I’m a little miffed right off the bat, because there was a Zero Punctuation video with a subject that was perfect for this Black Panther post -- but I can neither find nor recall where it is. It’s a shame. So I’ll have to speak from memory, and I apologize in advance if I get this wrong somehow. Especially to Yahtzee.
Anyway, in the ZP video, there’s talk about character diversity -- and Yahtzee, true to form, takes it to task. He jokes about how absurd it is for a character to only be relatable to an audience (or one person in particular) if they share a gender or race. As if that’s all that matters, or failing to accommodate that means the game, or movie, or whatever is a failure. It got a laugh out of me, but only because, like a lot of jokes, it hits hardest because there’s a kernel of truth to them. Speaking personally? I’m okay with main characters not being black (as an example) even though I’m black. As long as the character is good, I won’t complain.
So given its nature, does Black Panther force me to recontextualize my opinion? The answer to that is…not really.
SPOILERS for Black Panther incoming. I know I normally toss in quotes from Marvel vs. Capcom here, but I did that last time, BP’s a new arrival without much material to pull from, and Marvel Infinite is on life support. So have some Dragon Ball FighterZ memes instead.
DOWN YOU GO. Into SPOILERS.