Celebrity Crush or Superhero?

A 10-year-old boy picks a Halloween costume and settles for Superman. Having seen the film, he feels an unidentifiable emotion centering on a realization that the actor playing the character doesn’t fully represent him or his story.

“Why is there no superhero who looks like me?” he wonders.

He doesn’t know and is too shy to further inquire. Maybe he doesn’t want to know because his young observational eyes already sense an overwhelming unfairness in the root of the why.

30 years later, with some answers sought but not fully understood, he takes his son to the movies.

“Dad, he looks just like me!”

“He looks like just like me too, son.”

The father’s heart swells with pride and eyes with tears as he realizes this is the first time he has ever remotely felt the meaning of having a celebrity crush and not in a 12-year-old girl fanning over the latest boy band kind of way. This is an admiration based in a more complex respect that transcends gender, orientation, age, and race.

In the same row as the father and son, a woman also of 40, realizes her heart pounding may be a sign of her attraction towards the man staring back at her from the screen. Never one who has found herself in an infatuation over any actor, musician, or athlete, she considers purchasing a poster of this guy to hang over her bed to make up for the empty walls of her teenage years. More than a simple “celebrity crush,” she too realizes the power of this actor, character, movie, and moment in time for countless others who can now identify with a superhero who represents their stories. “Representation Matters, Representation Matters, Representation Matters,” she repeats to herself.

She purchases the poster, as does the father for his son. They meet the heartthrob’s eyes daily and thank him for his presence, characters, and worlds he creates; re-watch the movie that grabs the world’s attention again and again; and proceed with marathons of the other films their hero has starred in. The boy writes multiple school reports detailing his admiration for the actor. His Halloween costume selection is apparent. The father too exalts the man’s talents, and the woman imagines a future where others build upon the superhero’s story so it is never lost in time or importance.

Two years pass. They sit as a family in disbelief at the news, unaware of the personal trials he had faced, making the loss all the heavier. Movie marathons begin again. They can’t get enough. If he is on the screen, perhaps he is still here they tell themselves, as does the rest of the world. Along with his presence on their television, his eyes gaze back at the family from the home’s two posters.

At the age of 42, the woman and her husband don’t yet realize that years from now, they will accompany their son to take his daughter to the movies. Their granddaughter will sit at the edge of her seat taking in the superwoman staring back at her. Unlike the novelty the adults sitting beside her experienced with T'Challa, by that time, she will be used to seeing superheroes, and specifically superwomen, who look like her. Her grandparents and father will again beam with pride as together they discover a new role model who follows in the footsteps of Chadwick Boseman, their original celebrity crush.

This is not my story but that of an immeasurable number of children and adults whose lives Boseman touched. Lives who were finally represented in a superhero who assured them their lives matter and who gave them power, hope, and inspiration to create stories and characters that would inspire generations to come. An exercise in empathy easily uncovers his pivotal role in ensuring our future youth will never again wonder, “Why is there no superhero who looks like me?” For that simple truth, for me and billions of others, even those privileged to have had themselves reflected back on them through other actors and characters, Chadwick Boseman transcends from simple “original celebrity crush” to hero. Everyone deserves to see themselves in their hero and a hero in themselves.