It is actually very exciting that an African language is featured in this revolutionary movie. Why revolutionary? Finally, may blacks admit that they feel a fair representation especially because part from the biggest number of the cast being black, the majority of those have dark skin tons which is rarely the case as blacks with lighter skin tons usually feature in the mainstream movie industry.
This takes place at the end of Captain America; The Civil war and the Black panther returns home to Wakanda, a technologically advanced but isolated Kingdom to take his place as King T’Challa after the death of his father. Although Wakanda is made up, Wakandan the language there on is not because it is actually Xhosa, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa spoken by over 8 million people in this country who make up 15% of the population.
Something else really exciting to the African continent about the Black Panther movie is that the production designer, Hannah Beachler says that Wakandan culture is actually based on the cultures of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia
Apart from featuring an African language and having really dark skin toned Blacks, the cast has actors and actresses who originate from African countries alongside their Afro-American counter parts and some include;
Generally it has been alleged that in countries where blacks are a minority, the Black Panther movie has been awaited for with so much anticipation because of the representation to them. This saw Blacks all over the world attending the respective premiers of the same proudly donning African inspired attires.
This is a big movie and therefore is definitely going to come out in translated versions; in various common international languages like French, Spanish, Chinese, not forgetting subtitles every time Wakandan is spoken for the audience to follow the story.
There are also versions produced locally in African countries where they interpret the movies in a native language; here, a narrator of sorts adds his voice interpreting phrase per phrase into a native language while at the same time narrating the events to the targeted audience.
African Subtitling services are and have always been vital in the film industry do as to appeal to targeted audiences who do not speak or understand the original language of the movie.
By Angela Kyolaba