--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for Today Explained comes from BetterHelp. Let me tell you a true story. Last weekend, I got an email from a listener who wanted to discuss their problems with me. And I said, look, I don't think that this is about me personally. At least I hope it's not. Why don't you try BetterHelp.com slash Explained? Absolute truth. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp. The one is not me, guys. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash explain. That's BetterHelp.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Not all journalism is the same. Take The Guardian. Our coverage has something unique, fierce independence. Nobody owns us or tells us what we can and can't say, so we're free to report the whole picture. We connect what's happening in Washington to the rest of the globe, expose corruption wherever we find it, and give fresh perspective on everything from wellness and soccer to culture, the climate and more. Read, watch and listen to The Guardian for free at theguardian.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We are not wanting for reminders of how fragile and fleeting life can be in 2020, but on Friday night, we got another one anyway. The actor Chadwick Boseman died of colon cancer at 43, and he chose to suffer in silence. Even his closest friends and collaborators only discovered he had cancer when they heard about his passing. Chadwick had been battling cancer for the past four years while playing superheroes in movies, Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, and Black Panther.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: As the world mourned Chadwick Boseman this weekend, an old interview resurfaced. It was from a Black Panther press junket. Chadwick is talking about two kids with cancer who couldn't wait to see the movie. Throughout our filming, I was communicating with them, knowing that they were both terminal. And what they said to me and their parents said they're trying to hold on till this movie comes. Bozeman says he couldn't believe Black Panther would mean that much to two kids with terminal cancer.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think back now to a kid and just, you know, waiting for Christmas to come, waiting for my birthday to come, waiting for a toy that was going to, that I was going to get a chance to experience or a video game. I did live life waiting for those moments. And so it put me back in the mind of being a kid just to experience those two little boys anticipation of this movie. And when I found out that they... Take your time, would you? Yeah, it means a lot. The kids didn't make it, and now we know that Bozeman himself was battling cancer when he gave this interview.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He'll always be remembered for playing a superhero, for playing Black Panther. But in death, Chadwick Boseman has become a superhero. To celebrate his work, we're going to run the second ever episode of Today Explained. It ran on February 20th, 2018, a few days after Black Panther opened in theaters across the country. We knew how important this movie was then, and it's only become more important since. Thank you, Chadwick. I'm Sean Rameswaram. This is Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When I was 7, 8, 9 years old, my prime comic book years, the store in my neighborhood that sold comics did not have the best selection. You had your Batman, your Superman, your Spider-Man, Archie. Seeing someone who looked like me didn't really feel like an option. And that didn't even feel weird. Most people I knew hadn't heard of Sri Lanka, the country where my parents were from. Most people I knew couldn't even say my last name. So it felt pretty normal to dream of being a white guy. My brother wanted to be Batman so I was left wanting to be Spider-Man.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Anyway, fast forward a couple decades. It feels like there's a new superhero movie every other week. I'm not holding my breath for a big South Asian superhero movie, but it sure is nice to finally see Black Panther. The Black Panther has been the protector of Wakanda for generations. A mantle passed from warrior to warrior. And now because your friend murdered my father, I also wear the mantle of king.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Black Panther already feels like the most important movie of the year. And to understand why, you have to understand who Black Panther is. Your Highness. Under the Black Panther mask is T'Challa, king of a fictional African nation called Wakanda. What do you know about Wakanda? Wakanda is the most advanced country in the world thanks to this crazy fictional supermetal called... Vibranium. It's stronger than steel and a third the weight. It's completely vibration-absorbent. It powers their trains, it powers their weapons, and it's the special sauce in Black Panther's superhero suit.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Despite all of its sophistication, Wakanda keeps a low profile. Most people don't even know it exists. As a result, no slave trade, no colonialism, just this dream of black excellence. Black Panther shows up for just a few scenes in Captain America Civil War. But you know when an exciting new superhero shows up for a few scenes in a Marvel movie? Big things are ahead. Just one year later, we had a trailer for a standalone Black Panther movie. I waited my entire life for this. The world's gonna start over. I'm gonna burn it all.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We're sitting here looking at this dope-ass Black Panther poster. For some fans, seeing the poster alone, just the poster, was almost too much to take. This is what white people get to feel all the time. All the time! All the time! Since the beginning of cinema. All the time! You get to feel empowered like this and represented. This? This is what y'all feel like all the time? I would love this country too!
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Before Black Panther even came out, it felt like a game changer. But if there were any doubts, this weekend drove the point home. Representation matters, and it's good for business. Welcome, welcome. People were dressing up to go see this movie. I'm actually wearing a dashiki, and she's wearing a matching skirt that I had made down in 125th Street in Harlem. People were renting out entire theaters for private screenings. It's a whole room full of gorgeous black people right now. A couple of white people, too. And a couple of white people. People were celebrating their major life events at Black Panther.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Terrence. This is Tiffany. This is our engagement party. I went to the Alpine Cinemas in Brooklyn the night Black Panther opened. Terrence and Tiffany seemed more excited about the movie than their own marriage. Is there a chance it doesn't meet your expectations? No chance. None whatsoever. I believe in it. I've always been a big fan of Chadwick Boseman. I've actually got a crush on him since he was on Lincoln Heights.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm sorry to hear that. That's cool. That's cool. She knows about me and Rihanna. Rihanna doesn't know about me and Rihanna, but she knows about me and Rihanna. You know, our family is here. Our friends are here. Our co-workers that support us and our black love. So that's what it is. Yeah, that's what she said. Pretty much on point.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't think I've ever been in a more rapturous movie theater than Terrence and Tiffany's Black Panther screening. People were yelling, people were crying, people were laughing, and it wasn't the kids in the theater freaking out. It was their parents, the ones who grew up wishing they could see themselves saving the world. Black Panther made a ton of money over the weekend, over $200 million. It broke all sorts of records, including the biggest long weekend haul ever.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Kendrick Lamar's soundtrack is the number one album in the country. Michelle Obama endorsed the movie on Twitter. Congrats to the entire Black Panther team. Because of you, young people will finally see superheroes that look like them on the big screen. I loved this movie, and I know it will inspire people of all backgrounds to dig deep and to find the courage to be the heroes of their own stories.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So what took so long? Why were there three Iron Mans, six Spider Mans, and an Ant-Man movie before this? I asked the guy who's writing the Black Panther comics right now after the break. This is Today Explained.
--:-- Evan Narciss: I'm Evan Narciss, a Black Panther fan going way way back, probably 9 or 10 years old now. I'm a grown up and I write about comic books for io9, and I'm also writing Rise of the Black Panther for Marvel Comics. So he seemed like the right person to ask what makes this particular story and character and movie so gosh darn important.
--:-- Evan Narciss: You know, Sean, I'm like I'm almost genetically engineered for this moment right this movie like hit me so hard I wept the first time I saw it and I wept probably exponentially more the last time I saw it. It's very personal, it's very metaphorical, and it feels like a big slice of myth and Shakespeare and blackness all layered on top of each other. I had high expectations that I tried to temper and it exceeded those expectations.
--:-- Evan Narciss: There's one character called M'Baku, who in the comics is a supervillain called Man-Ape. And he's played by Winston Duke. I was lucky enough to go to the premiere in L.A., and I talked to him after the movie. I was like, you know, growing up, we used to make fun of this cat. Like, he was a clown. Come, Black Panther, and face the Man-Ape! And I said, nobody's going to do that now. Nobody's going to laugh at this character now. And that's by virtue of his performance and the way that Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole, the other guy who wrote the screenplay, conceptualized this character.
--:-- Evan Narciss: They knew that, yes, there's a history of stereotypes calling a black guy an ape. So let's not do that. And furthermore, let's make this guy ideologically sound in terms of his argument and the plot. They radically reinterpret these characters in some ways that are better than the comics, which pains me to say as the guy who's writing Black Panther comics now, but there's a few things that they do in there and I'm like, damn it, I wish I could have done that.
--:-- Evan Narciss: Tell me what made you cry, Evan. Oh man, I mean like literally the first line. What? What's the first line? A little boy saying, Baba, tell me your story. Then it just starts talking about Wakanda and the history of Wakanda. And, you know, the thing that the movie does is if you come from somewhere else that is not America, if you come from another culture that is not white, and if you feel a longing for that place and your sense of self in that place or your sense of self having to simultaneously exist in two places at once, if you feel any of those things, this movie is going to hit you with like a ton of bricks.
--:-- Evan Narciss: King of my city, king of my country, king of my homeland. King of the filthy, king of the fallen, we living again. King of the shooters, looters, boosters, and ghettos popping King of the past, present, future, my ancestors watching King of the culture, king of the soldiers, king of the bloodshed King of the wisdom, king of the ocean, king of the respect, king of the...
--:-- Evan Narciss: You talked about the movie being sort of steeped in metaphor and myth. What is Wakanda? What does it mean? In the real world, Wakanda is basically the dream of a Black culture, of a Black people that's never been compromised by white supremacy, by colonialism, by racism, discrimination. And that's a powerful idea that has some historical reference, but not on the scale that we see in the movie. It's a space of completely free Black agency where you don't have to worry about what looks respectable or palatable or certain standards of beauty.
--:-- Evan Narciss: Why didn't anyone in this hyper-capitalist society think of this 30 years ago? I'm confused. Because there's a bunch of bullshit attitudes and preconceived notions and quote-unquote conventional wisdom about what plays across the world in terms of Hollywood output. And that's, you know, white people. But nothing about the Black Panther is designed to be a repudiation of other groups' humanity. It's primarily a celebration of Black humanity.
--:-- Evan Narciss: And you know, one of the things about Black Panther that's exhilarating and frustrating at the same time is this is a perfect storm, okay? We got Ryan Coogler who's coming off Creed. You've got the cast, Chadwick Boseman who's a ridiculously talented performer. Lupita Nyong'o, Daniel Kaluuya. But then you've got older generations of actors like Forrest Whitaker and Angela Bassett. This movie took a very specific planetary alignment to make happen. And what I want is for the next movie that has similar goals or ideas to not need a perfect storm to happen.
--:-- Evan Narciss: You know, like this shouldn't be this feat of institutional bravery to put out a movie that has mostly black people in it. Right. Black audiences will show up, you know, and non-black audiences too, you know. Evan, what do you think this movie means to kids? I mean, when I was young, I saw some lesser black superhero movies. I saw Blank Man. Get ready to rumble! Meteor Man. Meteor Man's in town. I saw Blade. There's worse things out tonight than vampires. Like what? Like me. I saw Spawn. You sent me to hell, Jason. I'm here to return the favor.
--:-- Evan Narciss: It was a real rough run for a minute there, right? Blade is okay. I'm wondering, like, what do you think it'll mean to see this all-star cast and then this all-star soundtrack and, like, actually get to go buy toys that are centered around a black hero for kids? You get to save the world. You get to change the world. You know, the thing about superheroes is that they're, by their very nature, they are aspirational, right? So often these meditations about what human beings can and can't do happen through white faces and to have it happen through black faces is like ridiculously meaningful like it's it's so important to have a villain who's like semi-sympathetic, charismatic, and compelling and a black guy and have him pit off against a hero that is compassionate, clever, and in a loving relationship with his sister and his mom and have these huge stakes be part of it too.
--:-- Evan Narciss: That lets you know you can change other people's lives for the better. Like, that's important messaging to experience from kids of any group, any background. But Black kids so rarely get that directly beamed right at their heads and their hearts. And that's what's really important about this movie.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for Today Explained comes from Built Rewards. These days, it seems like everybody has a rewards program. You swipe your card and you get one cent on the hundred dollars. But with your rent, frequently, you just pay month after month. You never get anything from it. Other than that roof over your head. Not anymore, says Built Rewards. Built Rewards says it lets you earn points on your rent. By paying rent through Built, they say you can earn flexible points that can be redeemed toward hundreds of hotels and airlines, perhaps a future rent payment, your next Lyft ride, and so much more.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Your home isn't just where you sleep, it's your community, and Built wants you to go out and do things in the community. You can eat at your favorite local restaurants, then earn more points. You can get VIP treatment at certain fitness studios. You can enjoy exclusive experiences just for BILT members every month. When you're ready to travel, they say BILT points can be converted to miles or hotel points all around the world. You can earn points on rent and around your neighborhood, wherever you call home, by joining BILT.com slash explained. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes. So you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin, or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So yeah, we know that Black Panther is more than just another comic book movie. But what took so long to make it? If you were a superhero, what would you call yourself and what would your power be? Oh man, uh, the Haitian sensation. Probably super speed. Evan Narciss is a Black Panther fan going way way back, probably 9 or 10 years old now. He's a grown up and writes about comic books for io9, and I'm also writing Rise of the Black Panther for Marvel Comics.
--:-- Evan Narciss: So he seemed like the right person to ask what makes this particular story and character and movie so gosh darn important. You know, Sean, I'm like I'm almost genetically engineered for this moment right this movie like hit me so hard I wept the first time I saw it and I wept probably exponentially more the last time I saw it. It's very personal, it's very metaphorical, and it feels like a big slice of myth and Shakespeare and blackness all layered on top of each other.
--:-- Evan Narciss: I had high expectations that I tried to temper and it exceeded those expectations. There's one character called M'Baku, who in the comics is a supervillain called Man-Ape. And he's played by Winston Duke. I was lucky enough to go to the premiere in L.A., and I talked to him after the movie. I was like, you know, growing up, we used to make fun of this cat. Like, he was a clown. Come, Black Panther, and face the Man-Ape! And I said, nobody's going to do that now. Nobody's going to laugh at this character now.
--:-- Evan Narciss: And that's by virtue of his performance and the way that Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole, the other guy who wrote the screenplay, conceptualized this character. They knew that, yes, there's a history of stereotypes calling a black guy an ape. So let's not do that. And furthermore, let's make this guy ideologically sound in terms of his argument and the plot. They radically reinterpret these characters in some ways that are better than the comics, which pains me to say as the guy who's writing Black Panther comics now, but there's a few things that they do in there and I'm like, damn it, I wish I could have done that.
--:-- Evan Narciss: Tell me what made you cry, Evan. Oh man, I mean like literally the first line. What? What's the first line? A little boy saying, Baba, tell me your story. Then it just starts talking about Wakanda and the history of Wakanda. And, you know, the thing that the movie does is if you come from somewhere else that is not America, if you come from another culture that is not white, and if you feel a longing for that place and your sense of self in that place or your sense of self having to simultaneously exist in two places at once, if you feel any of those things, this movie is going to hit you with like a ton of bricks.
--:-- Evan Narciss: King of my city, king of my country, king of my homeland. King of the filthy, king of the fallen, we living again. King of the shooters, looters, boosters, and ghettos popping King of the past, present, future, my ancestors watching King of the culture, king of the soldiers, king of the bloodshed King of the wisdom, king of the ocean, king of the respect, king of the...
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You talked about the movie being sort of steeped in metaphor and myth. What is Wakanda? What does it mean? In the real world, Wakanda is basically the dream of a Black culture, of a Black people that's never been compromised by white supremacy, by colonialism, by racism, discrimination. And that's a powerful idea that has some historical reference, but not on the scale that we see in the movie. It's a space of completely free Black agency where you don't have to worry about what looks respectable or palatable or certain standards of beauty.
--:-- Evan Narciss: Why didn't anyone in this hyper-capitalist society think of this 30 years ago? I'm confused. Because there's a bunch of bullshit attitudes and preconceived notions and quote-unquote conventional wisdom about what plays across the world in terms of Hollywood output. And that's, you know, white people. But nothing about the Black Panther is designed to be a repudiation of other groups' humanity. It's primarily a celebration of Black humanity.
--:-- Evan Narciss: And you know, one of the things about Black Panther that's exhilarating and frustrating at the same time is this is a perfect storm, okay? We got Ryan Coogler who's coming off Creed. You've got the cast, Chadwick Boseman who's a ridiculously talented performer. Lupita Nyong'o, Daniel Kaluuya. But then you've got older generations of actors like Forrest Whitaker and Angela Bassett. This movie took a very specific planetary alignment to make happen. And what I want is for the next movie that has similar goals or ideas to not need a perfect storm to happen.
--:-- Evan Narciss: You know, like this shouldn't be this feat of institutional bravery to put out a movie that has mostly black people in it. Right. Black audiences will show up, you know, and non-black audiences too, you know. Evan, what do you think this movie means to kids? I mean, when I was young, I saw some lesser black superhero movies. I saw Blank Man. Get ready to rumble! Meteor Man. Meteor Man's in town. I saw Blade. There's worse things out tonight than vampires. Like what? Like me. I saw Spawn. You sent me to hell, Jason. I'm here to return the favor.
--:-- Evan Narciss: It was a real rough run for a minute there, right? Blade is okay. I'm wondering, like, what do you think it'll mean to see this all-star cast and then this all-star soundtrack and, like, actually get to go buy toys that are centered around a black hero for kids? You get to save the world. You get to change the world. You know, the thing about superheroes is that they're, by their very nature, they are aspirational, right? So often these meditations about what human beings can and can't do happen through white faces and to have it happen through black faces is like ridiculously meaningful like it's it's so important to have a villain who's like semi-sympathetic, charismatic, and compelling and a black guy and have him pit off against a hero that is compassionate, clever, and in a loving relationship with his sister and his mom and have these huge stakes be part of it too.
--:-- Evan Narciss: That lets you know you can change other people's lives for the better. Like, that's important messaging to experience from kids of any group, any background. But Black kids so rarely get that directly beamed right at their heads and their hearts. And that's what's really important about this movie.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: All the stars are closer. All the stars are closer. All the stars are closer. Because maybe the night that my dreams might let me know. All the stars are closer. All the stars are closer. All the stars are closer.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Evan Narciss writes the comic book series Rise of the Black Panther from Marvel. Shouts to Keisha TK Dutess for inviting me to her friend's engagement party in Brooklyn, and to Vox's Christina Anima Sean for lending her voice to today's episode. I'm Sean Rameswaram. This is Today Explained. Find out who you're dealing with. A smart percentage you I'm building with.
