Marvel's
Black Panther is more than a box office success story for Disney. It's an incredibly important and significant cultural film. So naturally legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who is no stranger to creating cultural breakout films himself, has offered his thoughts on the movie.
"I think Ryan Coogler did an amazing job writing and directing a movie that is culturally, perhaps, the largest cultural break-out film of the last decade," Spielberg told EW Canada.
"It's going to really change things and keep things changed for the betterment of all of us."
Black Panther has been viewed as a cultural watershed, finally giving the black community, especially young children, a hero who they can relate to unlike ever before in Hollywood. So often are people of color forced to relate to the "
white savior." On the flip side, Spielberg pointed out the importance of giving white children a hero who doesn't necessarily always look like them, broadening their horizons.
"I think the whole idea that young white kids from principally red communities are going to say 'I want to grow up and look and be just like Black Panther.' I think that's a wonderful, wonderful thing that's happening right now,"he added.
Steven Spielberg, who directed the upcoming sci-fi film
Ready Player One, is no stranger to culturally significant films. In the 80s he directed
The Color Purple, a film that tells the story of a young African American girl and shows the problems African American women faced during the early 20th century. Though the film received positive reviews from critics and was a box office success, Spielberg drew criticism for it.
"The Color Purple was pretty way ahead of its time too. And I was criticized for directing The Color Purple because I wasn't a black director," he recalled during the interview.
"I understand that now. I didn't understand it then, but I understand the criticism looking back at the time."
For
Black Panther to have this type of box office success - becoming the
highest-grossing superhero movie of all time in the United States - with a black director and a predominantly black cast is absolutely monumental.