In light of Valentine's Day recently passing, I thought it would be fitting to write on the importance of "The Photograph", a new film starring Issa Rae and Lakeith Stanfield whose characters incidentally fall in love. There's more to the story than that but for the sake of this article (and spoilers), I'll leave it at that.

First off, there are SO many romantic dramas out there and only a small amount of those movies are centered around Black love, especially in recent times. When I think about it, romantic dramas focusing on a predominately Black main cast was more popular in the '90s and '00s with films like "Poetic Justice", "Love and Basketball", "Brown Sugar", and many more.

After decades of a lack of diversity in romantic films, "The Photograph" will hopefully be a turning point in the movie industry. The reason why representation in movies is so important is because we, the Black community specifically, can see ourselves in their situation. With movies like "Queen and Slim" and "Harriet" on the big screen (which can be a good thing because it brings out the truths in our reality), it's nice to have a refreshing love story with no other traumatizing backstory behind it. So, thank you to the cast, directors, producers, and everyone else that made this film happen!

Happy Black History Month!