The Washington Post: While watching “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” it’s easy to get swept up in the power of Namor.
The king of Marvel’s seas, played regally, with dignity, pride and full of Indigenous, anti-colonial swag by Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta, is the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s next big deal.
2 comments:
Black Panther does such an exceptional job in representing the Black and Latinx community through the languages implemented within the movie, the beautiful representation of darker skinned actors, cultural attire and the way in which they depict these two communities thriving within the homes they have built for themselves by themselves. When I first heard of the introduction of Namor I was beyond ecstatic to see that their was going to be representation of the Latinx community because I do believe that this community shares a multitude of similarities with the black community, especially in terms of colonization and colorism within our communities. So to see these gorgeous people on screen together representing positive, non-traumatic characters and lives was a very emotional and proud moment as a black individual. Though I was skeptical at first on the overall premises of the movie which was them fighting each other in order to protect their own people. I believe this movie does in fact represent how these two communities often bump heads in the name of their people and culture, but have yet to realize how much stronger and wiser they can become if they were to work together. Thus, Tenoch does an exceptional job in explaining this matter and how rare it is to see actors such as himself on the big screen playing these types of characters.I am very happy to see this representation of the Latino community and I hope to see more of this in the future for their people.
This was a rather poorly written article with a really excellent point. I was originally very excited about an indigenous Mesoamerican adaptation of Namor. I thought it would be a fresh take on DC’s aquaman and make him stand out as a unique character. Also, like Betancourt points out, it parallels nicely to have Talokan, a secret Mesoamerican city, revealed in a Black Panther movie that has Wakanda, a secret African city, and to have these two cultures compared and contrasted. However, after reflecting for a while, I realized I may not be the intended Mexican this was made for me. Mexico definitely has issues with colorism and with antiblackness. Growing up the telenovelas I watched mostly starred people that looked like me. I didn’t realize until I was in college how much of Mexico wasn’t being represented. I have family in Mexico and I would go almost every summer, and what I was seeing around me was being shown on screen so I didn’t really question it. That said, I’m glad representation is better and we are getting more screentime because I’m still proud to be Mexican and I still get excited seeing the culture on the big screen.
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