In the world of Hollywood, many times immigrants and minority groups are
portrayed as stereotypical one-sided characters. These stereotypes have real
world impacts, like racism and a lack of a strong role model for children that
come from immigrants to look up to. However, many movie studios and
production companies have changed the way they portray immigrants, and
Marvel is no exception. Following the critically acclaimed release of Black
Panther (which generated $700 million USD at the domestic box office) and
Shang-Chi, Marvel has shifted towards giving underrepresented groups a
voice. With the release of the new Disney+ show Ms. Marvel, Muslim families
are at last authentically portrayed.
Anika Steffen, a Muslim American, writes that she genuinely felt a connection
to the main character of the show. She says that “When Kamala asks to
attend AvengerCon, her parents respond to her pleas by saying they trust her
— it’s everyone else they’re skeptical of.” Anika says that this exact dialogue
was so similar to what her parents said that it was “as if the show had
beamed into the living room of my teen years.”
That scene in the show reminded actress Iman Vellani, who plays the main
character of the show, Kamala Khan, about her struggles to convince her
parents to go to a party as well. She recounts “I would, like, have to ask my
parents weeks in advance if I wanted to go to a party. Like, I had to get it in
their brain, and then we’d have to compromise on what time I’m going to
have to be picked up.”
Rifat Malik is a leader at American Muslim Today, which is a non-profit news
source that seeks to offer a rebuttal to the media’s unfair portrayal and use of
stereotypes against Muslims. Like Anika, Rifat also is overjoyed by the positive
portrayal of a Muslim family dynamic. Watching the show with her 11-year-old
daughter, Malik says “There was no mistaking her delight that a young brown
girl who looked like her and shared her religious/cultural heritage was the
protagonist of a major Disney production series. I’m so pleased that she is
getting the kind of affirmation that I could only have dreamed of at her age.”
portrayed as stereotypical one-sided characters. These stereotypes have real
world impacts, like racism and a lack of a strong role model for children that
come from immigrants to look up to. However, many movie studios and
production companies have changed the way they portray immigrants, and
Marvel is no exception. Following the critically acclaimed release of Black
Panther (which generated $700 million USD at the domestic box office) and
Shang-Chi, Marvel has shifted towards giving underrepresented groups a
voice. With the release of the new Disney+ show Ms. Marvel, Muslim families
are at last authentically portrayed.
Anika Steffen, a Muslim American, writes that she genuinely felt a connection
to the main character of the show. She says that “When Kamala asks to
attend AvengerCon, her parents respond to her pleas by saying they trust her
— it’s everyone else they’re skeptical of.” Anika says that this exact dialogue
was so similar to what her parents said that it was “as if the show had
beamed into the living room of my teen years.”
That scene in the show reminded actress Iman Vellani, who plays the main
character of the show, Kamala Khan, about her struggles to convince her
parents to go to a party as well. She recounts “I would, like, have to ask my
parents weeks in advance if I wanted to go to a party. Like, I had to get it in
their brain, and then we’d have to compromise on what time I’m going to
have to be picked up.”
Rifat Malik is a leader at American Muslim Today, which is a non-profit news
source that seeks to offer a rebuttal to the media’s unfair portrayal and use of
stereotypes against Muslims. Like Anika, Rifat also is overjoyed by the positive
portrayal of a Muslim family dynamic. Watching the show with her 11-year-old
daughter, Malik says “There was no mistaking her delight that a young brown
girl who looked like her and shared her religious/cultural heritage was the
protagonist of a major Disney production series. I’m so pleased that she is
getting the kind of affirmation that I could only have dreamed of at her age.”
