Disney and Marvel, don’t you dare recast T’Challa

There are a lot of headlines we didn’t expect to read in 2020, and at the top of that list was “Black Panther actor Chadwick Boseman dead at 43”. Like so many celebrities he looked like the picture of health when he fought the likes of Captain America, Winter Soldier, and Black Widow, but little did we know that was not the case. As with so many movies that too was a fairy tale.

Do you know what headline you absolutely did expect to read in 2020? “Black man dead in America”. You read those headlines all the time, and unlike comic books, those black men don’t get to be resurrected by a retcon or a cosmic being. They stay in the ground, six feet under. That is the reality for black lives and all lives.

This article will not lay out a pitch for how Marvel and Disney should handle this incredible loss, or what the best financial move is for them to keep the franchise alive. That would be inappropriate. However, Marvel took a rather mature step in Endgame to cap off some of their most prominent heroes permanently, and while they were just retired as characters, Chadwick Boseman was as a person.

We’ve come to identify people such as Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, and Scarlett Johansson as Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Thor Odinson, Peter Quill, and Natasha Romanov, and we should equally understand to all the black people who lined up in droves to see Black Panther that Chadwick Boseman is the one and only T’Challa. To replace him, while so many other leads have remained in their roles and been allowed to see them through would be disrespectful. The only main character who has been replaced thus far in the MCU was War Machine, its only other major black character. To replace T’Challa when so many white actors have had the privilege of becoming synonymous with the characters they play is disrespectful. It is also disrespectful to all the black children who have lost fathers is a country that constantly disrespects them and will never see those men again.

Don’t recast T’Challa. Better yet, sites like CBR and Newsarama should not ever run articles about the “top five best actors to replace T’Challa”. Like everyone else, say their names, George Floyd, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, Philandro Castile, Stephon Clark, and Breonna Taylor (and many others), even though this was not at the hands of police, Chadwick Boseman, an incredible actor who portrayed many characters, is never, ever coming back.