Saturday, February 17, 2018

Thanks, But I'll Pass

So I am going to probably lose my black card over this*, but I don't want to see the Black Panther movie, for one specific reason - there is no one who looks like me in it.

Now, when I say that, yes, there are all black folks in it, but once again, queer black men are erased on the screen. I get that it is a movie that is good for black folks overall, but at the expense of deleting  people like me.

So before you say "But 'Moonlight'"...yes, amazing film that represented some gay black men won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. It only took nearly 75 years for a queer black movie to get any traction in the world of Oscar. Yay...and the movie was a coming of age movie with a drug dealer as a secondary protagonist. Yay.

However, in this movie that is supposed to be so uplifting to all black people everywhere, gay men like me - or gay men in general - are conspicuously absent from this story. Maybe we don't exist in Wakanda. Maybe we just don't exist. But I DO exist, and I want to see some positive depictions of people who look like ME on screen.

So, I will send the children in my world to see the film, because their mothers have said they need to see it. My nephews will revel in a movie that makes them the hero. They will see a movie that empowers their mothers. They will see a project that is good for their self esteem.

Too bad they won't see their uncle on the screen. So thanks, but I'll pass.

*I actually lost my black card for listening to yacht rock, but I might lose my "invited to the cookout" or "he can't have any of the brown liquor at the party"card. Thank goodness I own my own grill and am more than able to pay for my own Henny.

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