What Chadwick Boseman Teaches Us About Strength and Art
By: Melissa Boles
Tags: Film, Art, Grief And Loss, Marvel Cinematic Universe

Photo from Chadwick Boseman on Twitter.

When the news first broke about Chadwick Boseman’s death, it came with an AP article that had a broken link. I thought it was a mistake. Someone must have posted something incorrectly, right?

Then I realized the original tweet had come from AP’s twitter account, so it couldn’t be incorrect. Within minutes, it was all over Twitter, and his social media accounts had the announcement too. In the flash of a moment, a 43-year-old Black man no one know was ill was just … gone.

As a consumer of art, the loss of a talented actor like Boseman is devastating to me, but I am not who he meant the most to. Boseman’s presence on screen changed the lives of Black people who had never seen anyone like them in those character roles. He inspired children and adults alike, giving strength and a dream to all those who needed it. Every Black person who wanted to be a superhero suddenly no longer had to pretend to be Superman or Batman or Iron Man but could be The Black Panther. King T’Challa. 4 years ago, Boseman changed the game.

Turns out he also fought cancer the entire time.

Art, whether it’s a film or a comic or a painting, is so often an escape for people. Whether you are consuming it or creating it, art can pull you away from the most difficult moments of your life and reset you. I don’t know if that’s what it did for Boseman, but I know that’s what his work did for all of us. As a collective we are different for having seen Chadwick Boseman on our screens. We are better.

We are not required to learn anything from death. As we process and grieve, we are not required to do anything but just that. And yet, as I think about the unexpected nature of this loss, I think about what it teaches us. How it so deeply shows us the strength people have. And how it hands us, on a platter, what art can do for people.

Knowing now that Boseman was fighting colon cancer while filming in the Marvel Cinematic Universe changes his performance by elevating it.

I have watched people in my life go through cancer. It strips your body and soul of everything you knew about it and pushes you to rebuild from the weakest you have ever been. Every person I have ever known who has dealt with cancer has been exceptionally strong. Most of them aren’t just fighting cancer, they are feeding their family and raising their children and working as much as they possibly can. Knowing their life is bigger than their health crisis doesn’t make what they are going through easier, but it makes coming out the other side worth it.

Not knowing Chadwick Boseman personally means I can’t speak to exactly why he kept working during his treatment, but I can imagine. I believe that if I were to experience a life-altering cancer diagnosis, I would want to do the thing I loved most for as long as possible. It gives me hope that maybe that is what Boseman got to do.

Boseman’s decision to continue to make films shows his strength, to be sure. It also shows how dedicated he was to the art of telling beautiful and powerful stories about Black people. Boseman gave us art that will last forever. For that we will always be grateful.

The most difficult thing about Boseman’s death is that the collective grief we will all experience from this loss is on top of the grief we have been experiencing for months. The loss of nearly 200,000 people to a virus that should have been curtailed months ago, and the constant and devastating loss of Black lives all over this country in some of the most brutal violence we have ever seen. The loss of a talented actor and beautiful soul like Chadwick Boseman would have been hard this time last year, but not this hard.

I don’t know how many people are watching one of Chadwick Boseman’s movies this weekend, but I’m sure it’s a lot. Regardless of how people are processing this loss, I am sure it is steeped in the beauty of who Boseman was as an artist and a human. May his films always remind us to find strength and beauty in the art we create for each other.

On your left.