This dazzling city comes to life before my eyes, with space ships, a vibrant city life, and technology so advanced that it’s hard to even fathom. I gaze in wonder, eager for more glimpses of this afro-futurist city.

This place does not exist.

Like many, I went to see Black Panther this weekend – P.S. you should see it too – and I was mesmerized by the fictional country of Wakanda. Wakanda is a place where colonialism did not happen. It’s a place with the most advanced technology in all the world. It is a place where women are powerful and men are secure enough in their masculinity to celebrate these powerhouse ladies.

I love movies for so many different reasons. I love the creativity, the beauty of a perfectly captured shot, and a performance that changes your life. I love how a movie tells stories of what has happened, but there even more, I love when a movie tells what could be. There are moments when a film goes even deeper into its imagination, and has fun with answering “what if” questions.

What if we could see into the city of the dead?

What if an orphaned farm boy saved the galaxy?

What if an African country was lightyears ahead technologically and established a paradise on earth?

Note: so many of the films that came to mind were from Pixar, since they are masters of telling these “what if” stories.

These “what if” films are important. Not just because they’re well done – because many are not. Rather, they are important because they tap into an imaginative righting of our broken world. We are reeling after another school shooting. Discord, racism, sexism, (and I could keep going and going), seem to meet us at every corner. If we’re shooting a historically film based on our present time, it’s a bleak story. And sometimes we need bleak stories, because we need to acknowledge the truth, whether it’s good or bad. But, we also need films that imagine things differently. What if school shootings were largely a thing of the past? What if women could walk to their car at night without fear? What if African American men and women lived in a world where slavery never happened? Some of us are good at imagining different options in the worst of situations. Some of us just accept the bleakness. But when we see a character, in situations that we can relate to, and they choose another option and succeed, that tells us that maybe we could too.

Which brings me to Bruno Bettelheim. He was a child psychologist who researched the connection between fairy tales and childhood development. In his studies, he found that children who were exposed to traditional fairy tales (i.e. The Brothers Grimm) were much more resilient when they faced hardships. Something powerful happens when we can identify with the hero in a story. “Because of this identification the child imagines that he suffers with the hero his trials and tribulations, and triumphs with him as virtue is victorious.” (The Uses of Enchantment) If my hero can triumph, then maybe I can too.

For many children, they don’t see a hero on the screen who looks like them. The act of identifying with a hero is a power thing in the psyche of a child. While there are many ways that a child can identify with a character, there is something particularly meaningful in identifying physically with a hero. As one of the only red headed kids growing up, I adored Anne of Green Gables. It meant so much to read about a little girl who understood the trials of being a ginger, but also didn’t suffer any fools. I was listening to the radio today and the reporter was talking about how film companies tend to shy away from making films with non-white lead actors and/or directors, because the assumption is that these films won’t perform well internationally. With the success of Black Panther and other films, such as Get Out, this narrative is being exposed for the lie it is.

This all leads me to my own “what if” question:

What if all children were able to have heroes and heroines who were identifiable to them?

Now that’s the kind of story I want to see unfold through the lives of our children.

A recent CNN story gives a glimpse of children responding to Black Panther.