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What does Tunde Kelani’s ( @tkelani) “Narrow Path” have in common with Coogler’s “Black Panther”?
In “Tricksters and female warriors: womanist interweavings from Oríta to Wakanda”, James Yeku ( @james_yeku) examines this and more.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21674736.2020.1815965
What does Tunde Kelani’s ( @tkelani) “Narrow Path” have in common with Coogler’s “Black Panther”?
In “Tricksters and female warriors: womanist interweavings from Oríta to Wakanda”, James Yeku ( @james_yeku) examines this and more.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21674736.2020.1815965
He does this "By staging conceptual and cinematic associations between African and African American cultural traditions"... and exploring "discursive representations of black womanhood which redemptively center women as heroes and warriors."
What does Èsù have to do with both films?
“Oríta in my title is the Yorùbá word for crossroads, a space that may instantly evoke the trickster deity, Èṣù—Yorùbá Òrìṣà and the ontological master of liminalities, trickery, and ambiguities.”
“Oríta in my title is the Yorùbá word for crossroads, a space that may instantly evoke the trickster deity, Èṣù—Yorùbá Òrìṣà and the ontological master of liminalities, trickery, and ambiguities.”
“Besides invoking Èṣù as a critical act of reverence to this deity’s enduring relevance across the Black Atlantic, I am using the deity to state that my work recognizes...the sometimes tenuous relations that exist between continental Africa&African diaspora communities.”
“The trickster image also plays out metaphorically in Black Panther if we read the ‘undercover’ nature of Nakia’s militancy against Boko Haram given that trickery underpins her military skills.”
“The trickster symbolism is also seen in a system of opposites in which the trickster can be both bad&good. Rather than wear a mask for the museum robbery... Killmonger’s genius&trickery win the game through an unveiled face later concealed when he leaves with a Wakandan mask.”
More importantly, Èṣù’s ‘trickery’ and amoral duality may be understood in the frame of the instability of gendered identity and its inventions, in the manner outlined by scholars such as Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyèwùmí (1997)"
Gender as an invented category is symbolized in The Narrow Path through expressions like ‘half-boys’ and ‘half-men,’ terms that invoke Èṣù’s double-faced character and dualism. We find this idea of gender when Àwẹ̀ró’s mother plaits her hair in the Kòlẹ́sẹ̀ style...
...and wishes to make her “look different” so that “by the time I finish, all the young men, even the boys, the half-men and the half-boys will have eyes only for my beautiful daughter.”
This element of trickery can be found in other aspects of the film. For example, the mirror that Dauda gives Àwẹ̀ró as a gift constitutes both conviviality and tragedy, symbolizing the blurring of Àwẹ̀ró’s identity as a woman and pariah.
Both films, made at different times, in different places have so much in common.
This weekend, read more of this in-depth comparative approach to both films here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21674736.2020.1815965
This weekend, read more of this in-depth comparative approach to both films here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21674736.2020.1815965
