The film Black Panther (2018) has been the subject of extensive discussion, particularly within the context of representational politics in contemporary Hollywood cinema. This critical scoping review maps how academic literature interprets the film‘s treatment of colonial, racial, cultural, gender, and disability-related stereotypes and examines how these interpretations are shaped by epistemic context. A systematic search and screening process yielded 52 publications from 2018 to 2024 that were analyzed with qualitative content analysis and descriptive mapping. The review indicates that scholarly response to the film is defined by structured ambivalence. While scholarship predominantly frames Black Panther as challenging colonial and racial stereotypes, it also points to inconsistent representations and reinforced stereotyping, particularly with regard to cultural homogenization, exceptionalism, and patriarchal governance. Interpretive stances vary systematically across epistemic positions. Scholarship based in Africa emphasizes counter-stereotypical readings, whereas scholarship from the United States, accounting for half of the reviewed contributions, displays greater interpretive diversity, including more critical and ambivalent positions. These findings suggest that Black Panther does not function as a counter-stereotypical text. Rather, it is a site where representational politics in global blockbuster cinema, industry constraints, and epistemic authority intersect, extending the soft-power dynamics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe into academic knowledge production.
Berit Sandberg (Thu,) studied this question.