Jeremy Vine criticised after calling ‘Black Panther’ cast “overwhelmingly black”

The moment happened last night on The One Show

BBC presenter Jeremy Vine has come under fire from viewers of The One Show after he called the cast of Marvel‘s latest film Black Panther “overwhelmingly black”.

Black Panther, set in the fictional African nation of Wakanda, is the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to feature a black lead actor and a predominantly black cast. In NME‘s review it was named “the best Marvel movie yet”.

When stars Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther) and Danai Gurira (Okoye) appeared on The One Show to discuss the film yesterday (February 9), Jeremy Vine said: “Chadwick, it is a remarkable film, it’s very different the film that you’re both in, because you go in the cinema and it is overwhelmingly a black cast.”

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In response to Vine’s remark Boseman paused and smiled, responding: “Yeah, I guess that is very striking,” before joining in with an outbreak of laugher from the audience and continuing: “It’s weird because I’m used to it now, having been on this film for over a year, with this family of people… because we carried part of that cast into Infinity War. So it’s sort of a normal thing. I don’t go to work every day going: ‘Wow I’m around all these black people.'” The moment can be seen at the 16:25 mark on iPlayer.

On Twitter, Vine’s wording was labelled “strange and uncomfortable”. The man himself was called a “typical middle-aged white male” by one user, while another remarked: “no one called Avengers: Age of Ultron ‘overwhelmingly white'”, adding that the moment was “a stark example of racism being solidly entrenched”.

https://twitter.com/wakanduhs/status/962165885027921920

https://twitter.com/rebecca_tonks/status/962046906233843713

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After the show had aired Vine shared a selfie with the cast on Twitter, writing: “The Black Panther movie is exceptional – classic blockbuster but maybe a moment of cultural change in Hollywood.”

Black Panther is in UK cinemas from Monday, February 12.

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