With Black Panther,
we've never seen a world like this,
populated with so many different faces and colors.
Women who look like me in their resplendent glory
were few and far between,
and had never been quite realized or seen before.
I fell in love with this story,
almost as if I'm on the outside looking in.
Shuri.
As a little girl,
as an audience member, as a woman of color...
...enamored with cinema and characters
and how they can inspire onscreen.
It is your time.
And Black Panther is that story
that truly has transported audiences.
- T'CHALLA: Wakanda forever! Wakanda forever!
I'm unstoppable
I'm a Porsche with no brakes
I'm invincible
Yeah, I win every single game
I'm so powerful
I don't need batteries to play
I'm so confident
Yeah, I'm unstoppable today
Unstoppable today Unstoppable today
I'm unstoppable today
We are home.
LUPITA NYONG'O: The representation of women in Black Panther...
...is plentiful and varied.
And I think those things are incredibly vital.
We don't see enough of that in cinema.
You are not fit to be a king!
The idea of being a woman in charge of things...
It's embedded in the very DNA of how this story was built from the beginning...
Don't touch anything.
...that these women were that powerful.
Take her to the River Province to prepare her for the ceremony.
Yes, General.
NYONG'O: We were very much the backbone of the male superhero.
A very capable group of women who support him in very different ways.
His sister, his mother,
his lover, his general.
Typically, there's not a lot of strong female characters in cinema.
And then, if you then think about Black female characters, boy.
That is a very shallow pool.
But heroes get to be whoever we define them to be.
Black Panther was a very
female-driven, you know, feature, which was amazing.
And we wanted to make sure
that the female superheroes stand next to the men
and they're equally badass.
This is empowering for so many people
to see on a huge screen
Black women who are really powerful.
Women are beacons of strength.
When you see yourself represented in all your power,
you're reassured that we're okay in the world.
Women, Black women,
can be represented in so many different ways.
- Hold tight!
We can take on many different roles very powerfully.
And action!
NYONG'O: It was all of us coming together
to represent powerful women.
For centuries, we have kept our people safe.
And doing it with such ownership and such passion.
Set. Action.
We're so excited to work with one another,
and I think it's something about the strength of these women.
When I go to work, it's my normal
that I have all these female colleagues.
And we learn from each other, we see each other,
and we have the feeling that we are represented.
And together, we are great
because we know what our strengths are, and we support each other.
In Black Panther, there wasn't just one superhero.
The Dora Milaje is a tribe of them.
The Dora Milaje is an all-female guard and warrior unit.
You know, they're kind of like, um, the Secret Service,
if you crossed them with Navy SEALs.
- Come on!
To have the Dora Milaje
as a representation of the army for Wakanda,
as the protector of the Queen and King,
that says so much.
Regardless of what gender you are,
you can do anything.
The Dora, they're just so gorgeous and powerful.
They look amazing on camera
when they're together and when they're all doing their moves.
The idea of stepping into a role like the Dora Milaje,
with these women being the rescuers,
that, of course, was palpably appealing.
NYONG'O: In the comic book,
the role of the Dora Milaje is quite akin
to kind of the motif of pimps and hoes, unfortunately.
They're very scantily clothed.
They only speak to their king.
And that was something
that Ryan really wanted to get away from,
and give the Dora Milaje agency.
They were not in heels, they were not in bathing suit tops,
and some of the comics do present them in that way.
And so, there's an evolution
of how they are in the comic book
and how they've evolved on the screen.
This is how it should be
when you're in an equal society,
where the women are equal to the men.
Dora Milaje means "the adorned ones."
Okoye is the general
and she's the only Dora Milaje adorned in gold.
The other Dora wear silver.
And so, Okoye represents
great power and strength of women,
and the dedication to her country, Wakanda.
Okoye is comfortable with being a leader in a man's world.
She believes with all her soul
in this nation, Wakanda,
and would very willingly give her life for it.
Wakanda was not colonized.
It was able to nurture itself and, as a result,
became the most technologically advanced nation on the planet.
So that made it very easy to slip into her skin...
Something's entered the atmosphere.
...because the idea of protecting that really makes sense to me.
I'm very vigilant about making sure,
I guess, that my life is being led by me.
I was born in a tiny town in Iowa
called Grinnell where my dad was a professor.
My parents, they were academics
and they gave me and my siblings all Shona names,
Shona being the language of my nation, Zimbabwe.
Danai means "to love one another," or "to be in love,"
based on the fact that I was born on Valentine's Day.
I didn't know about this
until my mom sat me down and told me.
I just knew my name to be Dede
because no one could pronounce Danai properly.
And as a kid, you're just looking to fit in as best as possible.
When I was around five or six, we moved to Zimbabwe,
very soon after it had just come out from colonial rule,
and moved from being called "Rhodesia,"
after a white man called Cecil John Rhodes,
to being called "Zimbabwe," which means "house of stone."
I was in schooling systems that were not prone to saying
a lot of Shona names.
When I was in high school,
I went to a place called the Dominican Convent.
It's an all-girls Catholic school founded by German nuns.
And one day, I just went off on a lot of white girls in the class
about not saying African names right,
and I started to use my own name as an example.
And rage of the fact that my name was not spoken properly,
even in my own country,
became real.
And I think that really solidified for me
that Danai is the name I needed to be called by.
It's a defining moment.
I am loyal to that throne, no matter who sits upon it!
What are you loyal to?
NYONG'O: Okoye is steeped in her loyalty to the throne.
She is, like, made of that stuff.
All her DNA is about that job.
She's a nationalist.
She believes in the borders of Wakanda,
in them being independent of the world.
And Nakia challenges that ideal.
This man is a foreign intelligence operative.
How do we justify bringing him into our borders?
He took a bullet for me.
That was his choice.
But what I love about the relationship between Nakia and Okoye
is that the respect is always felt.
These women respect each other
for being very good at their approach,
and their goal is the same,
which is to protect and prosper their nation and their people.
I am a spy with no army.
Help me overthrow him.
Nakia is a very free spirit,
doesn't always go by the book.
She is skilled like the Doras,
but she has something which is great,
because she says, "I want to help everyone."
T'Challa, no!
This one's just a boy.
We meet Nakia in action.
Immediately, you're drawn to her, her physicality,
but it's also the compassion in her eyes.
Traditionally, spies are untrustworthy,
people who look out for their own self-interest,
but she is incredibly altruistic.
Thank you.
Yes.
And in some ways, she is the conscience of Wakanda.
I've seen too many in need just to turn a blind eye.
I can't be happy here
knowing that there's people out there who have nothing.
Nakia is very much a part of innovation,
a part of how do we change,
how do we modernize, how do we move forward,
how do we break rules that need to be broken?
We could provide aid
and access to technology and refuge to those who need it.
Other countries do it. We could do it better.
NYONG'O: Nakia is very passionate,
fiery, empathetic, the lone wolf.
She goes on her own path.
She challenges the status-quo,
and I love that about her, and I definitely share that.
The child version of Lupita
was very imaginative.
Growing up in Kenya,
I played a lot on my own.
I liked to climb trees
and I spent a lot of time making up worlds.
And I realized
I just enjoyed the worlds I made up more than the real world.
I remember when I was in high school,
there was a rule that we weren't allowed
to dye our hair blond or red.
So I dyed it blue.
So I identify with that spirit in Nakia,
the one who asks,
"Okay, why are things the way they are?"
When I was introduced to Wakanda,
I felt immediately protective of it.
Because it's made of dreams.
Because Wakanda is the only African nation
that has never had
the imposition of colonialism.
It has been able to self-actualize.
For me, what we've imbued in it
is a nostalgia that never was.
And you see a country that is very forward-thinking,
but one that is also very embracing of tradition.
And growing up as an African,
I found myself grappling
with this idea of tradition and modernity.
It's a real dichotomy
that exists on the African continent.
There's an old world and then there's an accelerated world
that has almost forgotten,
or is rejecting, that old world.
And in Wakanda,
this tension exists with the Shuri character
who finds herself in that extreme corner of innovation
where she is really questioning
the validity of the traditional ways.
- My King! - Stop it.
This corset is really uncomfortable,
so could we all just wrap it up and go home?
Yes!
With tradition versus innovation,
Shuri very much over-indexes on innovation.
But she's very self-assured as a character,
which a lot of women and, and young girls respond to.
Why do you have your toes out in my lab?
I wanted to go old-school for my first day.
I bet the Elders loved that.
Shuri is bold in her choices
about science and technology
and creation.
She's always thinking of solutions to help her country.
I'm here for the EMP beads. I've developed an update.
Update? No, it worked perfectly.
Just because something works doesn't mean that it cannot be improved.
Shuri represents the future in so many ways.
She has these hopes and dreams,
and she's also out there doing it.
The nanites absorb the kinetic energy
and hold it in place for redistribution.
Shuri has this youthful exuberance about STEM,
science, technology, engineering and math,
and how she uses STEM to support the country.
She is intelligent beyond her years.
Look at your suit.
You've been taking bullets, charging it up with kinetic energy.
Yes, she's strong.
I'm going as fast as I can!
Yes, she can be powerful.
Just because of her age,
people can easily underestimate her.
But she has this lack of limitation.
There's no ceilings on Shuri.
In its raw form,
Vibranium is too dangerous to be transported at that speed.
Shuri's young, but she's gifted
and she's passionate about being this science head, this geek.
Shuri's just knocking down all those stereotypes of, like,
oh, if a girl's good at sciences, she's not cool.
Strike it.
Not that hard, genius!
A lot of the technology that Shuri is responsible for
is all about the evolution of tradition
in a way that it is evolved in technology.
The entire suit sits within the teeth of the necklace.
Everything comes from Shuri.
When I play Ayo, everything that protects me,
the weapons that I use, the Dora Milaje uniform,
all starts in her lab.
The first time that Ayo is introduced
was in Captain America: Civil War.
I remember when the movie came out, and people came and said,
"Are you the woman in the movie?"
Move. Or you will be moved.
And I said, like, "Yes," but I didn't really know what it meant.
Now it's different.
Florence is amazing.
She had gotten a very small part.
She had so much presence onscreen in just a few lines
that gave us the inspiration
to then bring her into a bigger world and a bigger role.
Ayo, the king!
Ayo is someone that, when she grew up...
...wanted to become a Dora Milaje.
You have to make a specific choice to join them.
You don't get born into the sisterhood. You have to work for it.
But growing up myself,
I wasn't used to seeing women protecting men.
And in Wakanda, that is just such a given.
You can become everything that you want to become.
But this is a concept that is very foreign to a lot of people
because sometimes, if it's not there,
you can't imagine it.
I was born in Uganda,
but grew up in Germany.
Back then, we didn't have that many Black actresses,
and I noticed after a certain age that
I missed people that I could see on the screen that look like me.
But then I went to the theater and I saw people that looked like me
and I thought, like, "That's what I want to do."
So that's the reason why I became a performer.
I studied singing, acting and dancing.
And at some point, I transitioned from dancing, learning martial arts.
My mom taught me from an early age
that you have to stay who you are.
It doesn't matter what people try to tell you who you are.
I wouldn't be here, doing what I'm doing now,
if she would have restricted me.
My mom was a nurse...
...and she worked in the emergency room,
so she had to deal with death a lot.
And from an early age on, she would always talk about,
"Today, somebody died at work."
And because of that,
it was always normal for us that people go and that's okay.
She taught me, "Instead of focusing
"that the person isn't there anymore,
"focus on what the person has achieved."
And that is something I am so grateful that she taught me
because that is so in me that I don't break.
The minute somebody gives you the freedom to do something
and you notice how great you can become,
you want to achieve more, you want to give more.
And this is just like Ayo.
She can put herself aside, doesn't need to be in the foreground,
but when she has to lead a mission,
she's able to go out and get the job done.
Florence's character and the Dora altogether
are a beautiful metaphor
for the women behind the scenes on this film.
It was amazing.
I had never been on a set
with more women in positions of power.
Get back in the path
like we did earlier this morning for our first shot.
The film is about a lot of female characters
and we would not have been doing the film any favors
by not opening ourselves up to
very talented female crew members.
There's no reason for it to be a boy's club,
and I think Black Panther kind of proves that.
The director, Ryan Coogler, always had
this vision of strong women behind the scenes.
We were telling a story for a diverse world of men and women.
And so, in order to do that, we need all those voices at the table.
Remember, no matter what, block off when we call cut.
Ryan's compassion is infectious
and we want to rally around him and support his ideas.
So, women tend to do that.
We're like Ryan's Dora.
We're here to protect the vision.
It's quite empowering to have a lot of women around you.
There's a sense of nurturing of the story
because we're able to give emotionally in a lot of different ways.
And I think that that just enhances what you're seeing onscreen.
Hannah Beachler was kinda like our major workhorse
in researching Wakanda.
You see it in the architecture and the production design of, of the sets.
And action!
- Come home, Nakia. - I'm right here.
Stay.
NYONG'O: The first few times I walked onto the set of Black Panther,
I just remember getting goosebumps
because it represented what was so beautiful about Africa.
Everything just seemed so purposeful.
And I think that kind of detail is what made this movie quite special.
There are times that I'd come on set and I'd be like,
"Oh, God. You don't understand. This is gonna be amazing."
Like, you just see, like, you know, Hannah's set.
As the production designer,
I wanted to bring a different light to
what had previously been called the Dark Continent
for so many decades.
My father was an architect
and taught me early on
that you really need to understand the land
before you can put a building on it.
So I applied that gem to Wakanda.
We travelled to South Africa
for research.
We were pretty much all over the Sentinel Mountains and Lesotho.
Dug into the geography,
the people, the traditions.
And that's where I became inspired by
an idea of a society that's based in
tradition, community, family and ritual.
I created this 500-page bible, the "Wakandan Bible," as we call it.
It tells us what their timeline is,
from the Bronze Age to the current day,
comparing Wakanda's evolution with the rest of the world.
A map of the country and of their capital, Golden City,
their traditions, religion.
What was their trade? What was their economy?
What do they eat?
What is their language?
Dora Milaje!
The language that they speak in Wakanda is Xhosa,
which is a language of South Africa.
I was born and raised in Johannesburg,
so this film was really, really important to me.
I basically referred to it as "my soul movie."
My friends in South Africa said, when they started speaking Xhosa,
there were gasps in the theater.
People couldn't believe, like, "Our language is on the screen,"
and that meant something to people, to, to, to feel, like, seen that way.
I absolutely worshipped
every single one of the female characters in this film,
and I looked at every single scene in Black Panther from the perspective of
"Is it being true to them?"
And he goes there.
And so I went to Ryan about the ending scene
where the Dora Milaje are surrounded by the Border Tribe.
As it was originally shot,
the Jabari male warriors come and rescue them.
And I said, "I feel that undercuts
"so much of what we spent the entire film building up."
And he agreed with me and he worked miracles to
create a new character called the female Jabari warrior.
And they went into additional photography,
got a new shot,
and now, the very first person to
power through the force field and save the Dora Milaje
is a female Jabari warrior.
And it served our ladies right.
The Indigenous tribes of Wakanda were inspired by
several different real tribes of Africa.
As the costume designer,
I approach my work from
the point of view of responsibility to the culture.
And people need to see that more in film.
Ruth is just absolutely bar none brilliant.
I know so much more who I am as Ramonda
when I put the costumes on.
The jewelry, the headdress, the embroidery.
Ruth wanted to do it right, so she would talk to people on the continent about
the processes by which they make their clothing...
...and integrate them into her costumes.
Like the Dora Milaje with their arm rings,
their neck rings that come from
the Ndebele people of South Africa.
The Lesotho blankets that we made into shields.
Those pieces retrained the eye
to a new form of beauty and appreciation.
This movie got to celebrate
a ton of different cultures from across the continent.
The African country and African women are so well represented.
They have tattoos and they have scars,
and they have lots of hair, braids,
and even have no hair.
For the Dora Milaje, some of us didn't have hair, anyway,
but it was really just this idea that
"What's your definition of femininity? 'Cause this is mine."
You know what I mean? And I'm good with this.
Bast willing, this will go quickly
and I can get this ridiculous thing off my head.
The idea of "I don't wanna wear hair on my head.
"This is ridiculous."
I found so much enjoyment in it
and freedom in it, and power in it.
And then we were deciding what tattoo to put on.
I had a lot of tattoos on, on my head for about a week.
And then it was like, "Oh, my God. It's her fighter helmet.
"Forget it. This is it."
I want my tattoo. I want my bald head.
It's a strong, bold statement.
It's just, it's power and strength in the look.
With this film,
we're able to see women owning their power.
Drop your weapon!
And I think that's very inspiring.
Wakanda forever!
We're excited because somebody that looks like me is a superhero.
I've never gone to a theater to see a film like this before,
so I just really needed to go all out.
You saw those people in the movie theaters, like,
celebrating and dancing.
People saw themselves onscreen.
People wanted to rejoice. We were so ready for it.
Hearing about people feeling inspired,
going to the theater and just seeing every single viewing for hours and hours,
it was just so magical.
It touched me and made me feel very purposeful as an actor.
Seeing what we made was overwhelming
because it connected people.
We are coming from these different places, but we're still one.
Think about how impactful that was, not just for us,
people that belong to our respective communities of color.
But even women that don't,
and never even realized that something like that
had never been given to us.
Yay!
We were never told that this could be possible.
NYONG'O: Why do we need Black superheroes?
Why not?
I mean, it's a no-brainer.
There's Black people in this world
and there's room in our imaginations
to imagine ourselves as superheroes.
We don't even begin to know
the level of what these films can do for children.
My name is Vianna Robbins and I'm 11 years old.
My name's Amel Robbins and I am ten years old.
My name is Darian Robbins.
I'm an environmental project engineer with NASA.
Being an engineer myself, I was really impressed with Shuri.
Yes!
When you go into her lab
and seeing all the stuff she's working on.
Just the breadth of her knowledge, I mean, that just blew my mind.
The experience for my family, and particularly my daughters,
with seeing Black Panther,
it was something that they'd never seen before,
you know, powerful representation of, of women onscreen.
What my daughters loved most about the film,
was the women taking control, and being in command,
and just doing adventurous stuff.
Daddy!
- Okay. - Are you sick?
My girls are very adventurous themselves.
They dance,
do tae kwon do.
They ride bikes.
They have a zest for life.
High knees.
Good.
My favorite character from Black Panther is Okoye.
I like how Okoye fights for whoever sits on the throne,
no matter who sits on it.
She's like a warrior whenever, wherever.
And she'll get the job done.
Y'all stick together like the Dora Milaje, right?
You'll come together like a family to protect one another.
That makes my heart full.
I like when Shuri's in the lab with the other woman,
working on technology for Wakanda.
My favorite character is Nakia.
I like how she fights for people outside of her country
to help those who are struggling.
I think it's also inspiring to other people
to see women superheroes
because they might not believe they can do something.
But they watch Black Panther
and all of a sudden, they believe they can do it.
They start reaching for their goal.
We're living in a time where we're all recognizing
that these stories need to be told about women,
a wonderful and rich universe...
...filled with female heroes.
But there's still a lot of work to do.
Even though people are always saying after the Oscars,
"This isn't a game changer."
Ruth Carter is the first African American woman
to win an Oscar for Best Costume Design.
And Hannah Beachler is the first Black woman
to be nominated and win for Best Production Design.
People said, "Oh, you broke the glass ceiling."
But I'm not interested in the glass ceiling.
I'm interested in the brick wall.
Because if I take down the brick wall,
I bring down the building.
So we can redesign it.
And that's the only way to go forward.
Black Panther was not just a movie.
It changed lives.
It changed how people thought about themselves.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters.
Wakanda forever!
I had no anticipation
of the impact that it would have on people of the diaspora
to just celebrate ourselves and who we are, what our heritage is.
It's important to be able to recognize yourself.
And with this movie,
a lot of people could watch it and think,
"Wow. People that look like me are presented
"and we can be superheroes, too."
Wakanda forever!
I love it.
The evolution that needs to come has to come
from the understanding that we have to step into
what we haven't seen before
because a lot of the old models are based in exclusion.
And then in Wakanda Forever,
we see the representation of female characters
in so many more different ways.
It's the continuation of the strength of the female warrior.
Her voice is strong and unsilent.
I am Queen of the most powerful nation in the world!
It's a beautiful thing to see.
NYONG'O: Why are superheroes so popular in this world?
I think it's because they possess
powers and perspectives that we aspire to.
And everybody deserves to exist in imaginative spaces.