This guest post written by Bhavna Vasnani appears as part of our theme week on Superheroines.
Fans of Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow rejoiced when Marvel’s Kevin Feige finally raised the possibility of a Black Widow movie, which fans have been asking for for a long time now. It certainly is a cause for celebration: Black Widow has played a very significant role in almost all the Marvel movies so far, and she certainly deserves a full-fledged movie of her own. I was probably one of the few who wasn’t excited about this, though, because to me, a Black Widow movie just means yay, more movies about white superheroes!
Marvel may pride themselves on their diversity, but anyone taking a closer look at the racial makeup of the movies that have already aired would find them sorely lacking. Of the superheroes we’ve already seen on-screen, we have nine white characters, three Black men, three non-human characters voiced by white men, a green alien played by a Black woman, and a sentient tree voiced by a person of color (Vin Diesel, who is of ambiguous ethnicity). The recent Captain America: Civil War is an example of how overwhelmingly white the ensemble is, with only three non-white actors in the primary cast. Looking at the dismal number of women, the only Black actress in a major role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) so far is Zoe Saldana, who is painted green as Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy. The others — Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Sharon Carter, Pepper Potts, Maria Hill, and Peggy Carter, to name a few — are all white women.
Good job on your diversity, Marvel.
Anthony Mackie, who portrays Sam Wilson/Falcon in the MCU, has spoken up on the importance of having a diverse cast:
“I think we live in a day [and] age now where little black kids feel like they can’t connect to a character who doesn’t look like them. Or little girls feel like they can’t connect to a character who’s a guy, because they’re just different…It’s more so connecting about someone [sic] who looks like you, you know?”
As a Singaporean Indian, I grew up mostly on western media, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Angel, Sabrina the Teenage Witch… a lot of media with white leads and a predominantly white cast. Yet it never occurred to me until very recently in my 25-year life that I’d internalized the rather damaging notion that only white girls deserve to have their stories told. Only white girls can slay the patriarchy without breaking a nail. Only white girls get to be the heroes, and get to be heroes of their own stories. And the rest of us? We don’t matter.
The MCU in itself doesn’t do a very good job in diversity, but we can argue that the lack is somewhat made up in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The show has several people of color in prominent roles, including Asian-Americans, Black people, and Latinx characters. Chloe Bennet’s Daisy Johnson can be seen as the first Asian-American superhero on television, even though Bennet herself wonders why no one seems to consider her a superhero.
Yet despite the diversity, there’s still a lack of South Asians.
Yes, South Asian representation in Hollywood has increased in recent years, and, more importantly, has gone beyond the racist stereotypes we see in shows like The Big Bang Theory and The Simpsons — just take a look at Aziz Ansari, Mindy Kaling, Priyanka Chopra and Rahul Kohli, to name but a few. But there is also a need for South Asians to be represented in the superhero genre as well — why should we be left out of a genre that has blown up in popularity in recent years? China may be a major market for Marvel, but the Indian market is also important.
The Bollywood film industry is undoubtedly huge in India and is a part of every South Asian’s life, whether or not they actually live in South Asia. But it doesn’t offer much for women: in many, many films, women are relegated to the role of the sexy love interest, although there’s been a slow rise in the number of films that do away with this and bring in more rounded female characters in stories that do not revolve around the guy getting the girl. There have also been a lot of recent discussions on how Bollywood movies contribute to rape culture in India.
This is where we bring our discussion to Ms Marvel.
Kamala Khan is a Pakistani American teenage girl who discovers that she has superhuman powers after being exposed to Terrigen mist and takes on the name of Ms. Marvel, after her icon and role model Carol Danvers, who now goes by Captain Marvel. She’s a Muslim girl treading the lines between being American and Muslim and Pakistani, growing up in a house where her Muslim values seem incompatible with a typical American high school experience. She is a huge fan of the Avengers and writes fanfiction as well.
The first time I came across Kamala, I was blown away by how similar she was to me. This wasn’t the first time coming across a fangirl in fiction — Rainbow Rowell took care of that — but this was the first time a South Asian girl was depicted as a fangirl. Kamala’s struggle with the conflicting facets of her identity — Pakistani, American, Muslim, teenager, and later, inhuman — were so much like what I experience — minus the whole inhuman thing. And in a world rampant with Islamophobia, it is Kamala’s faith and religion that guide her when she’s lost.
Later on, she joins the Avengers, fighting alongside established names like Sam Wilson’s Captain America, Tony Stark’s Iron Man, and Jane Foster’s Thor, and fellow teenagers Miles Morales as Spider-Man and Sam Alexander as Nova — that’s a Black man, a white man, a white woman, a Black teenager and a Latinx teenager. With the inclusion of Kamala, that’s more diversity in the All New, All Different Avengers than we’ve seen in the MCU so far.
The issue with comics is that they aren’t as accessible as television shows or movies, which is why those who need Ms. Marvel may not have access to her… unless she makes the transition to the MCU. And she needs to make this transition, because it’s important for young South Asian girls to see that just because they’re South Asian doesn’t mean that they have to be relegated to the sidelines, to being the sidekick, to being the brainy Indian doctor, and so on. They can be superheroes too.
Kamala is also important because her struggles with the differing aspects of her identity are something that kids of South Asian immigrant parents deal with, especially when your parents are a Buzzfeed article come to life. The first issue sees Kamala sneaking out of her room at night to go to a party even though her parents have explicitly forbidden her to. Her desire to be a normal American teenager from Jersey City is at odds with her Pakistani heritage, and in embracing her superhero self as Ms. Marvel — rather than an imitation of Carol Danvers’ old identity — she embraces her identity as a Pakistani American teenager as well.
Since Iron Man was released in 2008, the MCU has become a brand name. What this means is that Marvel can afford to take risks in casting and in its lineup of movies. All we have to do is look at Guardians of the Galaxy for proof of this: Marvel took a risk with a lesser-known comic series, and it paid off, grossing $733.3 million. Marvel can afford to take risks, and yet, with the exception of Black Panther, they are sticking with the same formulaic stories revolving around white characters. We’re getting tired of the same old, Marvel — please give us the Ms. Marvel movie that we need and deserve.
See also at Bitch Flicks: Superheroines of Color and Empowerment in Fantasy on TV
Bhavna Vasnani is a Singaporean Indian, an English graduate, a former journalist, and a feminist. She’s also been a fangirl since before she knew what a fangirl was. She can be found tweeting @bhavvyyy intermittently and tumbling frequently.
Part of me thinks it would take a TV series to do Kamala justice – mainly the depth and range of her relationshipns in the comic – but a film would be good too.