Social Awareness In Sherronda Brown's Black Panther

Sherronda Brown, states in her discussion guide on Black Panther, the latest installment to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Black Panther’s Afrofuturism is timely to the social awareness prevalent in young African American’s in current society. Brown asks whether this Afrofuturism could raise awareness of social justice, community organizing, and activism in other populations of young people as it is in the young Black community. For many of the same reasons, this movie is an important for all populations to see in order to kick start social awareness and action. By connecting to large audiences in a cultural phenomenon, Black Panther’s representation, and inspiration could play an important role in the inspiration of action that future generations

The negative representation manifests number of different ways in media. The first of these being, typically there are fewer roles for people of color in film and television (Buchanan, 2016; Julious, 2015). Being that there are fewer opportunities for people of color to be represented in media, it gives less opportunity for the introduction of positive representations of African Americans, to the general population. Moreover, the issue is amplified by the fact that the majority of African American representation in media often tends to perpetuate false stereotypes (C.K., 2018; Tynes & Ward, 2009). Thus, not only are people not seeing fewer representations of African Americans, but the representation that is present presents false and negative realities of the African American community. A clear illustration of lack of representation, and false representation is demonstrated in the absence of African American characters in futurist films. The absence gives a lot of different messages to audiences such as: people of color not making it to the future, people of color not being smart enough to survive in the future, or people of color not being important enough to be represented in the future (Thrasher, 2015; Henry, 2015; Womack, 2013). All of the above mentioned realities cause concern, considering the

We see that the current representation of African American’s is overwhelmingly negative. Additionally, science supports that this representation actively affects the perceptions and attitudes of African American’s for individuals of all populations. However, Black Panther repudiates all of the norms seen in media. The film shows a positive representation of powerful, successful, thriving Black folk in a futuristic context. As previously mentioned this is not adequately done in past and or present media. Not only does Black Panther show positive representation, it shows the positive representation on a large scale, being that the stark majority of the cast are persons of color. Much like the media up to this point in time has painted perceptions of African Americans, Black Panther’s large positive representation actively combats the previous perceptions, which could lead to re-conceptualization of perceptions from other populations of Black folk. Beyond the representation though, Black Panther is creating the space for conversation about the representation of African American’s in the media. Being that individuals were never taught to question the effects the previous representation had on their perceptions