I don't think just because it uses a fictional catalyst for the successful rejection of colonialism means the movie lacks real world relevance (though I agree we can never know what an Uganda that was never colonized would actually be like). Maybe I'm reading your statement wrong but you seem to be saying no fiction can have relevance to the real world because it has fictitious elements/events. If that is the premise I disagree fictional stories like myths, legends, etc. have always had relevance to the real world... even though we know they aren't documentaries.
no my statement was intended to convey the opposite
my referencing of the African response to Black Panthers release in Kisumu, Kenya (where Lupita Nyong'o originates) and South Africa was to illustrate that the movies impact is one that focusses on the current perspective of Africans living in a modern city, incorporating the beauty of African culture while focussed on a high tech future. That for me is what stories and myth do, they inform modern perspectives and impact on future actions.
So while Vibranium might be analgous to the resources of real world Africa, and Wakandan as an amalgam drawing its motifs from many different cultures of Africa has power to generate excitement across the continent, the Wakanda perspective can only set us to wonder about what the past might have been like without colonialism, it can not have relevance to the historic reality in Africa and how it has come to this point. The excitement and enthusiasm in African motif and African storytelling is for me far more important and far more relevant anyway.
When they created BP they started with the result, a panther themed superhero, and added some fantasy elements as origin. You can't simply turn this around and use it as allegory of what could have been without colonialism as the creators never asked that question.
Ah nope the creators were specifically intent on creating a Black African superhero, the Panther theme came later (he was originally conceived under the name Coal Tiger). More importantly Ryan Coogler directly called out colonialism in how he conceived of the story saying "“
We were taught that we lost the things that made us African. We lost our culture, and now we have to make do with scraps.” Killmonger is precisely this character - the American child of Africa cruelly cut off from his culture and making do with the scraps.
I studied anthropology and thus the museum scene that introduces Killmonger is hugely impactful in this regard, western experts defining African reality is something that induces rage in the excluded 'subject'.
This comic book origin is also a major disconnect in the movie. On one hand Wakanda is very advanced, on the other it is very archaic because some comic logic had to be kept.
what aspects do you consider archaic?
The BBC had interviews at the Nigeria screening and one of the amusing anecdotes was from a guy who proclaimed that Mbaku must be Igbo with "M'Baku's accent was so igbo. I felt all my ancestors in the movie with me".
Thats a testimony both to Winston Dukes acting skill (considering he's from Trinidad&Tobago) and also the continuing importance of culture in modern Africa as was reference in Wakanda
