The Inescapable Ideology: How Third Cinema and Afrofuturism Can Change the Future

Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther films brought the genre of Afrofuturism to a mainstream audience. Afrofuturism seeks to reclaim a past that was stolen by Western colonial and imperialist powers; because that past has been erased, it must be imagined in fiction. Afrofuturistic stories are then used to address issues in the present and look towards a better future. This paper examines how those stories are told using the words and symbols of the dominant ideology in society. It uses Althusser’s theory of Ideological State Apparatuses, Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony, and Solanas and Getino’s understanding of the Third Cinema movement, which describes filmmaking traditions that use the symbols of the dominant ideology to fight that hegemony. This paper’s analysis of Coogler’s films reveals the tension that comes from working within the system of the dominant ideology and the constraints using the symbols of hegemony place on the artist.