Black Panther remains one of my favorite Marvel superhero movies. Despite a few logical plot holes and a few CGI scenes that might have benefited from editing, I remember sitting in the darkened theater being quietly blown away. They had made a movie for little girls. Not a movie where she won the prince. Not even a movie where she realized she did not need the prince. But a movie more like Matilda — except this movie was not white. I adore Matilda, but Lavender notwithstanding, Matilda’s an extremely white movie. This was a movie for little African-American girls.

The absences we do not know are there… The blank spots that we do not see… The empty spaces that don’t get filled because somehow people don’t seem to recognize those spaces are out there.

But underneath the various subplots, I saw something I had been desperate to see. I saw young women regularly saving the men in the film, women standing up for their vision of a better world. Nakia begins the film fighting to rescue enslaved women in Nigeria. Okoye serves as head of Wakanda’s all-female special forces, and acts as bodyguard for the king. And Shuri — the beloved little sister who designed never-before-seen technology and healthcare — simply slayed me. She turned Vibranium into indestructible cars — cars that could be remotely controlled from HER lab. Shuri made the Black Panther’s suit, endowing it with kinetic absorption that could turn attacks back on the attacker. She built sonic cannons and underground railways based on magnetic levitation.

Most importantly, Shuri was pretty AND she was fun. In Scooby terms, she was a fine mix of Velma and Daphne. You didn’t have to take off her glasses to know she was beautiful. No one had to TELL you she was brilliant — that brilliance dripped from almost every one of her scenes.

I’ve retired now, but if I hadn’t, I’d be trying to work this film into my year’s curriculum. Because that big hole that Black Panther filled? That hole’s been there for far too long. That hole’s the reason why I recommend the book, Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez.

Where are the girls in our transformative films and books? Where are the African-American girls? Yes, I know we are getting better about finding book choices that don’t revolve around boys and men. The Hunger Games and Bridge to Terabithia come to mind quickly, and I can find many others. But let’s not console ourselves because somehow we finally worked girls into the curriculum — almost all of the time white girls.

Here’s a sobering quote from Invisible Women: “Although a 2015 Pew Research Center report found that equal numbers of American men and women play video games, only 3.3% of the games spotlighted at press conferences during 2016’s E# (the world’s largest annual gaming expo) starred female protagonists.” Do the girls and young women playing games notice? Why would we think they would NOT notice?

Readers, as you watch television and pick up books and games in the next few months, please look for the girls. Look for the women who are not props, but fully-fleshed out characters. A favorite quote by Maya Angelou: “I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.” As you read and watch media, do you find those girls who are kicking ass? Are those girls in your school’s curriculum?

The absences we do not know are there… The blank spots that we do not see… The empty spaces that don’t get filled because somehow people don’t seem to recognize those spaces are out there…

Until we sit in the dark and start to hurt, because we know that so many little girls deserve a chance to see themselves as heroes. As I sat in Black Panther, I did tear up. Because I wanted my girls, all my girls from all those classrooms through the years, to have the chance to see this movie — this rare, so rare, movie that got it right.

Eduhonesty: Now I’d like to see more of those movies — and not all of them in the Marvel universe. Real women can be real heroes. Real women are real heroes, across the world, every day. They deserve to see themselves. Black Panther blasted into the box office, and the world will miss Chadwick Boseman terribly. I’d like the world to also miss the silent voices of the women and girls who ought to be dominating more screens and building more levitating trains.