The French Government Slams Black Panther 2 For A Stupid Reason
Unused to being shown as the villain in media, the French government has complained over Black Panther 2 showing them as a nation willing to steal resources from an African country.
As Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe came to a close with the second solo outing of the Wakanda heroes in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, there is a natural inclination to look back at what we have seen. Of course, there are some films and characters that people love in the phase, and some that others felt fell far short of the Marvel standard. However, Politico reports that the French Government slammed Black Panther 2 based on the film’s representation of their country as the spark plug for the events taking place.
Most everyone knows that the villain of the movie is Namor (Tenoch Huerta), at least on the surface, but there are a lot of other thematic villains as well. From a particular perspective, some could say that the true villain isn’t the underwater king, but it is the vengeance that he feels, and later in the movie, felt by Shuri (Letitia Wright) following the death of her mother. But the French government believes they were painted as a villain at the beginning of the film.
The discovery that there is a technologically advanced nation in the heart of Africa with bountiful resources means there are bound to be countries that want their piece of the pie. There will always be villainous leaders in countries all over the world just to push the geopolitical storyline forward. In Black Panther 2, the French government was seen using a black ops squad to break into a Wakandan research station in an attempt to obtain the African nation’s technology.
American filmmakers have never been against painting other nations as villains in movies. Of course, the Germans have been villains in films since the 50s as World War II-based films felt history created built-in antagonists, but the Russians had their time in the film industry as the go-to bad guys. And, of course, Vietnamese and North Korean villains have also been prevalent due to geopolitical happenings throughout history.
So what made Black Panther 2, creating villains out of the French, feel different to their government? The film is a part of the biggest film franchise in the history of the world, with some of the highest global box-office numbers in the history of the industry. Because they have a wide variety of countries across the globe watching the films, Marvel has typically either used American villains or members of fictional nations and races.
Even when there were villains of another nationality, they clearly operated apart of their home country, which is what possibly made seeing the government of France use their special forces to steal technology feel jarring. But at the end of the day, nearly every country has been the victim of corrupt politicians leading them to villainy in movies. France just, unfortunately, had the distinct honor of kicking off the chain of events in Black Panther 2.
They likely weren’t the only country attempting to steal the technology from the Wakandan nation. They were just simply the first to get caught and draw the ire of Queen Ramonda. Seeing yourself painted as the villain can feel jarring, but it must be taken as fiction.
