The time has finally arrived. In just a few days we will be given the gift of Marvel’s long anticipated Black Panther, and most people (at least in my life) are excited.

Photos from the Black Panther’s star studded premiere surfaced on the internet and Black Twitter (along with Black Instagram, and even Black Facebook) ate it up! The outfits were spectacular. Every person who graced that red carpet killed it!

While the rest of us were amped up with excitement and repositioning our wigs, a few Negative Nancy’s came out the woodwork and took it upon themselves to virtually kick us in the shins and tell us to calm down.  

One tweet on my timeline read: "Yo … Black Panther is just a super hero movie. That's it. It's not a political statement. It's not gonna eliminate racism and it's not what MLK dreamed. It's just a Marvel movie based on a black character. That's it."

Thousands of other Debbie Downers, Whiny Wendys and Sad Susans liked the tweet, and over the next few days, I saw a few more tweets echoing the same sentiment.

And all I have to say is, shhh!

Let people enjoy things!

Let’s be real. Most of us who are excited about this film don’t actually think it’s going to bring world peace, or that Harriet Tubman is coming back from the dead to join us at the movie theater. We also understand that the Black Panther superhero has nothing to do with the Black Panther party, and that the comic actually predates the political group. We’re just excited about the movie, Nancy. And our over the top tweets about what this movie symbolizes to us is all out of pure fun. We’re being extra, like we always do, when something fantastically black happens.

I personally don’t even care for superhero movies, and I can’t tell the difference between DC and Marvel, but guess who has a black beret in her cart on Amazon to wear with her all black outfit to see Black Panther opening weekend: Me.

I don’t even know anything about the plot or the characters or who the villain is, but I do know that come opening weekend, I’ll be at the movie theater front and center, yelling at the screen with the rest of my African American comrades.

I'm not wearing all black to the theater because I have any ties to the Black Panther Party (besides that one time I saw them in the McDonald’s parking lot by my dorm, in undergrad). It’s because I like being extra. It’s because, like a lot of people, I’m excited about this movie. It’s because I’m a medical student who’s either wearing scrubs or in business casual attire five days a week, and I need an excuse to wear real clothes. If people want to show up to the theater in full, traditional African attire, then so be it. Let people have fun.

I’ve also come across more sensible reasons as to why others aren’t as excited about Black Panther as the rest of us. A friend of mine said he wasn’t excited about the movie because it seemed like Marvel ‘n’ ‘em were profiting off of black dollars by merely repackaging black culture and selling it back to us, as if it wasn’t already our own. He felt that Marvel was throwing together a lot of black and African elements, like rap music, kente cloth and Forest Whitaker, in order to profit off of the black community. He felt that Marvel could have better advocated for the black community in more meaningful ways, like making direct statements on social issues such as police brutality. But personally, I feel like the best way for a movie production company to advocate for the black community is through increasing inclusion and diversity in their projects.

To be completely honest, I’d never really considered his perspective, but I definitely see where he was coming from. And his opinion is valid.

However, at the end of the day, no matter how this movie turns out, it’s worth celebrating. The Black Panther is the first black superhero in mainstream American comics (Keyword: mainstream. Don’t @ me comic book nerds). Marvel Studios, in partnership with Walt Disney Studios, is shelling out millions of dollars and recruiting A-list actors to star in the first mainstream, live-action superhero movie starring a predominantly black cast. Name another big budget, live-action superhero film starring our favorite black actors and actresses? I’ll wait.

We often argue for increased inclusion and representation of people of color in mainstream media, but when we’re finally on the brink of witnessing a promising project such as Black Panther, people still have negative things to say — before they even see the movie.

There are plenty of things to complain about right now (e.g. the fact that Trump is still president), but in my book, Black Panther just isn’t one of them.

We’re all rooting for this movie, and I’m hoping that Marvel did more than throw together a bunch of hodgepodge “black” elements to get our money. Only time will tell. Until then, let's relax and have a little fun.

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