The Black Panther Party, Hollywood, and Popular Memory 15
But politics aside, one might raise some cinematic questions regarding
Panther, and Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times provided a more balanced
approach to the film. Turan credited Van Peebles with attempting to “showcase
the positive aspects of the Panther Party and its message of black empowerment
and self-respect.” Nevertheless, Turan observed that the problem with
inspirational films is a tendency to people them with one-dimensional
characters. The critic also complained that the film’s conclusion turned into a
“tired gangster plot involving shoot-outs, double-crosses, and explosions.”^^
There is certainly some validity to Turan's critique.
For an audience unfamiliar with the history of the BPP, Van Peebles’s
film may be confusing, for there is little personal information introduced to
allow viewers to distinguish among Panther leaders. Seale, Newton, and Cleaver
are historical figures, but they are not well developed as individual characters. In
addition. Van Peebles appears to be laboring to have his film appeal to a
younger audience with an appetite for action sequence conclusions. As action
films go, however. Panther is rather tame, and the film’s shoot-out finale may
not galvanize younger fans while turning off an older audience looking for a
deeper political understanding.
In response to his critics. Van Peebles maintained that with Panther, he
was seeking to entertain as well as inform; thus the film needed a fast pace and
action in order not to bore a younger audience. Van Peebles also defended his
decision not to focus the film on one or two charismatic individuals, arguing, “If
we based the story solely on any one party leader’s point of view, the key
empowerment message could be eclipsed or invalidated by the leader’s personal
idiosyncrasies and the inevitable character assassinations that would follow. I
believe the movement ultimately was greater than the sum of its parts.”
Evidently, the filmmaker was referring to Newton’s drug use and the
circumstances of the Panther leader’s death. Van Peebles makes a good point
when he observes that a drug-related death has done little to discredit the
musical legacy of Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin, so why should Newton’s
political legacy and that of the BPP be interpreted through the vehicle of
Newton’s death rather than his life?^®
Van Peebles also argued that his choice to use the composite fictional
character of Judge made the film stronger by avoiding the cult of personality
sometimes surrounding leaders such as Seale and Newton. Thus, the filmmaker
concluded, “I felt using a ran k and-file member such as Judge as a protagonist
subliminally empowered the Everyman, underscoring the Tower to the People’
theme. As an average guy. Judge seems somehow closer to us; the heroic acts
more achievable.”^^
While composite characters are a staple in many docudramas, the
greatest controversy surrounding the film was Panther's allegations of
government compliance in a plot to flood the black ghettoes of the nation with
crack cocaine. J. Edgar Hoover’s obsession with the BPP as a political threat to