Marvelvsmarvel Year in Review Pt II:
Remembering Chadwick Boseman (1974-2020)
Mural “King Chad” by Nikkolas Smith
This year I managed to visit this beautiful mural at Downtown Disney at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It was early in the morning and so it was not as busy. There wasn’t a line assigned to take pictures with it and many that did would do so in passing or would throw up the Wakanda Forever salute and continue shopping about. So there I was looking at a beautiful piece of a young black child in the hospital wearing a Black Panther mask looking up at their hero, a grand representation of black royalty, and a person who seems to have lived a genuine life of great care and sincerity. I’m not sure if the image depicted was a real life moment but in that moment it was real to me. I was someone looking up at my hero, a grand representation of black royalty, and a person who encourages me to take more care in my life and to be more sincere.
For as long as I have been a Marvel fan I have been of the understanding and the pursuit of more representation in media. I am not black, but a Filipino-American whose favorite character was Rufio from the cult classic Hook played by Dante Basco but when I first saw the Black Panther movie I was thrilled and invigorated in hope for the future. Hope for the theaters full of black children who got to feel the pride and inspiration of a hero and king and the love and fight of a person that looked like them. Hope for there to be more films like Shang Chi that would follow their example to empower through more representation. Representation matters. It’s propaganda for sure but it is real and it is powerful. If audiences are only exposed to black people only being gangsters, southeast Asian people only being foreigners, middle eastern people only being terrorists, etc. and not even as ordinary people with jobs, families, houses, etc. then their prejudices get ignorantly affirmed in their minds. To me Chadwick seemed to understand that; the full weight of it. The cast and crew came together knowing that what they were making was exponentially more special than an award winning and top grossing film.
I haven’t watched Black Panther since he passed but last week I was watching a video of celebrities surprising their fans to which I wasn’t expecting to see Chadwick. To think that he had cancer the entire time. He didn’t tell anyone of his fellow cast members. He didn’t announce it on social media. The man... Lived. His. Life. A wonderful and glorious and impactful life. I’m going to try to be more present and to want to pay more attention to the details. I’m going to try to be more sincere and caring in the day to day with the people I interact with. There’s a lot of problems in the world and there’s plenty of things we can complain about but if we could just look at these final amazing years we had with Chadwick and how he didn’t complain to the world about his situation maybe we can find more peace and more joy and more gratitude in our lives. RIP King. Chadwick Forever.