MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Black Panther has remained the top-selling comic book of 2016, outranking DC Comics’ universe-rebooting Rebirth. Although the Black Panther is an icon of (black) masculinity—king, warrior, scientist, multi-billionaire, super-hero—Coates’ comic book focuses less on the redemptive quest of T’Challa to unite and restore his divided kingdom of Wakanda and more on his support systems that consist primarily of female family members.

This presentation will outline the role of five women in Coates’ Black Panther that represent the positions of women of color within black communities, making note of how these roles assist and foil regal and realistic archetypes of black masculinity.

First, T’Challa is guided by the almost oracular wisdom of his step-mother Ramonda who enables his royal patriarchal authority while allowing him freedom from it (despite her protests that he acts as a more authoritative king). The black man becomes an unruly child under the guidance of the black matriarch.

Similarly, the spiritual center of African/African-American culture that the Black Panther is meant to represent has been re-centered onto T’Challa’s dead sister Shuri who engages in a dream quest that T’Challa himself needs to regain his lost sense of cultural heritage. Shuri acts as anima to T’Challa’s dysfunctional animus, contrasting black gender roles.

Lastly, Black Panther also provides strong female antagonists who serve as anti-heroes of black activist philosophies. The excommunicated royal protector Aneka and her lesbian lover Ayo, along with the main antagonist, the emotion manipulating Zenzi, act from legitimized feelings of betrayal by the culture that they once zealously supported. They are a feminine vox populi that mirrors T’Challa’s fallen patriarchy, giving voice to the importance of women of color (and queer woc) in mobilizing the black community when masculine authority appears unsuitable.