Black Panther’s Chadwick Boseman Addresses Wakanda Salute Fatigue

It’s been almost two years since Black Panther was released in theaters, but the iconic Wakanda Salute remains popular with fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That means that the “Wakanda Forever” moment remains one that star Chadwick Boseman finds himself still getting requests for. However, it sounds like the actor may have come to terms with the salute being part of his life now and it’s something he addressed during a recent appearance on Desus & Mero on Showtime in which he likened some fan reactions to the gesture as being much like a head nod.

In the appearance, the hosts Desus Nice and The Kid Mero greet Boseman with their won take on the Wakanda Forever salute, something that prompts the Black Panther star to insist that he’s “not tapdancing” before explaining that what gets tiring isn’t when people do the salute and just move on, it’s when people ask him to do it.

“It wasn’t that I was doing the salute,” he explained. “It was that people were like ‘do that Wakanda thing.’ I was like ‘nah, man.’”

He went on to explain that generally, though, people will just do the salute and keep on going in a sort of quiet, respectful acknowledgement of the cultural moment.

“It’s always cool ’cause I’ll be just walking by somewhere and people’ll just go [does the Wakanda salute] just like that, that’s the…when they look away, it’s just like giving somebody a head nod. That’s it, it’s the same thing,” he said.”

Much has been made of Boseman’s so-called Wakanda salute fatigue. Last year during, Boseman said that it’s not so much that he doesn’t want to do it, it’s that people will sometimes just be too scared to do it for real, leading to perhaps him to appear less-than-enthusiastic about it.

“I think there’s been so much talk online and about me not wanting to do it,” which is not, that’s not true, but I think people are scared to do like, somebody gave me like a halfway one like they were kind of scared to do outside,” Boseman told MTV last year. “I could tell that they were trying to do it, but they didn’t want to, so I think it’s stopping a little bit now.”

Even if fan demand for the salute has slowed down and, apparently, taken on a more quiet and respected tone, it’s likely that it could end up making a resurgence with Black Panther 2 coming to theaters in 2022. While it’s unknown at this point what to expect from the sequel, Boseman recently shared his hopes for the film, noting that he hopes to expand on the first film’s foundation.

“I think, you know, hopefully we can maintain the foundation that we sort of set and build upon it and expand it and explore it. That’s what I hope,” Boseman told MTV International when promoting new movie 21 Bridges, produced by Boseman’s Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo. “But I think first you have to maintain the foundation. We built a culture and a world, so you have to make sure that you keep that in place.”

Black Panther 2 opens in theaters May 6, 2022.

Upcoming Marvel Studios projects include Black Widow on May 1, 2020, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier in Fall of 2020, The Eternals on November 6, 2020, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on February 12, 2021, WandaVision in Spring 2021, Loki in Spring 2021, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on May 7, 2021, What If…? In Summer 2021, Hawkeye in Fall 2021, and Thor: Love and Thunder on November 5, 2021. Other MCU properties without release dates include Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, and She-Hulk.