In contrast, last weekend I took my 4 ½ year old to her first movie experience to see Black Panther (pictured below with her cousins). She had the opportunity to see a majority Black cast that was powerful, had FUNCTIONAL relationships (community and the Black man and Black woman), intelligent and beautiful. Before the film she had developed an obsession with superheroes (particularly Wonder Woman), and it saddened me to watch her love these characters so much, yet not be able to see herself in them. After seeing the film, I can now hear her running around the house with her sword shouting, “I’m Black Panther” or “I’m powerful and strong like Nakia!”.
I’m grateful for the film Black Panther, because this type of media makes it so that I don’t have to explain to my 4 ½ year old that I think she is beautiful and strong, but society doesn’t think so because they don’t show it on the big screen. Unlike my first movie experience, she got to see society portraying us (and not just one of us, a whole entire cast of us) as AMAZINGLY BROWN.