![]() ![]() The entry point to this paper is Stuart Hall's concept of encoding and decoding (1973), after which a snapshot of the respondents is outlined. Generally, the literature follows the format of celebration, reflection and then critique. Theorists also refer to cosmology and religion (Mosby 2019, Faithful 2018), and aesthetics (Baumann 2018). Thematic concentrations in the literature spanned debates around decolonisation (Burger & Engels 2019, Flota 2019, Bekale 2018), neoliberalism (Bozarth 2019, Tompkins 2018, Coetzee 2019, Bhayroo 2019), Blaxploitation (Lozenski & Chinang 2019, Burocco 2019, Carrington 2019), Pan-Africanism (Bakari 2018, Nasson 2019, Karam & Kirby-Hirst 2019, Washington 2019), African American identity (Prunotto 2018, González 2019, Bowles 2018), colourism and African female identity (D'Agostino 2019, Gerard & Poepsel 2018, Oboe 2019, Sen 2018, Dralega 2018). Respondents were university students, some living in suburban areas, some from rural areas, and others from an informal settlement on the outskirts of Durban. This paper attempts to address the gap in the literature by conducting a reception analysis in the Ethekwini (Durban) region of KwaZulu-Natal. Hence the key research question for this paper attempts to determine how young African students from varied economic levels received the film in terms of its representation of conflict, gender, ancestor worship and technology. One important finding was that, while themes were varied, there was a distinct lack of audience reception apart from a Brazilian study (Burocco 2019) and an individual reflection on watching the film (Washington 2019). However, exploring the political economy of actors' salaries, grounded the film in Hollywood hegemony. The choice of Afrofuturism as a theoretical lens helped to understand some positive narrative potentials. Here the scoping approach allowed the author to rapidly map the themes related to Black Panther. Using only academic sources as a parameter, a scoping approach was done by the author (forthcoming). There were, however, fewer academic interrogations of the film. Texts on Black Panther (Coogler 2018) exploded on the Internet after the release of the film, some of which were interesting and passionate. Keywords: Black Panther, Afrofuturism, Audience reception, Women and hair, Displacement, Disruption. The paper chronicles the respondents' reception of the film through an Afrofuturist lens. ![]() The second group of respondents were dominantly male youth who live in an informal settlement in the Ethekwini region. The first and third group of respondents consisted of dominantly female university students who live in the suburbs of Ethekwini in South Africa. A reception analysis was therefore conducted to look at how young, Black viewers received the film. While Black Panther was commemorated, Jalondra Alicia Davis's (2017) caution holds well in terms of scrutinising the structures that inscribe Black success and progress. Avery Rose Everhart (2016) proposes useful categories of displacement, interruption, and disruption as potentially generative for Afrofuturistic thinking. Afrofuturism was deemed a suitable lens through which to view Black Panther as a film contesting political economic bondage of neoliberal globalisation. Of significance was the lack of audience reception apart from a Brazilian study (see Burocco 2019) and reflections on watching the film (see Washington 2019). The author performed a scoping approach in order to delineate the thematic concentrations (forthcoming). Since first screenings, Ryan Coogler's Black Panther (2018) generated a host of celebratory and circumspect literature. Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa. ![]()
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