BLACK PANTHER
The first question asks you to provide an ethical analysis of Black Panther, a film that depicts a central character who faces several challenges and has to make decisions while learning from and weighing the opinions and differing ethical commitments of several people who are influential in their life. You can reference Wakanda Forever if you’ve seen it but this question asks you to focus on the first film.
The subject of this essay is how T’Challa came to learn and grow in his own ethical approach to his life task. What was the ethical reasoning that led him to question the relationship between his isolationism and his privilege, and that eventually led him to change his leadership and the actions he supported? You are asked to describe, for example, how he moved from a Utilitarian to a Confucian ethical approach (hint: you may not want to characterize his change as a move to a Confucian approach). Provide a definition of the two ethical approaches you see him embracing before and after his interactions with Killmonger and his father. In order to do this, you also will want to consider and discuss: what are ethical approaches that at least ONE of the other characters embrace, and how did their stance play a role in TChalla’s shift? (e.g. Killmonger, Nakia, Okoye, M’Baku, Ramonda, W’Kabi) How does the film speak to at least two themes of critical race theory? Describe the themes and connect them to something that is related to the creation of the film itself. Thus, you are asked to articulate what you see as the main ethical reasoning articulated by differing characters as they understand the dilemmas they are facing. You are also asked to discuss the filmmaking choices of Marvel and Disney that shaped the depiction of the characters and their trajectories in specific ways. For example, how do capitalism and/or Hollywood norms shape or limit what ends up being in the story?
