Dear white people,
We hear you rumbling about our excitement about the Black Panther movie. We see your tweets & see your FB mocks & hear you saying it’s not a reality based movie and it’s for everyone & we’re tripping to be dressing up -even my white husband had to be dear white husbanded on that one! We know you say we are too excited and “there’s been black people in movies before.” We hear ya.
Here is what you need to know: You (& we) are only used to seeing us shine one or two at a time and mainly in a 85% white movie. It was actually a jarring visual that hit me halfway through the movie b/c I simply had never seen such a thing. I was so conditioned, because despite what I heard, I kept waiting for the white. Martin Freeman held his own & good for him but it was such a flip! AND I was shocked the black people weren’t light & weaved!
I know many of you think Denzel is the epitome of black acting. Hell, as great as he is, he didn’t even get his Oscar until he portrayed a thug & then he had to read a line comparing himself to King f*cking Kong and people immortalized it! Halle had to be made as ugly as possible (which ain’t possible) and portray a bad mom & a white racists dude ghetto whore before she earned an Oscar.
Speaking of…more often what you see isn’t us shining; you see us portrayed as drug addict’s or poor or the comic relief or ghetto or lazy or dark and evil or we get killed in the first 15 minutes.
Thus, to have a mainstream movie from a successful franchise based on a character from the 60’s that is completely us, in roles of power, surrounded by a supporting cast of us, is unheard of — so damn right we’re excited!
We freakin’ know that Wakanda is not a real place so kill your demeaning quips. That is not what’s exciting to us. It’s exciting to see dark skin and natural hair and fit bodies and other natural features that are never deemed beautiful (until they are adopted & commercialized by others). It’s exciting to see us being portrayed as powerful -not in a scary way but an inspiring one. It’s super cool to see us as leaders, vulnerable, troubled, wealthy, advanced, sexy and smart and complex! We can play these roles. We live these roles!
And we know it’s for every person. Nobody else is banned from seeing it -no one is saying others shouldn’t see it! We are very happy to see that the movies have been 50–50 black people and white people (and other people). Come and see that there’s more to us & we can act beyond slapstick humor.
Finally, to the LGBT community who are reportedly saying “well what about us?” Hey you keep fighting like we have been fighting for decades to get into mainstream Hollywood and you have our support. The fight for reflection is not over just because of this. There’s still a rampant pigeon-holing and white-washing of Asians & Latino’s & such in movies too so the work is not over. You can play more than flamboyant comedy and prison folk roles! They can play more than kung-fu fighters and gangsters or sex symbols. But don’t knock what we managed to get done after so long. Be happy because this is progress that you can build on too. Celebrate with us, don’t criticize!
And remember: Movies are for entertainment and enjoyment and it’s a good entertaining and enjoyable movie. It’s not a representation; it is a reflection, and for the first time, a truly positive one for us on such a large scale. The people in there love superheroes. We support all the Marvel (and DC movies) too even when we are a blip in them.
At the end, the whole theater clapped and for those 2 hours and 13 minutes, we were just one people, having a good experience with no thoughts of politics, massacres, Trump, sides, nothing! That’s what a great fiction action movie is supposed to do -temporarily transport us and it did that- not just for us but for y’all too so why the salt from some of y’all just because we’re happy? Happy ain’t hurting nobody! So c’mon and chill and let us have this fleeting happy moment in movie history. Cool? Cool.
