Dear Ryan Coogler

Dear Ryan Coogler,

Your work has deeply impacted my life as a storyteller, as a Black, dark-skinned woman who performs both on stage and on camera. It has been affecting me for some time, in the very best of ways.

You did not begin with Black Panther for me. It actually started with Fruitvale Station. I remember sitting in the theater that day and learning that I could enjoy going to the movies by myself because of that film. It moved me in a profound way. I do not cry often. I rarely do. But when I cry, it is usually because of a film. Fruitvale Station made me cry. It made me cry throughout.

You use a camera as a painter uses a brush.

I want to thank you for the work you have been doing consistently. I know you create out of joy, out of creativity, and out of the sheer gift of being who you are. But briefly and sincerely, I want to thank you for the little girl inside of me.

There is a moment in Sinners that has moved many people. I will probably choose a different one than most, because of the lens through which I walk. There is a moment where Smoke haggles with a young Black girl, and he haggles with her in the best possible way. In that moment, you destroyed the idea of a glass ceiling for me. In that moment, you opened every possibility for the young girl I once was and for every young girl coming after her.

In that scene, you taught young girls that they should always haggle, and that they should haggle four times more. This is not something we are taught in school. This is not something our fathers usually teach us. Our fathers love us deeply, and they want us to survive this world the way they are surviving it. But what you did was careful and crafted. It felt as though you truly understood us.

It felt like you were a girl dad in that moment. I have not done the research, so I do not know if you are one in real life. But in that scene, you became a girl dad for all of us. You taught that character to value herself not just once, but four times over.

Thank you for that moment. Thank you for the moments you will continue to shatter and destroy, in all the best ways, on screen for us. And just in case you have not heard it enough, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Your work has no limit. You have taught me, as an artist, to also live and create without limits.

Sincerely,

Marian Yesufu