Chadwick Boseman Believes T’Challa is The Enemy in BLACK PANTHER and Explains Why
Chadwick Boseman has some really interesting commentary on Wakanda's king, T'Challa in Marvel's Black Panther. The movie is still exploding at the box office as fans continue to flock to the theater to watch the movie. Fans are excited about this inspiring new hero, but Boseman has a more complicated idea about the character and in a recent interview with The Atlantic, he explains why he sees T'Challa as the enemy in the story.
"I actually am the enemy. It’s the enemy I’ve always known. It’s power. It’s having privilege. I don’t know if we as African-Americans would accept T’Challa as our hero if he didn’t go through Killmonger because Killmonger has been through our struggle, and [T’Challa hasn’t]."
That's certainly a different and interesting view of the character, but he makes some good points about the character and what he says makes sense. There are some heavy emotional themes that are presented in Black Panther and director Ryan Coogler handled them perfectly.
It's okay if the hero of a movie like this is flawed because we are all flawed. It's those imperfect qualities of these characters that help us connect with them. It also makes the characters more compelling and more human. Marvel has done a great job with developing complicated characters like this and it all started with Tony Stark in Iron Man.
What do you think about the comment that Boseman made here?