onto the big screen, and so much more.
However, as it is with many big-name companies and brands, there are quite a few controversies, issues and debates surrounding the MCU, particularly about representations within the movies. There have been many debates surrounding the representations of women in the MCU, and how the franchise in itself does not include as many women as it should. According to an article about female representation within the MCU written by Martha Raymer on oxfordstudent.com, on the Avengers: Infinity War poster, there was a ratio of sixteen men to a measly seven women. And in Raymer's own words: "We cannot keep pretending that this is good enough.". Rather harsh I think, but it's definitely a valid point. Why ARE there more men than women within the MCU, and the superhero genre in general? Well, men are more suited to being made out to be the 'hero' in situations. Women are often cast to the sidelines in this regard.
But there are other representations that have sparked a debate among fans of the MCU, one of those other representations being people of colour. This is where Black Panther finally comes into play, as the entire movie is so culturally charged, and it contains so much black history that it's basically begging for people to talk about it. According to another article on representations within the MCU, this time written by Anhar Karim on forbes.com, "Actors of white or Caucasian descent are the majority at 61% of the entire group". That is a pretty large majority of people that are either white or Caucasian. And with most of the main characters being white, like Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, it seems like there isn't much representation or diversity within the MCU. "20% of the MCU's actors belong to the African American/Black category.", according to Karim's statistics. A lot of this category is made up by the cast of Black Panther, in which the vast majority of the cast is of African American/black descent. Some people may argue that Black Panther is just there to add to that statistic, and is only there so that the MCU doesn't get flamed for not being 'diverse enough'. But in my opinion, superhero movies, hell, movies in general and Hollywood itself are not diverse enough at all. Yes, we have had some extremely iconic black actors in Hollywood who are black, like the late Chadwick Boseman, Samuel L Jackson and Morgan Freeman, but just try and name more black actors and actresses off of the top of your head than you can with white actors and actresses. Hard, isn't it? And that's exactly the point I'm trying to make. This is a debate that needs to be had, and a discussion that needs to be put in the spotlight.
Personally, I feel as if the discussion about the MCU is a little bit out of my comfort zone, since I'm not the biggest fan of superhero movies, or movies in general... But, I have tried my best to research as much as I could for this blog post.
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