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Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, where we discuss all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. To get more information and resources, visit the website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. And while I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for session forty seven of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. So this is the episode that you probably saw coming. If you receive my newsletter, which you totally should, then you know I've been absolutely the obsessed with Black Panther since it opened a few weeks ago. In today's episode, I'm joined by the biggest comic book loving therapist that I knew, Mercedes Sommudio. For those of you who've been around a while, you'll remember that Mercedes was our guests on session nine, where she talked all about her movement to in parents shaming. Mercedes is a licensed clinical social worker, a parent coach, speaker, and bestselling author who helps parents and children communicate with each other, manage emotional trauma, navigate social media and technology together, and develop healthy parent child relationships. Over the course of her career, she has worked with adoptive families, foster families, teen parents, parents navigating the child protective Services system, and children living with mental illness. Mercedes started the in parent shaming movement as well as coined the term shameproof parenting, using both to bring awareness to ending parent shame. Mercedes is a leading parenting expert and has an amazing following on social media that allows her to reach the hearts of thousands of parents who feel heard and seen on their parenting journey. She has been featured on the Huffington's Posts, US News and Report, Woman's Day, l A Parent Magazine, CBS l A, and Kids in the House. Mercedes seeks to empower parents to believe that they are already great guys for raising healthy and happy children. You can read more about her and her parenting expertise at shameproof parenting dot com. Mercedes and I did a deep dive into the psychology of black panther. We discuss the importance of representation and how that impacts our mental health, the messages we received about black womanhood from the movie, the strong attachment we all seem to have developed to the characters, and why so many of us have had to see it over and over again. I hope you'll enjoy listening as much as we enjoy chatting about it. Here's our conversation. So, thank you so much for joining us today, Mercedes, Thank you so much for having me on. So I knew that there was no one else that I could bring on the podcast to talk about Black Panther besides you, so you are probably the biggest comic book fan that I know. It also has this clinical background, so I felt like this could be a very good conversation just about you know, like how it feels like Black Panther has taken over our worlds at So let's let us start by you sharing, um, how many times have you seen Black Panther at this point exactly? So I've still only seen it once. I still have not had it in my schedule to be able to see it again, so I'm still going on one time. So you probably can reenact some of these scenes much better. Than probably. So I do want to kind of just start by talking because I think that you're not alone in it, right, Like, um, you know, it feels like multiple people, like people who probably wouldn't typically see movies back to back like this, like watching the movie multiple times are doing that. Like most people have probably seen it at least twice. And so you know, I'm not a comic book person, you know, like I typically will see the movies, but you know, like I don't know how all of the things work together. And the Marvel is the Marvel Cinematic universe, correct, Okay, so I'm not sure. I know that they there is a tie together and the characters kind of play off each other and they're like, you know, a storyline that kind of goes throughout. Um, and it does feel like there is some level of excitement like every time a Marvel movie drops, but something about this feels very different. What do you think inc is happening? I think it's it's really this idea that this is number one, the eighteenth Marvel movie. So we have had seventeen movies prior where there have been black actors. Right, So there's Don Cheeta who plays war Machine and Iron Patriot. There's Anthony Mackie who's the Falcon, but they're the sidekicks. They're not the main show. And they're black actors who are and there's a sorry Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury to uh he's in that. So there are these black actors that are there. However, they are kind of the background. They are the side kicks, they are not the main show, and they're part of an ensemble white cast. So when you see this movie, it's not only that Black Panther is like just a black cast, but it's the fact that the black people in this movie they are the heroes, they are the villains, they are everything. Uh. There's like two main white actors in the movie, and they're kind of auxiliary. Right for the first time, the white actors are the auxiliary and the black characters are the foreground. And I think that it's just something that we talked about it a little bit, but this idea of representation where it's like, finally, little kids don't have to do the black versions of this character. They are the version. They are the initial version of this character. Yeah, and I think there's something to be said about, like it's not just the main character right, Like, it feels like you see all of these supercute videos of kids being all of these different characters. So you know, they're dressed up like sure E, or they are a coyer and the door Malaja, they are um Umbaku. I mean, so you know, it's not even that. Like it feels like typically somebody might be like Captain America, but you don't really know all those other people that are kind of in the background, whereas here it's an ensemble cast and people it feels like, are identifying with different characters for different reasons. Each of these characters has such a rich kind of trajectory throughout the movie. I think that's something that Ryan Coogler did an amazing job writing and directing and making sure that every character that shows up on Seen has something to do. They are not just there because it's cute. They all have such a regal presence about themselves. Even kill Monger being you know, the villain, he has such a presence about himself. Works like you want to role play these people. You want to dig into what that feels like to have on their clothes and have on their style and to just embody them. They're so rich. Yeah, and and you know, again from my outside perspective as someone who has seen the past some of the past movies, but you know, not as in depth of a knowledge as you it doesn't feel like other characters get the same level of like nuance and complexity as they did in Black Panther. I agree with you. I mean, I think talk. I mean, I watched all these movies. I understand how intricate all of these stories play out, and there are some characters that have a little bit more um saliens than the main characters. But I think, and again I have to I have to give Black Panther and I have to give the writers and the director of this movie a little bit credit for this, a lot more credit for this. It was really intentional. I think, I think, if we're gonna do something, and I'm just speculating on what Ryan Coogler probably thought, if we're gonna do something like this as black people, we don't get these opportunities all the time, which is unfortunate to say in two as an eighteen, but we don't get on these opportunities for our black directors to get a two hundred million dollar budget to create this world, which is what he got for this movie. Um, and so you imagine that he's sitting there thinking, I have two hundred million dollars to show black excellence. Well, damn it, I'm not gonna miss anything. I am going to give every single person a rich identity, a rich cultural sense, a rich dialogue. I mean a rich I mean if you just listen to him talk about it. He even talks about how each person has their own style. Even the people in the Dormaalagy, they each have their own style, and they took from each of the tribes and gave everybody at peace. You know, it was just so beautiful how he said, I'm going to make sure that I have this money to do this movie, and we have this opportunity to be on this platform with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We're gonna do it up. We're gonna go in. We're just gonna do this. And I think with the other characters, the other movies where white actors always get a chance to step up, um and kind of do things, so there's not that sense of urgency. I think there's not that sense of immediacy that the white actors need to give everybody in the movie a lot of space in presence, because they'll show up again. They'll come out again. All the actors, I feel like in all the other UM, Marvel Cinematic universities, they they show up in other movies, they show up in other franchises. UM. Something that might be cool to talk about is that Chris Evans who plays Captain America, he was also the Human Torch. So he's been able to be a superhero twice, you know, And so has Michael B. Jordan who plays kill Monger. He was also the Human Torch. But I feel like white actors always get another opportunity to do this. They always get another opportunity to be the superhero or be the lead. UM. And I feel like for our African American actors and characters, they don't always get those opportunities to be a lead and to be the show. UM in this context. Right, So now is the human towards somebody in the Marvel Cinematic universe. Not yet. Marvel actually bought the rights to them. And I'm being complete geek right now, but Marvel, right, I bought the rights to them, so they will eventually be but the Fantastic the Fantastic four. So human Torch is part of the Fantastic Four and they've had two movies, three movies that have come out and they haven't done well, so you probably don't know who they are that okay, Okay, I was like, no, I don't know if I remember that part of it. Get them right now? Totally fine, totally fine. So you know, if we kind of play with this idea of representation, because I do feel like that is what everybody is really clinging to, right Like, I remember distinctly when it was announced more than a year ago, um that this was happening, and I think they shared that Ryan Coogler was going to be the one um doing it, and it felt like almost immediately people started talking about, oh, this is what we're gonna be wearing to the Black panther, um, you know. And I know that typically these movies, like people will cosplay, right like, people typically will dress up as the characters, but it definitely felt like something different that um, you know, like that black people were saying like, Okay, we're gonna have our finest garb to go and see this movie. Yes, you know, I love that because yes, people do technically costplay for these type of fandom stuff, so people would costplay for Star Wars. People come to cost tumes for all the other Marvel Universe Cinematic Universe movies, but this one, I think, and I have to kind of pull back a little bit before I get to why we're costplaying or why we're dressing up for it. It's the first time, I think and ever, and if I'm wrong, I don't mind being corrected. But I think it's the first time since maybe coming to America or whatnot, where we've had Africa being displayed in such regal beauty. And I think that's something that people really clunk to where I think most of the time Africa has seen as a third World country, and that's part of the dialogue in the movie. All I thought, what kind of which is the third World country? I thought this was just you know, nothing to be, you know, to worry about um. But when you look at the fact that we are finally getting to see Africa as a technologically advanced community culture continent, like we don't get to see that. And I think when you see black people coming out in droves, dancing, wearing beautiful garments, it's that it's that idea of we get to showcase our beauty, not just on a small scale, not in an independent movie, not on a direct to video movie, but a big movie, blockbuster, a tip pole movie that honestly, when's the last time you saw all black casts in a tip pole like summer blockbuster type movie, Like, we don't get that. And so I think it goes back to who we are as a culture. I think we are just a very celebratory, communal culture. And so when we get to do it on this level, when we get to celebrate it in this on this level, we show out. We show up, and we show out, and I love it. I can't even I can't even find the words to talk about how much I love that we get to show up and show out in such a beautifully dynamic way and it's not seen as you know how sometimes we are kind of portraying in the media being raucous and rowdy. We're not doing that. We're just having a great time. Yeah, And I did you know, pull a quote because I really wanted to understand, you know, like I think we hear this quote that representation matters, representation matters, um and I don't, and I don't know that we always know, like why that's important or like what that really means? Um? So I found a quote from Darnell Hunt, who is the director of the Ralph J. Bunch Center for African American Studies at u c l A, and he said that we're pretty confident that the more TV you watch, the more media you consume, the more likely it is that media, almost like radiation, builds up and the accumulated effect is to make you feel that what you're seeing is somewhat normal. So this whole idea, like you mentioned that, Um, you know that Africa can be celebrated in its fullness and that it's not this third world. You're not representing these third world countries. Um. You know that that they're not resources and lots of exciting things happening in this film. We really do see this could be a normal. This is people's normal. Yes, And you know you when you started talking about that, you made me think of something else. I saw recently a young guy and I saw it on Twitter and I would try to send it to you, so maybe you can share it too. But he actually a couple of days ago kind of in London, started to do film posters where he replaced the white actors on these film posters with black people, and the tagline, if I can find it is if this is if this is like confusing for you have seen this is jarring for you? Um, that means we need to see more black people in these roles. And so he has one for Harry Potter, he has one for Bridges Jones Diary, and it's so cool because these are things that normally he has one for Titanic. We're normally, we're used to seeing white people on the forefront of these covers, right, We're used to seeing the white actor the leader, and DiCaprio's the Kate Blanchet's the you know, the Kate Winslets, and we're not used to seeing black people so regally, PA trade in these really huge blockbuster movies. And I think when you see the Black Panther posters, all black people, you don't even see the white actors on there. Just it's so beautiful to see Chadwick Boseman, Lupete and Jango the Niagarrera like Michael B. Jordan's, just to see them on all of these posters all over the you know, I don't know, I know where you are in the South, but seeing it in l A, all these huge posters in la It's like, yes, this is look at this, and again, I love these movies, but it's so nice to see someone who looks like me right being a superhero something that I love. I love superheroes, and we very rarely get to see it done this way. So I have to say that I agree with that quote that the more we see ourselves and media whatever that looks like our identities in the media, the more we began to get comfortable with it. Um. The more I think, I'll even say it and bring it a little bit more um forward. I think the more we see ourselves in the media being portrayed on a continuum, on a spectrum, so not just the fast talking, smack talking people, but we see ourselves as kings and queens, we see ourselves as superheroes, we see ourselves as villains. We see ourselves and all of these stereotypically um reserve for white people roles. We see ourselves in all these roles. It begins to let people feel more comfortable, like, you're right, Black people can be this diverse, right, They don't just have to be relegated to a certain type of film or a certain type of character portrayal. They can be anything. And can you imagine the kids who watch this movie, who see now I don't have to just audition for these type of roles and these type of characters. I can audition for the superhero character. I can audition for the lead and not be the black version of the lead and just be the lead. Yeah, I mean, and I'm thinking about, you know, like the latest video that I've seen, and I know you've seen it too, is this super cute little boy who's re enacting the Emboco scene when he comes to challenge the Black Panther or the throne, right, and so his timing is like on point, Like he doesn't crack a smell, like he is clearly in character. And so you know, I'm thinking about, like what is this child going to become? Like how is it you know that even just seeing this movie and like allowing himself to just be playful with it, you know, who knows what becomes of it? Right? Like you know, an imagination and play is so super important at that age, you know, So just the idea that even that hasn't been expanded for children, I think it's incredibly powerful and and it's what you just said where it's like play and imagination is so important for children and how they understand their world, how they process the world. And so usually children are playing these characters who are white, right, So can you imagine that kind of those imprinted ideas that kids have where I can only be iron Man if I'm white. I can only be Superman if I'm white. So I have to pretend to be these characters. I have to pretend or assimilate into this culture in order to be these characters, whereas when I am Black Panther, I don't have to pretend and black panther and I love that chat with Bothman talks a lot about this in his interviews about how he fought for every African character to have African accent. They were not going to not speak cosa, they were not going to um speak in a British accent on an American accent like because again, when people, when kids, um and actors portrayed these characters, they get to speak in this African dialect. They don't have to pretend, they don't have to speak, you know, a certain dialect that makes them look more intelligent. Right, Um, I'll even go into this idea of There was a research study that talked about how people with accents are characteristically deemed less intelligent, no matter what their degrees were or no matter what their profession is. And I think being able to see more people speak in their accents, especially for African Americans, it allows us to stop being so confused by accents. And it's linked to intelligence, where you've got this highly technologically advanced culture and everyone speaks cosa. Everyone speaks with this beautiful accent and dialect, and they're all brilliant and regal and amazing people. And I think seeing more of that is what allows kids to say, I don't have to try to assimilate. I don't have to give up parts of my culture. Um to see all the women wearing natural hair and all the men wearing natural hair. Okay, I don't have to straighten my hair to be a superhero. It's it's there's so many little nuggets. They are where when you go back to pretend play and what kids have to assimilate into to fit into these roles, they don't have to do that anymore when they play black parts, black panther characters, when they role playing those characters. Yeah, and I do think. You know, we talked primarily about the representation piece for the kids, um, and I think that that is important. But I also think that there's something for adults too in terms of the representation. What are your ideas about, like, you know, yeah, we know it needs a lot to the little kids, but what about for adults. Well, I'll speak from being a comic book fan. I'm gonna take a little turn in terms of my life and and be really blunt about this. So I have always loved comic book stuff and magic because in my childhood it allowed me to get away from what I was experiencing, um in my childhood, which wasn't great. And so I dove into Harry Potter, I dove into Spider Man and X Men and all those movies came out when I was in junior high in high school, and I love being immersed in these characters and learning about them and Batman. To this day, my my wedding ring is actually Batman. Um. Batman is always going to be for me like symbolic of how someone can go do such tragic pain and grow up to help and heal their community. And so these were always the characters that I felt so close to and so connected to, and I never worried that they were white. I never worried that I was black. But it really was like, well, I guess we'll just never be that, you know, like I'll never be able to see a black person emote and be these ways and be these character portrayals. And so now, as a thirty or two year old woman who loves these movies and who loves and understands the intricacies with which these characters are portrayed, to be able to have that same level of beauty and awesomeness and identification with black panther um, it's something that makes me really validated. It makes me feel like I matter. It makes me feel like, Okay, finally, what I look like in the way that I wear my hair is just as beautiful as Pepper Pots, is just as regal and cool as Captain America. Like, it's just as amazing. And so I think I'm just speaking for me and whoever else resonates with this, I think for us um as people of color who are geeks, we have finally got someone who looks like us, right, we can geek out on a superhero who is just like me. I can geek out on the door, milaj who are beautifully you know, diversely colored women, women of color. I can I think, uh, Lupita and Yango is so beautiful and to see her be so strong and so amazing. And in the video that Jimmy Fallon had of Tywoo Bose and meeting his fans, as one woman said it so articulately, she said, it was so beautiful to see black women who were in their strength and their power, and they weren't the stereotypical angry black women. They weren't the sassy, cookie lyon black women. They were just strong and regal and and also empathetic and vulnerable all at once. And it's those moments for me, especially as a woman, where it's like, yes, we are strong, but we're also vulnerable. We are you know, we can go out and kick, but but we can also you know, hold our man's hand and tell him he could be whatever he needs to be. And it was all God, I can go on and all, but it's there are so many pieces of that that as a woman who has loved this stuff since I was a kid, it just felt so beautiful to be able to see people who look like may be portrayed with that emotional continuum, that emotional spectrum. Yeah, and I do want to stay with that for a little bit, Mercedes, because I do think you know, when we hear about this strong black woman, um, you know, like I feel like a lot of times, um, it's not uh, you know, like the strength is kind of put upon us in a way that like negates us taking care of ourselves, whereas in Black Panther it was a strength because their warriors, you know, and it was like you mentioned, like still aside that allowed them to be vulnerable and to be in relationship and you know, to not have their strength be that they weren't taking care of themselves. Yes, and there were several scenes like that. You know. I don't want to spoil this so you know, cover your years if you haven't seen the movie. But there's that wonderful, beautiful scene between a Koyer and Wakabi at the end when she he's like, are you gonna fight me? And she's like, yes, I will. But at the same time, we know from the way that they developed those characters that they are in love. That he calls her my love and she does too, but she's like, but also, this is my country, so if you don't take it down, we're gonna have to fight, brother. And I love love that scene because again I have to command Ryan Coogler in the way that he wrote his characters, he developed their relationship very subtly but very powerfully. So that scene had so much more resonance um to it, and I love it. I love the strength of her at the same time, the vulnerability that she's like, you are my love, but look, this is my country, these are my people. We can't do this to each other, you know what I mean. I love that. I thought that was a beautiful scene. Yeah. And then with Nikia, you know, you saw that she was someone who was very self possessed, right, Like she had her own ideas about like what she wanted to do with her life, and she even made the statement, you know, like I'd be a great queen if I wanted that, you know. Yeah, so I mean but so even though she was very clear about like where she wanted to go with her life, it does it did still feel like there was um a level of compromise there when she decided to stay. Is at least it seems that way when he made space for her to kind of continue to do what she needed to do as a part of the Kingdom of Yes. And I want to speak about that too, about how how T'Challa was kind of created too. And I think this when you go into representation, it's so important for us to have, especially black men in the culture that we have now, to see our black men being okay being surrounded by black women and that even if Niki is his girlfriend or not, that she's still able to be there for him that and the Koya is not his girlfriend, she is not, you know, part of his romantic kind of life, but she's still there for him and supports him and at the same time kind of pushes at him and says, are you sure that's what you're gonna do? Do you really need this? And to watch that interplay between both the romantic kind of talente that he got from the Kia, but as well as the camaraderie and the friendship and the respect that he received from o Koa, and how he was able to manage that and find a balance between both of those. I think it's such a great representation for a black man to see that you can be vulnerable, you can still stand your ground and say I am a king. Right, That's something that we definitely say about a black man. You are a king, right, and Shalla is a king. But he was able to be like, Okay, what are you both women who I highly respect? What else are you saying? How can you help me to reframe my ideas? So I'm still taking care of my country and I just love that vulnerability in him, right. It did. It definitely did feel like there was a balance that it wasn't just the women who were being vulnerable, right, which is nice, right. Yeah, it definitely felt like a love letter, like it felt like the whole cast and you know, kind of Live by Ryan Cludely, it felt very much like a love letter to black people, like just this kind of bomb that we need, um right now. Which does bring me to like another thought and you know, something that you mentioned as you were explaining like your own history with like comic books and stuff, I feel like, you know, like we mentioned, most people have seen this, you know at least twice, Um, you've seen it five times. People have people have gone multiple times. And I think at the core what this really is about is like escapism. So you know, in our real life, we have a president who is just ridiculous, We have you know, oppression in many different forms, Like it just literally sometimes feels like the world is on fire outside of you versus we go to Wakanda and it's beautiful and there's this rich culture and this advanced technology, and it definitely feels like I just want to be there. I just don't want to be here. Um, So can you can you talk more about like, you know, like if do you agree that you think that people are just you know, trying to escape what's going on in the real world by these multiple visits to Wakinda so to speak. Yeah, you know, I think I think that's something that we deserve. Every other culture and and again I won't say every other culture, I'll stick with just kind of the mainstream white culture has that level of escape misum it almost every genre. They have it in drama, they have it in action, they have it an indie Flix. They have all of these different spaces where they can escape into a world that that they identify with, into a world that feels resonant with them. And so for uh, geeks of color, if you will, Um, we've always been able to escape into these worlds too. And you know, I talked to my husband a lot, a lot, a lot about this. In the fantasy world there is kind of racial commentary, with orcs and lesser kind of creatures being kind of seen as a minority, oppressive race, and then obviously all the elves and you know, all of the hierarchy people are usually always white. And so he and I being he my husband's right, We've talked about how sometimes in the fantasy world there is racial commentary, there is cultural commentary. However, I think what Black Panther gives us is this level of escapism that African Americans don't always get in all of these different genres. Right, we don't get to be action heroes, we don't get to be superheroes all the time. And so being able to escape into Wakonda is something that's such. I think we deserve that, right, We deserve to be able to see a world where we are not being oppressed, where we are on top, where we are the where we hold all the power, all the money. Um, there's this hashtag on social media that says in Wakonda, right, So in Wakonda, Obama is still president. In Wakonda. Traylon Martin is still alive, you know, and if you look it up hashtag in Wakonda, you'll see like all of these beautiful kind of ideas of if we were able to bring that Wakandan kind of um technology and life into our world, what would we be as Black people? And I think being able to have that escapism and being able to even kind of have that imaginary play um as a culture makes it kind of gives us a space to think, well and we bring some of that here? Can we bring some of that voice, some of that fierceness into our world where we know there's no such thing as Wakonda, We know that there's no such thing as this vibranium. But what is it about these these concepts and these traits and these ideals that we can actually bring it to our real world? And I hope that with more viewings and hopefully with the second and the third Black Panther movies that are inevitable that are going to come out, that we continue to do that. We continue to say, how can we bring these Wakonda ideas of strength, of power, of togetherness, of vulnerability, How do we bring that into our world to help build resilience around what's happening to us as a culture in the world. Yeah, and I definitely feel like, you know, some of that has started. You know, like when people were talking about like some of the blankets and things that we're in the movie, people were then sharing links online like from authentic you know sellers where you could get this information from, so you know, kind of you know, as a way of kind of keeping money in the community and supporting the people who you know, have given us like this very rich movie. Um and you know, a way to kind of you know, see ourselves differently. Yes, definitely, I think it's beautiful. Yeah, I mean, it just really is beautiful all around. And I mean and I think, you know, we do want to be careful, right because us escaping to Wakanda doesn't mean that we don't still have to deal with real life, right, Like it's not um our excitement about Black Panther is not necessarily like changing policies or you know that kind of thing. But I do think, like you mentioned, we deserve that, right, Like, we deserve to be able to participate in joyful things and to being excited about things when you know, maybe so much of the rest of our life. It's been really trying to kind of fight all of the oppression and you know, to kind of do things in our community. We do deserve to have joyful moments like this as well. And you know, I would even say this, I'll bring up the topic of representation a little bit more and even that that idea of even though being kind of immersing ourselves in the fantasy of Wakanda doesn't change things. I think it's doesn't have to. I think it can just be an immersion into this fantasy. And I think the more people see that we deserve to have these fantasy worlds populated with black people, populated with people who look like us, the more we don't have to latch on to one thing. We can have multiple Wakandas we can have, you know, I mean think about Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and Hunger Games and all these different worlds that white people get to have because they're populated with white people. So you think about these fantasy worlds, you know, where everyone gets to say all it can be. I can be I can go to Homewards, or I can join the Hunger Games, or I can go to Middle Earth. There's so many different places for white people to escape to. There's so many different places for us as black people to kind of join in. We can go to, um, what's Western Roads, you know with Game of Thrones, there's so much because we're not used to seeing black people being populated in any of these areas. So with all of these places that I just talked about, you can't even think of how many black people you saw in these places. How many black people are in Western Roast, how many black people are in Middle Earth, how many black people are in you know, the Hunger Games are at Hogwarts, Like, we need to populate these fantasy worlds with more black people, and not in the auxiliary back of the frame, but in the foreground. And I think, and then we don't have to hold onto Wakonda so tightly. We can start saying we're at Hogwarts too. We can start saying we're also you know here, we're also here. And I think that that's part of the dialogue about representation, that we are holding onto Waconda because it's the first fantasy world that we can go to and feel like we're populated here. Um Chadwick Boseman made He's so brilliant. By the way, I'm going to tell everyone who's listening, look up Chadwick Boseman and watch his interviews. He's brilliant. But he was talking about the same thing that I just shared, which is, Um, every time we look at a futuristic world, it's almost like no black people exist in the future anymore, like we just ceased to exist. That wherever we go in space or wherever we go in the future, there's very few black people. And it's like, do we exist in the future, Well, black panthers saying yes, we do, right, This is an feel futuristic culture where in the future Vibranium and Wakonda are still here and we're still and we're still powerful. And I just love that idea that with more representation, we can start populating these fantasy worlds with more black people so we don't have to hold onto a conduct is the only place that we can escape to very good points. And I think, Um, you mentioned like the interviews that you have watched, your chat with Bozeman, and I know I know you and I that opening weekend, we're like sharing all of these clips that we could find and and I want to dig into that a little bit right because to me, like Black Panther itself has been fascinating, but for me, the whole psychology behind the attachment we're having to it is even more fascinating. And so you know, I know we were sharing articles and it feels like, um, and probably part of this was a part of the marketing plan, you know, where they the whole cast did the press run and that you always saw them together. Um and even now like the movie opened, what two weeks ago, but like you know, even if the oscars this weekend, um, you know, you saw the cast posing in any time, like more than one of them is together, like they're greeting them greeting each other with the Wakanda hand signal. I mean, so it very much feels like you know, and I don't I don't know what this is purposeful, um or if you know, they just have become so enamored with these characters and the love that they're getting that it just kind of feels natural at this point. Um. But it it very bunch feels like they are real. Like it feels like because you still see them together, like as a collective or at least a couple of them. Um. That like it's a continuation of the movie. Yes, I agree with that actually, and I think, you know, again, going back to the interviews that I've seen, almost everybody that has been on every party who goes on their shows, especially on African American interviewers will greet Chadwick with the Wakondan salute. Right. Um. Tiffany Hattish was on the Red carpet and someone readed her with it and they did it wrong and she corrected them to me, how it is not even in the movie. But she corrected them. It was like, hey, it's right over left, not left over right. And it's this moment of Again, I'll go back to my last point. This is why representation matters. That when we have a world of fantasy world populated with these types of people, we gravitate towards it, just like we do with all of these other fantasy worlds that we watch, and so we need I think people need to look at again, going back to the psychology of it, that when we see a fantasy world, a place where we can escape that's populated with people that look like you, that identify the same way as you, you can't do anything but feel pride you can't feel anything but excitement and a swell um there's I've watched this movie five times, and almost each time there are different parts of the movie the movie where my heart just swells with pride because of the beauty of it, the regalness of it. And again not just because they're kings and queens, but just because look at this, look at these people in this fantasy world who look like me. And I think seeing actors and interviewers and all of the African American actors who are again, Will Smith did a beautiful um Instagram video congratulating the whole cast. You know, I think seeing that is just a huge sign to Hollywood and two people who write these scripts and create these worlds, that we would love to see these worlds populated with black people. We would love to see these worlds populated this way because look at like you just said, look at how we're resonated with these actors, these people who have just portrayed a fictional world, fictional people. Look at how we're connecting to them. That is a huge sign that we deserve, need want thrive when we are represented in this way. Yeah, and in doing some research and it really did take a while to like research some of this stuff because I didn't even know what to call it, right, Like, I was like, Okay, this kind of feels like when you don't want a good storybook to end right, like you want to just kind of hang on. Um So, I think the technical term is called character bonding. Uh So, see look at all this new stuff I learned. Um So, I found an article called the Psychology of Character bonding why we feel a real connection to actors, and it stated we'd have no way of processing a character cognitively if we didn't have experiences with people outside of the fictional world. The experiences with fictional characters resonate with us because of the fact that we've had deep experiences with people throughout our lives, just as we do with real life friends and family. In our minds, we subconsciously filling the details of characters lives that are missing. This includes ideas about what they're thinking or what they were up to when we weren't around. And so I think, you know, going back to that scene that you mentioned at the end with what Kaby and okoy a, um, you know, like, I think that really highlights this sentiment because of course, then you saw a lot of conversation online about what the conversation between what Kaby and Okoyer would be like afterwards, like does on the couch now? Yeah? Yeah, Like what how how does that interaction continue? Right? So of course they don't show us that in the movie, But because we have become so attached to these characters and feel like we kind of know them and like they're part of our circle in some ways, then we are then playing out like what we think that interaction will be, like yeah, and you know, I'm gonna kind of kind of play with us a little bit because going back to the representation idea and how many times we get to bond with our characters right as black people, so we tend to bond with Empire. So I look, I think about Empires. One of those shows that a full black cast, the family. It shows family dynamics. It shows something that we don't always get to see on TV. You're like, you have Cookie, you have Lucis, you have his sons, and you watch this character dynamics play out, and I think we bond to those characters because we have a Cookie in our house. We have a Lucius in our family, right, we have you know, we have these characters, and so I think about something like Black Panther, whereas I feel like Empire is something that as black people were used to. We're used to the snappy, fast talking black mama, you know, We're used to the very stern black dad who's gonna set these rules. And I think we bond to those characters because, like you said in that definition, we see these people in real life, and we can identify and understand what's happening outside of these scripted scenes, and we can bond to them. And so you get to something like Black Panther where you say, well, as black people, we don't always have superheroes. Are as black people, we don't always get to see the people flying through the air and being cool action stars. But I would say that we do. We see the people in our communities, the people who we look up to. We see these people every day, and even though they're not um and and like they don't have the vibranium suits, we see people that look like kings and queens to us. We see people in our lives that look like um. Strong women are are that look like the dorm Laji, And I think we bond on that level two where it's fantasy dorm laj is not real. But how many strong women in your life do you know that are like that right that you can look at and say, Yep, that's my auntie, Yep, that's my big sister, Yep, that's my cousin. And I think, if if I'm staying with that idea of character bonding, I think that even though we as black people don't always get to see fantasy world's populated with us, seeing something like this allows us to bond with even the people in our lives who aren't black panthers and aren't the keys are core. Yes, we get to see them in our real life and we get to see kind of this fantasy portrayal of what our auntie who's so strong and cool, would look like if she was a dormalage, you know what I mean. And I think that that's something that we deserve more of. Absolutely, Mercedes. Yeah, So I mean we could probably talk forever, because you see, I am everything you've give me. I just like go into like a ten minutes, you know what I think? Yeah, And like I said, I have just been so fascinated by the way that this has kind of become its own thing UM, and completely agree with you that it did, doesn't It definitely feels like something we deserve right now and that we really need it right now. Yeah. Yeah, Well, thank you so much for joining me for this, Mercedes. I definitely will make sure to include links to your UM private practice and everything in the show notes. Even though we didn't talk very much about this, UM, You've been on the podcast before to talk about your whole movement around shameproof parenting UM, so I will link to that episode that you were on earlier as well as well as UM all of the citations that I found in doing my research for this episode. Because one other thing that I found was a TED talk done by a psychologist UM Dr Jennifer Bournes that talks about the reality of our relationships with imaginary characters. So that gave some great information too, So I will link to that in the show notes as well, just because I think that could be a very cool thing for people to check out. Awesome, thanks so much for having me. Thank you. So you can see we had lots of feelings about Black Panther, and I know many of you do too. Make sure to share your thoughts with us about the episode on social media using the hashtag tb G in session and make sure to tag our accounts. You can find us at Twitter at Therapy for the Number four B Girls, and you can find us on Instagram and Facebook at Therapy for Black Girls. Make sure to check out the show notes at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash Session forty seven for links to the articles I mentioned, as well as more information about Mercedes. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, make sure to check out the therapist directory, which can be found at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash directory. And if you want to have a place to talk more about this episode, past episodes, or just to chat about topics that are important to you, come on over and join us in the Thrive Tribe, which is our Facebook community. You can request to join at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash Tribe. Please continue to share your love for the podcast by sharing it in your instant stories on Twitter and by texting those who you think should also check it out. If you listen on Apple Podcast, please also consider leaving us a review. Thank you so much again for joining me this week. I'm looking forward to continue in this conversation with you all real soon take good care, par Hotoral, p oftor