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First and foremost, Black Panther challenges the stereotypical depictions of Black people, nations, and culture. Its characters offer abundant and aspirational imaginative possibilities for Black members of the audience. Few other fictions represent a Black man as a respected king of a wealthy nation, or Black female characters as able to influence the narrative beyond being a love interest, let alone as revered warriors like the Dora Milaje. Shuri's character offers a rare representation of a young Black woman as a technological genius and inventor (arguably more capable than Bruce Banner and Tony Stark), afforded the resources and freedom to pursue her interests.

That these representations transgress stereotypes does not mean they're impossible in the real world. Black people are well aware that their community members are capable of the excellence that the characters display. But in an oppressive culture that limits the fictional representation of Black people to stereotypes, Black Panther provides legitimacy and feasibility to imagining this excellence of oneself. That is, Black Panther makes it easier for a Black viewer to imagine that they could be a king, or a warrior woman, or a tech genius, because they can use the depictions in the film as a reference point that says, “Here, imagine this!” We can see that Black Panther has exactly this effect in the social media posts about young Black girls dressing up as Dora Milaje and children roleplaying as King T'Challa that flooded the internet after the film's release.¹³

So Black Panther allows the audience members who identify with it to imagine a range of possibilities for themselves. But it has another function: to represent Black and African American experience to everyone. The film offers imaginative possibilities, but it also tries to reflect current reality through fictional representation. The depiction of Black women in the film is especially notable, as even though T'Challa is the protagonist, he is flanked by powerful Black women who are different in their motivations and values, and who drive the narrative forward in their own ways. Nakia is driven primarily by personal principles of justice, and Shuri’s motivations centre around familial ties and nationalism.

Okoye is loyal to her culture and its traditions, a capable leader and formidable warrior. Her head is close shaved throughout the film, and in the one instance that she wears a wig, she is vocal in her displeasure and throws the wig at an opponent. Calling the wig a “ridiculous thing” flies in the face of Western demands of how Black women should perform femininity and beauty. Similarly, Nakia and Shuri maintain their natural hair, styled in ways designed to accentuate its qualities, not stymie its abundance. After decades of not seeing Black women with natural hair on screen, the recent cultural return to natural hair in defiance of white supremacy's expectations is reflected and validated in the fictional characters.

Importantly, the representation that the film offers, and that Black and African American people can identify with, isn't one‐dimensional, but plural and nuanced. Usually, Black representation in film is limited to one, maybe two characters. In Black Panther, the vast majority of characters are Black (and played by Black actors) which means the characters can have narratives that are not driven by their relations to white characters and whiteness. “Nearly every touch, every relationship, and every plot point [that] exists is to build connection between Black characters.”¹⁴

For example, the ideological tension between T'Challa and Killmonger reflects the disagreement between those who have been able to live free of systemic oppression, and those who have suffered it. Killmonger's alienation from his Wakandan origins mirrors many Black Americans' experience of being caught between two cultures: African heritage and American present. T'Challa, on the other hand, has never been removed from his ancestral home. T'Challa, though a Black man, has not experienced first‐hand the racial oppression to which Black people are subjected in the United States, unlike Killmonger. In this sense Killmonger's narrative reflects the real‐world struggle of being Black in the United States, depicting rage at the injustices incurred, and a desire to secure reparations.¹⁵

Nakia has a similar tension with T'Challa and Okoye. Nakia has experienced much of the world outside Wakanda. Though she does not experience structural oppression in the way Killmonger has, the suffering and oppression of Black populations outside Wakanda troubles her deeply. We first see her undercover on a mission to stop the kidnapping and forced sexual slavery of African women – a real‐world problem – and the film reiterates that she is well‐traveled. She says to T'Challa, “I've seen too many in need just to turn a blind eye. I can't be happy here knowing that there's people out there who have nothing.”

Nakia is offered the queenship at T'Challa's side, but she believes the role and Wakanda's traditions would restrict her ability too much to help the rest of the world. Urging T'Challa to open Wakanda to the world and share its resources, she says “We could provide aid and access to technology and refuge to those who need it.” Though Killmonger is the antagonist, Nakia approximates his outlook – that Wakanda in its wealth should allow access to its resources in order to lift people oppressed in other parts of the world.

Similarly, after T'Challa loses the duel with Killmonger, Nakia challenges Okoye's decision to stay and serve the new king. When Nakia suggests a plan to overthrow Killmonger, Okoye is taken aback, believing her duty is to the institutions of her country and therefore the throne. Nakia, however, believes that she can best serve her country by ensuring its better future, even if doing so contravenes tradition and law. When Okoye tells her, “Serve your country,” Nakia responds, “No, I save my country.” This exchange reflects a political dilemma in the real world: often, oppressed populations such as Black Americans have to break the law or conventions in order to effectively resist their oppression. Some find this an uncrossable boundary, but others believe society's laws are inherently corrupt because of the unjust system that created them.

Black Panther does more than one thing, representationally. Like all fictional works, it is open to varying interpretations of its content, and the accounts of what Black Panther does for its audience are not unanimous. Significantly, the film combines real and fictional elements to inspire differing reactions. For example, the tension between T'Challa and Killmonger left some Black audience members struggling to empathize with the story's hero over its villain. Steven Thrasher for Esquire wrote, “I couldn't get myself to root against its antagonist … [and] I found its ending political message far more conservative than the revolutionary possibilities teased by anything with ‘Black’ and ‘Panther’ in the title.”¹⁶ While Killmonger is positioned as the antagonist, his aspiration to liberate Black people globally and the sense of injustice he feels, often approximates the experience of Black people in the real world better than T'Challa's attitude of preserving peace. Moreover, Killmonger is the main African American character in the film. Though his heritage is Wakandan, his character shares the cultural and national background of many of the film's viewers, whereas T'Challa has always been rich, powerful, and physically safe. Killmonger has experienced the same precariousness in life as many of the film's Black audience members, “searching for an intact Black body, only to be largely rejected.”¹⁷ Some Black moviegoers therefore found themselves rooting for the villain, because he was a closer representation of themselves.

T'Challa's characterization might be further criticized for upholding the white colonialist value of passivity and peacefulness in Black people, designed to minimize Black retaliation to injustice. Black anger, particularly Black women's anger, is culturally demonized as less valid and justified than white anger.¹⁸ In this respect, the ultimate victory of T'Challa's peaceful ideology is less revolutionary than some Black audience members would have liked. Moreover, Agent Ross's deterministic account of Killmonger – that he is doomed to reproduce the destructive habits of his training and country – could be interpreted as a pessimistic representation of radical Black politics. Killmonger's efforts to secure resources to liberate Black populations isn't equivalent to the United States' methods of destabilizing foreign powers for its own gain. Suggesting otherwise through Killmonger's narrative glosses over the initial motivation of his actions: the profound oppression of Black people and culture by Western powers.

Varying interpretations do not mean that Black Panther does a poor representational job. Quite the contrary, Black Panther is a film that can elucidate a multitude of Black peoples' experiences and perspectives. The variety of interpretation allows for nuanced discussion about real‐world issues through the lens of the film – a practice of using the epistemic resources Black Panther gives to viewers. Epistemic resources do not need to serve a particular viewpoint, and in fact they should not stray toward only one understanding of the world. To be valuable, an epistemic resource needs to add to our tools of understanding in some meaningful way. Black Panther does this, partly because it can have conflicting interpretations.

So, even though Black Panther is a good epistemic resource, we as audience members and knowers have been ill‐served by the fictions that came before it, which gave us faulty, stereotypical resources to understand and interpret Black and African American experience. In turn, Black and African American people have been ill‐served by previous fictions, as their experience and realities have suffered misinterpretation and stereotyping partially through the fictions in our cultural repertoire. Therein, I suggest, lies an injustice of an epistemic nature.