When people talk about how "Wakanda", both as a historical reimagining and set of aesthetics, is a staging ground for hollow symbolic gestures that romanticise/flatten the many realities of Africa and the diaspora to sell a product for mass consumption, it's mapping a phenomenon.

A phenomenon that is reliant on representational economies that extend a specific gaze on *both* the continent and the Black diaspora. What it is not is a personal slight against your fave.

A better question would be why do the tenets of celebrity demand uncritical adulation and protection from legitimate critique? How is celebrity, even in this very moment, disrupting how we understand ethical engagement with the vast array of Black histories and cultures?

I’ve seen quite a few people mention that the productions that traffic in this imagery “hire Black artists and choreographers”, which is as equally true as it is reductive. You can have Black employees & the work you produce can still supply an essentialising fantasy of Blackness