Erik Killmonger: Hero-Villain
This analysis contains spoilers from Black Panther. Do not read if you have not seen the film.
From the release of the first theatrical trailer for Marvel Studio’s Black Panther, anticipation for the film went through the roof. After its February release, it more than exceeded expectations—it completely shattered them. To this day, Black Panther is breaking box office records left and right, and enthusiasm for the film seems endless. One aspect in particular though, appears to be inspiring endless discussion, and that is Michael B. Jordan’s character, the thought-provoking antagonist, Erik Killmonger.
In a film with so many layers, the character played by Michael B. Jordan has proven to be one of the most intriguing and controversial aspects. This is primarily because so many cases can be made for and against him being an actual villain, in the traditional sense of the word.
From the moment Erik Killmonger is officially introduced onscreen, the film wastes no time in kick-starting the debate regarding whether or not he is a legitimate bad guy. As he is clearly being followed throughout the museum under suspicion of being up to no good, the film quickly calls it for what it is—racial profiling. Hence, our first introduction to the ‘bad guy’ is done in a way that actually puts viewers on his side, making us defensive on his behalf. Killmonger confronts the female museum curator, not only calling her out for profiling him, but also relaying to her the real history of an African artifact on display, a treasure stolen from Wakanda (the kind of third-world country that, had it existed in real life, would possibly be described as a sh*thole by someone like Donald Trump). In this moment, it’s hard not to feel even more firmly in Killmonger’s corner. However, subsequent events quickly reveal, albeit rather humorously, that he is indeed a bad guy, when he promises to take the artifact off the curator’s hands, hinting at the upcoming robbery. When the curator tries to object, Killmonger calls out her hypocrisy, shedding light on the history of her ancestors stealing valuables for their own personal gain. Watching the scene unfold, viewers find themselves in the strange position of seeing Killmonger as a somewhat likeable bad guy; he seems like a hero-criminal, using crime to right wrongs as he sees them, and only ‘villainous’ to people who deserve it.
That is, until it becomes apparent that he’s in league with Klaw, whose first onscreen appearance gives the impression that he is the main villain and momentarily demoting Killmonger to a sidekick. The brief warmth and protectiveness previously felt toward Killmonger is suddenly called into question, especially as he then steals a museum piece that he has no claim to. This introduces the seesawing of emotions that will be repeated throughout the duration of the film.
From the release of the first theatrical trailer for Marvel Studio’s Black Panther, anticipation for the film went through the roof. After its February release, it more than exceeded expectations—it completely shattered them. To this day, Black Panther is breaking box office records left and right, and enthusiasm for the film seems endless. One aspect in particular though, appears to be inspiring endless discussion, and that is Michael B. Jordan’s character, the thought-provoking antagonist, Erik Killmonger.
In a film with so many layers, the character played by Michael B. Jordan has proven to be one of the most intriguing and controversial aspects. This is primarily because so many cases can be made for and against him being an actual villain, in the traditional sense of the word.
From the moment Erik Killmonger is officially introduced onscreen, the film wastes no time in kick-starting the debate regarding whether or not he is a legitimate bad guy. As he is clearly being followed throughout the museum under suspicion of being up to no good, the film quickly calls it for what it is—racial profiling. Hence, our first introduction to the ‘bad guy’ is done in a way that actually puts viewers on his side, making us defensive on his behalf. Killmonger confronts the female museum curator, not only calling her out for profiling him, but also relaying to her the real history of an African artifact on display, a treasure stolen from Wakanda (the kind of third-world country that, had it existed in real life, would possibly be described as a sh*thole by someone like Donald Trump). In this moment, it’s hard not to feel even more firmly in Killmonger’s corner. However, subsequent events quickly reveal, albeit rather humorously, that he is indeed a bad guy, when he promises to take the artifact off the curator’s hands, hinting at the upcoming robbery. When the curator tries to object, Killmonger calls out her hypocrisy, shedding light on the history of her ancestors stealing valuables for their own personal gain. Watching the scene unfold, viewers find themselves in the strange position of seeing Killmonger as a somewhat likeable bad guy; he seems like a hero-criminal, using crime to right wrongs as he sees them, and only ‘villainous’ to people who deserve it.
That is, until it becomes apparent that he’s in league with Klaw, whose first onscreen appearance gives the impression that he is the main villain and momentarily demoting Killmonger to a sidekick. The brief warmth and protectiveness previously felt toward Killmonger is suddenly called into question, especially as he then steals a museum piece that he has no claim to. This introduces the seesawing of emotions that will be repeated throughout the duration of the film.
When Killmonger later kills Klaw halfway through the film though, it is suddenly apparent that he is supposed to be our main villain.
But is he?
Summarizing the character of Erik Killmonger is tough, but giving it a stab, one might say that he has a rational mind, a driven personality, and a broken heart. The combination of these traits is what makes him simultaneously dangerous and intriguing.
Overall, his behavior is obviously what makes him a villain. However, the heartache he feels from his father’s death and the betrayal of his royal family creates sympathy for him, while his rational mind allows him to make convincing arguments that are virtually impossible to argue against. By the end of the film, our identifiable hero—T’Challa, aka the Black Panther himself—can no longer even successfully argue against Killmonger’s beliefs.
This complexity is what makes Erik Killmonger one of the most captivating villains featured in a comic-book inspired film. Arguably, the last great villain of this ilk was Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight. Yet, Jordan’s Killmonger stands out in a different way because he lacks the typical cartoonish qualities most comic-book film villains have. Killmonger is all too real and all too relatable for anyone who has experienced discrimination, especially during the times we are living in. And while we don’t always know what makes the Joker tick, we are shown precisely what makes Killmonger tick.
In a society where the Black Lives Matter movement is regularly criticized, police brutality against people of color is the norm, and systemic racism has grown so pervasive that it is sometimes hard to recognize, the character of Eric Killmonger embodies a fed-up response. Never before has a superhero film echoed real-world politics and social issues pertaining to a certain community so thoroughly. Hence, there is a reason Black Panther is resonating so widely beyond its sci-fi/fantasy surface.
For all the debate surrounding Killmonger, there is one scene in particular that is essential to revealing the inner-workings of his character. That scene is during his transitioning into the new King of Wakanda after defeating T’Challa, when he is given the magical elixir and is granted the gift of speaking to his ancestors before taking the throne.
Before diving into that though, it’s worth mentioning that unlike T’Challa, when Killmonger enters the spirit realm, he is not greeted with a lush landscape and welcomed by his ancestral panthers. Hence, even in this realm, the ancestors are not there for Killmonger, for they don’t know him and don’t acknowledge him as their own. Instead, all that awaits Killmonger is a replica of his childhood apartment in a poverty-stricken crime-infested neighborhood in Oakland, California. T’Challa and Killmonger are cousins from the same royal bloodline, but the contrast of their backgrounds, literally and figuratively, couldn’t be more different. So while proud ancestors awaited T’Challa, only Killmonger’s slain father, N’Jobu, awaited him. T’Challa’s first reunion with his father in this spirit world is joyous, filled with pride and encouragement; Killmonger’s reunion with his father is subdued, sad, and filled with apologies and regret for being outsiders in their own family.
But is he?
Summarizing the character of Erik Killmonger is tough, but giving it a stab, one might say that he has a rational mind, a driven personality, and a broken heart. The combination of these traits is what makes him simultaneously dangerous and intriguing.
Overall, his behavior is obviously what makes him a villain. However, the heartache he feels from his father’s death and the betrayal of his royal family creates sympathy for him, while his rational mind allows him to make convincing arguments that are virtually impossible to argue against. By the end of the film, our identifiable hero—T’Challa, aka the Black Panther himself—can no longer even successfully argue against Killmonger’s beliefs.
This complexity is what makes Erik Killmonger one of the most captivating villains featured in a comic-book inspired film. Arguably, the last great villain of this ilk was Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight. Yet, Jordan’s Killmonger stands out in a different way because he lacks the typical cartoonish qualities most comic-book film villains have. Killmonger is all too real and all too relatable for anyone who has experienced discrimination, especially during the times we are living in. And while we don’t always know what makes the Joker tick, we are shown precisely what makes Killmonger tick.
In a society where the Black Lives Matter movement is regularly criticized, police brutality against people of color is the norm, and systemic racism has grown so pervasive that it is sometimes hard to recognize, the character of Eric Killmonger embodies a fed-up response. Never before has a superhero film echoed real-world politics and social issues pertaining to a certain community so thoroughly. Hence, there is a reason Black Panther is resonating so widely beyond its sci-fi/fantasy surface.
For all the debate surrounding Killmonger, there is one scene in particular that is essential to revealing the inner-workings of his character. That scene is during his transitioning into the new King of Wakanda after defeating T’Challa, when he is given the magical elixir and is granted the gift of speaking to his ancestors before taking the throne.
Before diving into that though, it’s worth mentioning that unlike T’Challa, when Killmonger enters the spirit realm, he is not greeted with a lush landscape and welcomed by his ancestral panthers. Hence, even in this realm, the ancestors are not there for Killmonger, for they don’t know him and don’t acknowledge him as their own. Instead, all that awaits Killmonger is a replica of his childhood apartment in a poverty-stricken crime-infested neighborhood in Oakland, California. T’Challa and Killmonger are cousins from the same royal bloodline, but the contrast of their backgrounds, literally and figuratively, couldn’t be more different. So while proud ancestors awaited T’Challa, only Killmonger’s slain father, N’Jobu, awaited him. T’Challa’s first reunion with his father in this spirit world is joyous, filled with pride and encouragement; Killmonger’s reunion with his father is subdued, sad, and filled with apologies and regret for being outsiders in their own family.
“No tears for your father?” N’ Jobu asks his son.
Killmonger’s response is cold, rationalizing that everyone dies where he’s from—an acknowledgment of the harsh conditions he grew up in after being left orphaned, at the hands of his uncle, no less. Killmonger’s words suggest that he has grown desensitized and does not have the ability to feel sorrow or regret. Yet, we know this is not entirely true because in an earlier scene, a young Killmonger is shown crying in despair while hugging and rocking his father’s dead body. For a moment though, we are led to believe that this sorrowful Killmonger is a thing of the past, and no longer reflective of the killing-obsessed psychopath he has become.
This notion is immediately flipped upside down though when the camera returns to the adult Killmonger’s face and he is clearly crying. In that moment, it becomes apparent that his words and feelings are in contradiction with each other, and we are finally given insight into who he really is. Even in adulthood, he is still that crying, grieving little boy on the inside. On the outside, however, he has learned to toughen his words and behavior in order to hide and protect the hurt child inside of him. When the tears fall from adult Killmonger’s eyes, he hastily wipes them away, determined to restore his tough-guy façade. Determined to stay in the role he’s been using to achieve his goal—and his father’s goal—of liberating his people, since it seems that no one else, including the Wakandans, will do it.
So while Killmonger is made out to be a psychopath on the surface, a true psychopath, he is not. Psychopaths have no emotions. Killmonger is full of emotions, difficult ones at that. And those emotions—grief, anger, and betrayal—are what drive him.
Killmonger wants to make things better for people who look like and grew up like him, and he will allow no one to tell him he is wrong for feeling this way. With the exception of his murderous behavior, his beliefs and dream of liberating the oppressed actually makes him perhaps not the Black Panther of Wakanda, but indeed a Black Panther of the United States, reflective the real group who populated the U.S. throughout the 1960s-1970s—a fact that director Ryan Coogler nods to by making his hometown also Killmonger’s hometown--Oakland, CA, where the real-life Black Panther party was founded.
Killmonger is a Black Panther, in contrast to T’Challa’s more peaceful nature. It is no surprise that the difference between T’Challa and Killmonger is reminiscent of what we’ve seen from Black leaders throughout our history. T’Challa is Martin Luther King, Jr., Booker T. Washington, and others who believed in change through non-violent approaches. In contrast, Killmonger takes a page from the books of Malcolm X, W.E.B. Dubois, and most notably their ideological predecessor, Nat Turner. Nat Turner infamously went on a killing spree to lead a historic slave uprising and was later captured and killed for his actions. Sound familiar?
Killmonger wants to bring about change, as Malcolm X would say, by any means necessary.
When looking at Killmonger through this lens, his status as a villain is further muddied. Even still, it is understandable why he became who he was. As a young child, he returns to his home to find his father slain. He initially does not know who did it, or why they did it; he only knows that someone clearly had a problem with his father and killed him because of it. Coming home to such a horrific scene at such a young age undoubtedly left him with PTSD, as well as shaped his thinking-patterns. He states several times in the movie that he has learned to “think like his enemies.” As far as he is concerned, an enemy killed his father when he was deemed as a problem, so Killmonger decides that if he deems someone as a problem, the solution is to kill them. Such behavior is vile and is fortunately not the way most people would react. Nonetheless, for Killmonger, comes from a place of pain and turmoil.
While the circumstances around Killmonger’s father succeed in making us somewhat sympathic for the character, his absent mother must not be overlooked. From a young age, Killmonger’s only caregiver is his father, and he is prematurely taken away from him. Without his father’s guidance, Killmonger becomes vengeful; without his mother’s love, he seems to grow up not knowing how to connect with others, particularly women. The impact this has on him is particularly problematic, for it seems that not only does he have trouble connecting with women, but he seems to lack respect for women as a whole.
Women throughout the entirety of Black Panther are shown as exceptionally strong and intelligent, working alongside men as equals. And this makes it all the more disturbing to watch the way Killmonger treats them.
While the circumstances around Killmonger’s father succeed in making us somewhat sympathic for the character, his absent mother must not be overlooked. From a young age, Killmonger’s only caregiver is his father, and he is prematurely taken away from him. Without his father’s guidance, Killmonger becomes vengeful; without his mother’s love, he seems to grow up not knowing how to connect with others, particularly women. The impact this has on him is particularly problematic, for it seems that not only does he have trouble connecting with women, but he seems to lack respect for women as a whole.
Women throughout the entirety of Black Panther are shown as exceptionally strong and intelligent, working alongside men as equals. And this makes it all the more disturbing to watch the way Killmonger treats them.
Revisiting Killmonger’s first (adult) onscreen appearance, we are taken back to his interaction with the museum curator. While his condescending attitude towards her seems justified for reasons mentioned earlier, it still must be noted that he poisoned her. Thus, the first time we meet Killmonger, he has killed a woman. Later, he goes on to kill his own girlfriend, a much greater offense. While the museum curator was someone he didn’t care about, his girlfriend had literally been his partner in crime. Yet, when she got in the way, he didn’t hesitate to eliminate her. It’s not until this moment that viewers fully realize just how ruthless Killmonger can be, and it’s the first time the movie tries to disguise him as a heartless psychopath.
Later, when he makes it to Wakanda, he strangles and curses at the female elder responsible for his initiation ceremony. Then in the ending battle, not only does he slit the throat of a warrior woman, but he tries to kill his cousin Shuri (T’Challa’s sister)—even later provoking T’Challa by announcing that he plans to kill him and bury him right next to her.
“Hey Auntie,” he taunts T’Challa’s mother, Ramonda. He knows he is looking at the woman whose husband killed his father. And insult is added to the injury, because rather than acknowledge her husband’s actions, she immediately rejects Killmonger, even after learning the truth about who he is.
Perhaps in an alternate world, if T’Challa’s father hadn’t abandoned his nephew, Ramonda would have stepped in to help raise Killmonger, saving him from growing up orphaned and angry, fending for himself.
Later, when he makes it to Wakanda, he strangles and curses at the female elder responsible for his initiation ceremony. Then in the ending battle, not only does he slit the throat of a warrior woman, but he tries to kill his cousin Shuri (T’Challa’s sister)—even later provoking T’Challa by announcing that he plans to kill him and bury him right next to her.
“Hey Auntie,” he taunts T’Challa’s mother, Ramonda. He knows he is looking at the woman whose husband killed his father. And insult is added to the injury, because rather than acknowledge her husband’s actions, she immediately rejects Killmonger, even after learning the truth about who he is.
Perhaps in an alternate world, if T’Challa’s father hadn’t abandoned his nephew, Ramonda would have stepped in to help raise Killmonger, saving him from growing up orphaned and angry, fending for himself.
Instead of flat-out rejecting her troubled nephew, what if Ramonda had opened her arms to him and apologized for the crimes her family committed—crimes that essentially destroyed any chances he had of living a normal life? Would it have made a difference? We never can know for sure. We simply know that the lack of any maternal figures in his life seem to have done irreparable damage.
Even though his murderous impulses cannot be excused, he does seem to have every reason not to exactly feel warm and fuzzy toward his relatives (i.e. the people who abandoned him as a child and refuse to accept him as an adult).
Why do his Wakandan relatives rejected him so?
Killmonger’s driving argument is that Wakanda is being incredibly selfish for not lending a helping hand to those in need. For turning a blind-eye to people all around the world who share their ancestry—their African relatives across the globe. Their collective cousins, so to speak. In the lore of Black Panther, Wakanda is the area of Africa where all life originated.
“Aren’t all people your people?” Killmonger challenges when his Wakandan relatives try to justify only looking out for their own.
Learning the history of Wakanda, it begs us to consider what could have been if Wakandans and their gold-mine of vibrainium had stepped in and actively fought off colonizers who infiltrated other part of Africa to enslave and rob its people.
Was slavery as a whole the fault of Wakanda for not protecting their African neighbors the way they could have? Was it their fault for staying silent simply because colonizers and the slave-trade never reached their territory? Or were they justified for wanting to stay out of it, because had the rest of the outside world learned of Wakanda’s rich resources, they would have been robbed, beaten, and enslaved, just like the most unfortunate of their kin?
Can Wakanda be blamed for just wanting to stay out of everyone else’s drama? The film makes a point to argue that there would be no Wakanda to take pride in had they given away their position and exposed their resources. Under the guise of a third-world country, everyone turned a blind eye to Wakanda, and consequently, the country was allowed to thrive in peace.
According to Killmonger, however, Wakanda was wrong for not stepping up and helping people like him. Basically, he considers Wakanda as a bystander of the worst kind. In his mind, Wakandans represent the kind of people who see others being harmed, but don’t intervene because it’s not happening to them. The kind of people who see something is wrong, but refuse to acknowledge it. The kind of people who just don’t feel like dealing with the injustice around them, and consequently are part of the problem through their inaction and indifference.
Ironically though, some Wakandans actually felt the same way as Killmonger, essentially suffering from Wakandan-guilt. So all of Wakanda doesn’t exactly disagree with him, and at no point in the film is his argument portrayed as illogical. In fact, these other Wakandans who actually share his views give credence to his argument; they merely want to go about achieving the vision in a less violent way (i.e. the Martin Luther King way, instead of the Malcolm X or Nat Turner way).
T’Challa’s on-and-off girlfriend, Nakia, is actually the first one to introduce Killmonger’s argument. She makes no qualms about her willingness to help others, and expresses to T’Challa that Wakanda should be helping others. So when she grows to be so firmly against Killmonger, it isn’t because she disagrees with him, but rather because she is personally offended by his ways, not to mention upset that he has defeated the man she loves. This is something that Okoye even calls her out on.
The second character who vocally shares Killmonger’s views is W’Kabi. He agrees with Killmonger from the very moment he makes his argument to the royal court, backing him up by explaining that with the way times are changing, they could either be the conqueror or the conquered, and that he’d obviously rather be the conqueror. And unlike his peers, W’Kabi doesn’t even have a problem with Kilmonger’s methods, and later, he only surrenders in order to avoid fighting his significant other, Okoye.
The second character who vocally shares Killmonger’s views is W’Kabi. He agrees with Killmonger from the very moment he makes his argument to the royal court, backing him up by explaining that with the way times are changing, they could either be the conqueror or the conquered, and that he’d obviously rather be the conqueror. And unlike his peers, W’Kabi doesn’t even have a problem with Kilmonger’s methods, and later, he only surrenders in order to avoid fighting his significant other, Okoye.
Hence, it is shown time and time again that Killmonger’s beliefs are not entirely the problem; it’s simply the lengths he’s willing to take in order to achieve them that make even possible allies uncomfortable. This is why the line between right and wrong is so blurred throughout the film. In the end though, it is evident that the Wakandans overall prefer more peaceful means, which is true of most societies. After all, it’s not exactly surprising that Martin Luther King, Jr. is the one to end up with a national holiday, not Malcolm X.
The brilliance of this film though is that after already presenting such a deep and complicated character in Erik Killmonger, as well as an argument with two equally valid sides—it goes a step further by introducing yet another aspect that is all too relevant for the United States’s current climate.
The presidential election of 2016 was an utter disaster that a year later, we still haven’t figured out how to fix. Although Erik Killmonger and Donald Trump could not be more different in ideology, the reaction to their rises to power is eerily similar. It seems that director Ryan Coogler wanted to make sure African Americans in particular actually found empathy for the Wakandans because up until a point, it is all too easy to side with Killmonger. After all, most African Americans will recognize Killmonger’s point-of-view; he has lived the African American experience, while the Wakandans have not. So in order to increase feelings of kinship with Wakanda, Coogler made Wakanda’s political situation suddenly shift to look frighteningly recognizable so that it would be easier to fully engage both sides of both ‘Black Panthers’ in the film.
Putting Killmonger’s actual agenda aside, let’s examine the reactions to him winning the throne. When he comes to power, the Wakandans (who have a problem with it) appear to take one of two sides.
Side 1 (As argued by Okoye): You must be loyal to your country, no matter who sits at the throne [White House]. The throne [presidency] has to be respected regardless of who occupies it.
This was an attitude lots of people took upon the election of Trump. They did not like that he was elected, but out of respect for the United States, they believed the office of President had to be respected.
And then there’s the other side.
Side 2 (As argued by Nakia, Shuri, and Ramonda): Killmonger [Trump] is not fit to be King [President]. It doesn’t matter if he won the challenge [election]. He must be resisted because we love our country, and we know if he isn’t removed from power, he will destroy it with his hateful ways and cause all sorts of undue trouble.
Seeing these varying reactions to Killmonger’s surprising rise, it’s impossible to not see echoes of what the U.S. went through with the 2016 presidential election, when the person we were ready to coronate was surprisingly and unexpectedly defeated at the last minute, throwing the whole country completely off guard.
Black Panther is such a multi-layered movie that there’s still plenty left to analyze, but the biggest argument boils down to the thought-provoking ideas created through the character of Erik Killmonger. Was he really a villain? It’s almost an impossible question to answer. It’s probably safe to say though, that he may very well be the first so-called villain who ultimately had the hero adopt his ideology in the long run. So while most villains die at the end of comic-book inspired films, Erik Killmonger is granted eternal life after his profound last words. It is because of him that T’Challa has stepped out into the public with the intentions of helping the world around him, rather than staying hidden in Wakanda. And it is no coincidence that T’Challa chooses to go to Killmonger’s hometown to start an outreach program for the neighborhood kids, the little Killmongers populating the area (hopefully preventing them from growing up into what Killmonger became). So now, as T’Challa’s story continues, his appearances outside of Wakanda can be partially attributed to Killmonger for forcing him to look beyond the borders of Wakanda to see the injustices elsewhere in the world.
If Killmonger hadn’t captured the attention of Wakanda through such drastic measures, would he have made as much of an impact? Probably not. Thus, while he may have been viewed as the villain, in the process, he changed T’Challa for the better, which is quite impressive for a villain.
The brilliance of this film though is that after already presenting such a deep and complicated character in Erik Killmonger, as well as an argument with two equally valid sides—it goes a step further by introducing yet another aspect that is all too relevant for the United States’s current climate.
The presidential election of 2016 was an utter disaster that a year later, we still haven’t figured out how to fix. Although Erik Killmonger and Donald Trump could not be more different in ideology, the reaction to their rises to power is eerily similar. It seems that director Ryan Coogler wanted to make sure African Americans in particular actually found empathy for the Wakandans because up until a point, it is all too easy to side with Killmonger. After all, most African Americans will recognize Killmonger’s point-of-view; he has lived the African American experience, while the Wakandans have not. So in order to increase feelings of kinship with Wakanda, Coogler made Wakanda’s political situation suddenly shift to look frighteningly recognizable so that it would be easier to fully engage both sides of both ‘Black Panthers’ in the film.
Putting Killmonger’s actual agenda aside, let’s examine the reactions to him winning the throne. When he comes to power, the Wakandans (who have a problem with it) appear to take one of two sides.
Side 1 (As argued by Okoye): You must be loyal to your country, no matter who sits at the throne [White House]. The throne [presidency] has to be respected regardless of who occupies it.
This was an attitude lots of people took upon the election of Trump. They did not like that he was elected, but out of respect for the United States, they believed the office of President had to be respected.
And then there’s the other side.
Side 2 (As argued by Nakia, Shuri, and Ramonda): Killmonger [Trump] is not fit to be King [President]. It doesn’t matter if he won the challenge [election]. He must be resisted because we love our country, and we know if he isn’t removed from power, he will destroy it with his hateful ways and cause all sorts of undue trouble.
Seeing these varying reactions to Killmonger’s surprising rise, it’s impossible to not see echoes of what the U.S. went through with the 2016 presidential election, when the person we were ready to coronate was surprisingly and unexpectedly defeated at the last minute, throwing the whole country completely off guard.
Black Panther is such a multi-layered movie that there’s still plenty left to analyze, but the biggest argument boils down to the thought-provoking ideas created through the character of Erik Killmonger. Was he really a villain? It’s almost an impossible question to answer. It’s probably safe to say though, that he may very well be the first so-called villain who ultimately had the hero adopt his ideology in the long run. So while most villains die at the end of comic-book inspired films, Erik Killmonger is granted eternal life after his profound last words. It is because of him that T’Challa has stepped out into the public with the intentions of helping the world around him, rather than staying hidden in Wakanda. And it is no coincidence that T’Challa chooses to go to Killmonger’s hometown to start an outreach program for the neighborhood kids, the little Killmongers populating the area (hopefully preventing them from growing up into what Killmonger became). So now, as T’Challa’s story continues, his appearances outside of Wakanda can be partially attributed to Killmonger for forcing him to look beyond the borders of Wakanda to see the injustices elsewhere in the world.
If Killmonger hadn’t captured the attention of Wakanda through such drastic measures, would he have made as much of an impact? Probably not. Thus, while he may have been viewed as the villain, in the process, he changed T’Challa for the better, which is quite impressive for a villain.
Lastly, if there is one message to take away from the character of Erik Killmonger, it is that once an idea is planted, there is no stopping its growth and spread. Radical ideas change the world, even if people aren’t always ready for change. There is a reason why leaders with radical ideas--from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Malcolm X—wind up with people attempting to silence them. But if an idea is strong enough, it will long outlive the person who gave birth to it.
© T.D. Edwards 2018
All images used from Google Images. No copyright infringement intended.
All images used from Google Images. No copyright infringement intended.