In her article “What the Heck Is Afrofuturism?”, Jamie Broadnax aims at discussing the phenomenon of Afrofuturism from not only artistic and philosophical but also social and political contexts. Her work takes an important place in a creative tradition since she speaks about the movement that has a great potential to give people of African origin back their power. This article receives a positive evaluation since it carries out an important social idea and proves that with any forecasts in the future, the importance of black culture will increase.
The author claims that Afrofuturism is a fast-growing creative scene of the black people, and its aesthetics is gaining ground. The idea of African heritage and its reinterpretation is important to this movement (Broadnax). Broadnax takes Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther as an exemplary movie that manifests Afrofuturism as an ideology. Previously, all superheroes in Marvel comics were white, but in Black Panther, a new image of Africa was created (Broadnax). The author rightly asserts that this film is a hymn to Afrofuturism that is thundering all over the planet. It is a dream about the “golden age” of Africa of the past and its brilliant future, which will come thanks to new technologies.
In her article, Jamie Broadnax aims to demonstrate the significance of Afrofuturism for the black people, especially for African Americans who feel connected to the black continent but have been cut off from their traditions. Afrofuturism is an important phenomenon that helps to win back the past and the future of Africa from the West-centered culture. It is an ideology with black identity, steeped in the African culture and traditions, that paints the future from the perspective of black people.
Work Cited
Broadnax, Jamie. “What the Heck is Afrofuturism?” HuffPost, 2018.