Chadwick Boseman
“In my culture, death is not the end. It’s more of a stepping off point. You reach out with both hands and Bast and Sekhmet, they lead you into a green veld where you can run forever.”
That’s what T’Challa tells Natasha Romanoff in Captain America: Civil War after the death of his father, T’Chaka. It was always fascinating how death and the afterlife became crucial components of the Black Panther character and story on the big screen. The above quote comes in his first MCU appearance, but when he reaches his solo film, he spends a lot of time in the Ancestral Plane, reasoning out legacy with his father and past Black Panthers.
Between moments like these, the death of T’Challa in Avengers: Infinity War, the spectral performance in Da 5 Bloods, and a number of performances as iconic black figures throughout history, like Jackie Robinson and James Brown, Chadwick Boseman’s acting career revolved around the themes of death and legacy in a way that seems tragically transient today.
The news that Chadwick Boseman died last night after four years of a colon cancer diagnosis was undeniably shocking. Not just in the sense that he was a global superstar on the cusp of a lengthy career as an action star and surefire future Oscar winner, but in the sense that Chadwick Boseman never betrayed an inkling that he was ailing. Prior speculation about his physicality aside, Boseman never seemed to be anything but full of life and passion, spirit and charisma.
It’s what drew me to him before I even knew he’d be cast as T’Challa back at that Marvel Phase 3 presentation in 2014. I knew him as “the biopic guy” and as Vontae Mack in Draft Day, but I just had a feeling he’d be a solid choice for Black Panther, only to be affirmed when he was cast the next day. Surely, I didn’t catch the feeling on my own and, instead, I saw some casting leak or Reddit news bit. But maybe, I just had a feeling. Maybe we all just intrinsically knew how special Chadwick Boseman was.
His career was marked by excellent turns, a jovial laugh, and myriad bonds with his peers and colleagues. Of course, Boseman will forever be remembered as the key figure behind the Black Panther phenomenon, too. His commitment to T’Challa’s African accent, his swagger emulated by the world of fans who drew inspiration from him, his presence in the MCU as the first hero to come through a portal, one to carry the Infinity Gauntlet, one primed to carry the universe going forward. How tragic to think we’ll never see Boseman on screen as his game-changing character again. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom will instead serve as Boseman’s posthumous performance. We should savor every frame.
What Boseman did with his time on the planet is indescribable. The future generations, who saw something magical on screen from him, and those that preceded him, who saw what they never thought possible, have been impacted forever by his legacy. Not just as the MCU’s first leading black superhero, but as a black superhero who transcended the comic book fandom to become one of the biggest cultural touchstones of the entire century.
Without Boseman, that doesn’t happen. Part of him knew it, as he persisted through his diagnosis to bang out an insane stretch of movies (that he told director Ryan Coogler would be their Lord of the Rings, their Star Wars) that demanded so much from him. More than his movies, he banged out an insane stretch of eternal friendships, role model moments for fans and youths, and a sense of fun to every talk show bit and interview and, undoubtedly, moments in private, too. He was every bit the hero he portrayed on screen.
It’s gutting to think that he’s gone. It doesn’t really make sense. Seeing the statements from his friends, fans, and admirers makes that abundantly clear, as no one has any idea how to wrestle with the gravity of the loss of Boseman. It’s an unfathomable deprivation that the industry and the culture will feel forever, wondering what could have been instead and wondering how the world could be so wrong. Chadwick Boseman never felt that way (we can tell, courtesy of a final text to Josh Gad), though, so as horrible as it is to think that not enough time was provided to Chadwick, it’s a reminder to appreciate all the days we’ve had and the ones we still have to come — whether they be in the tens or in the hundreds.
There’s something beautiful in every day, something to remind us why someone so brilliant dying at age 43 is so palpably heartbreaking. But when you’re Chadwick Boseman, a king who created art that will endure for centuries and live within those who gravitated towards it and saw a future for themselves in it, 43 is only a number — a fraction of his infinite legacy. It’s a legacy that puts him alongside Robinson, to say the least. The spirit of Chadwick Boseman goes on. This is only a stepping off point.
