Why a Pakistani playing a female Muslim superhero is a big deal

Of late, things have been looking up for new age Pakistani culture icons. Take 2021, for instance, when former US president Barack Obama included Pakistani artist Arooj Aftab’s Mohabbat as part of his summer playlist. This year, she has gone on to win a Grammy for the track and was also invited to speak along with US President Joe Biden at the White House’s Eid-ul-Fitr celebration.If this was not enough, Pakistani sensation Ali Sethi-Shae Gill’s Pasoori, which was part of the recent Coke Studio season, played on Britney Spears’ social media feed. They were also covered in last month’s New Yorker in an article about how the song is “uniting India and Pakistan”.But today all attention is on a new miniseries based on the 16-year-old Pakistani American comic book character Ms Marvel/Kamala Khan, which has been part of Marvel comics since August 2013. For many, it also somehow begs the question — is Pakistan prepared to see its female Muslim superhero?Best of both worldsThe comic books have been popular for a while and have a massive fan following for articulating the inner world and conflicts of young American Muslim immigrants in white America. (If you ask me, the comics are way better than the show.) It’s also a relief that it just doesn’t fixate itself on Pakistanis.As Oscar-winning Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, who has directed two episodes of the series, explains: “Once you are an immigrant and living in Jersey, you are also influenced by cultures from India and Bangladesh. You pick up your sweets from Bengali sweet makers, you buy something from an Indian shop, and I think that authentic depiction of cultures is beautiful, because this is a story about being a Muslim, Pakistani immigrant in Jersey, but it’s also about being South Asian.” medium92315958Interestingly, the series also has a mix of Pakistani- and Indian-origin talent, including Farhan Akhtar, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur and Indian-American actor Saagar Shaikh, who share the screen with Fawad Khan, Mahwish Hayat, Nimra Bucha, Samina Ahmed and Pakistani-Canadian Iman Vellani, who plays the protagonist Kamala Khan.The music features young Pakistani stars Eva B (the veil-wearing musician’s new track Rozi plays in the background) and Hasan Raheem, whose melodies beautifully meld with the score of veteran AR Rahman. In that sense, the show does more to heal the ties of the two warring nations together than its heads of state have in the longest time.The Muslim identityThere is something about Kamala Khan’s family dynamics — and her everyday triumphs and struggles — that no doubt deeply resonates with younger people, particularly Muslim girls from South Asia. After all, it is not often that you see a superhero tying a shawl around her waist to cover her derriere when in a Ms Marvel suit.Kamala Khan/Ms Marvel’s Muslimness, however, is not something that has been tacked on, as one would fear or imagine. In fact, it is the weft woven into the fabric of her becoming a superhero. The South Asian ‘bangle’ that sharpens her superpower, for instance, is not her only legacy. medium92316393This is a person who has to be constantly on her toes about ‘halal’ and ‘haram’ food, growing up in a western country; her mother constantly breaking into Urdu, the ‘secret language’, with which she berates white Americans; and the unabashed show of Quranic visual imagery at her home.The show also cleverly nitpicks on the issue of how even in the First World, most mosques do not allow the entry of women (even though the Prophet’s mosque at Madinah offers free access for both sexes). In a Muslim superhero moment, Kamala and her Muslim friend Nakia bring up the issue of gendered access, and Nakia goes on to contest elections to be part of the mosque board, which just adds another dimension to the show.The biggest vote of support for the show has come from no other than Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai. “It is not every day that I turn on the TV and find a character who eats the same food, listens to the same music or uses the same Urdu phrases as me,” she said in a tweet. “What a joy to see Ms Marvel reflect the lives of a Pakistani immigrant family and reveal a young superhero whose powers connect to her heritage.” medium92315966For me, it’s a cause of celebration that Pakistan has got its first Muslim superhero on the screen. For far too long, fans have lived vicariously through either Bangladeshi actresses playing Padma and Parvati in the Harry Potter series; or feeling acknowledged if they see a character wearing a hijab (who’s not a suicide bomber). Even the shimmer of a salwar kameez and a refrain of a Bollywood song is seen as a nod to diversity.What is inspiring to Pakistani audiences is that Ms Marvel meets all the codes of being a superhero in her own South Asian and Muslim self. She does not need Anglo America to liberate her from a structurally oppressive and patriarchal household. Her brother is a committed Muslim, but it is not the mainstay of a storyline, where Kamala is the domesticated and subjugated person in want of “liberation” from the yoke of Muslim men.She is an all-out, unabashed Muslim superhero. As Iman, the actor who plays her, shares: “I don’t think we can represent all 2 billion Muslims and South Asians, but it’s a start. And I think it’s great that we are showing, you know, Muslims on screen having fun.”It is these cultural spaces that need to be celebrated and I believe Pakistani audiences are ready for that. Perhaps, while writing, the Ms Marvel team thought that they were merely capturing the everyday life of Pakistanis and Muslims, but a closer viewing reveals the power of young Muslim women living their everyday lives. medium92315280The Pak film judges at Cannes fell in love with medium92315295