LogFAQs > #950712889

Eddv posted...

I do think Wakandas aesthetic is pretty racist.

Like there are actual cities in Africa that look and feel african and African nations with modern militaries and none of them feature thatched roof skyscrapers or rpgs shaped like tribal spears for some reason.

Like Addis Ababa is a legitimately ancient city that has flourished in East Africa and it looks so fucking cool and also looks nothing at all like Wakanda.

The vision of Wakanda makes it seem like africa is synonymous with like nomadic "savage" lifestyles that exist mainly in the western imperial imagination - but its okay because theyre rich now and they continue to use MAGIC spears and MODERN thatched roof huts.

Well, I'm going to avoid calling it 'racist' because I don't really feel comfortable making that judgment, but I do think it's sort of lacking imagination in how to more smoothly modernize African aesthetics. I think the argument here is that looking at modernized African cities today, they still have a western influence, even in somewhere like Ethiopia which was never colonized, but even if that weren't true, that doesn't mean they would have modernized to have thatched roofs - that's like the equivalent of depicting a US with skyscraper log cabins. It does feel a little bit like tribal cosplay more than a fully thought out and realized version of a modern African nation. My problem with it is still more that it's all too cgi and never feels lived in at all.