Accounting for the popularity of black panther among black South African women in Soweto township

Abstract

In February 2018, South Africa was hit by the Black Panther (Coogler 2018) fever. Multitudes of people thronged movie houses in their cultural regalia. The movie’s release seemed to have signalled a “cultural moment”. Several scholars have engaged with Black Panther ’s cultural significance and thematic engagement. However, extant literature has not fully explored and accounted for the movie’s popularity in audiences’ specific socio-historical contexts of consumption. More so, current studies on Black Panther have mostly relied on text-based approaches and paid scant attention to audiences’ contexts and lived experiences. Premised on a cultural studies approach, this reception analysis sought to explore and account for the popularity of Black Panther among Black South African women in Soweto township. The study’s findings show that the popularity of Black Panther among Black South African women in Soweto is attributable to the meanings associated with resistance and pleasure that subaltern audiences negotiate from the movie. Audiences’ situated discourses and the film’s Afrofuturist orientation combine to unravel a “cultural moment” for Black women in Soweto where they can challenge and subvert localised and global forms of oppression that afflict them. The film opens up symbolic space for subaltern Black South African women to recuperate voice and their agency.