By J.K. Obatala
In the closing moments of “Black Panther,” when the primary conflict is being resolved, a contingent of defeated male warriors fall on their knees, before a female general.
Everything that transpired previously—the fight scenes, the car chase, the cultural camouflage, the dialogue—was preparing the audience, mentally, for this moment.
Technically, the story is at the “point of resolution” (or “denouement”), when action has subsided, the problem is solved and order is restored.
But in this scene, something more is happening, than meets the uncritical eye: Something more than the mere “untying of knots” in the plot, as French cinematographers say.
What the audience is experiencing now, and in some earlier sequences, is a highly insidious psychology, propagated through an appealing and pioneering cultural aesthetic.
Oddly enough, my…
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