The Many Kamaals of Ms. Marvel
There is much that the Disney+ miniseries Ms. Marvel has to offer to its South Asian viewers. There is the novelty of seeing a sixteen-year-old Pakistani-American Muslim girl as a Marvel superhero. There is the relatable depiction of inter-generational dynamics in South Asian families that seem amusingly/frustratingly consistent across nations. Then there is a cast that brings together actors from different film industries, including Iman Vellani (Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel), Zenobia Shroff (Muneeba), Farhan Akhtar (Waleed), and Fawad Khan (Hasan), with that last unexpected cameo sending viewers (including me) into a tizzy. There is also the eclectic soundtrack that fuses Bollywood with Coke Studio Pakistan with American pop, to give the show a distinctly hybrid pop cultural aesthetic. But what else is it about this story of a Marvel teen superhero coming into her own that speaks intimately to so many, across borders?
Kamala’s dormant superpower is unlocked by a bangle handed down by her mysterious great-grandmother, Aisha. Powerful blue waves of ‘hard light’ pulsate out of Kamala and shape-shift to serve her bidding, helping her shield herself and others, knock out the bad guys, and escape into the air. However, as she experiments with her powers, encounters others of her kind, chooses sides, and learns more of her mother’s family history, Kamala realises her true purpose. Whether it is by going back in time to restore her grandmother as a missing toddler to her frantic father at a packed railway station during the exodus in partitioned India, or by helping Kamran, a targeted young Muslim teenager with superpowers like herself escape American state surveillance, or by becoming the medium of reconciliation between her mother and grandmother — Kamala is best at building bridges that can reunite the estranged and help the vulnerable.
It is not the show’s moving fifth episode that deals explicitly with Partition, which alone addresses the theme of navigating divisions. Across generations, regions, and dimensions, we see different characters either forcefully exiled from their homes or choosing to migrate in search of safety and security. How they assimilate into their new homes, whether they remain trapped in memories and suspended between different worlds or feel liberated by this very in-betweenness, the prejudices they nurture or overcome, and the communities they choose to build — are all recurrent themes that give us much to think about.
As we see Aisha meet and fall in love with Hasan, thank him for making a home for her, and choose to stay back instead of returning to her realm, we realise that homes are not fixed geographical or emotional concepts. As Muneeba overcomes her dismissal of magic as junk, and returns to the world of her mother that she has always shunned, we learn that a shift of gaze can transform our inheritance from a shameful curse to a wondrous boon. As Kamala grows from a ‘misfit’ grappling with contrary cultural pulls as a Muslim teenager in America, to a confident young superhero comfortable saving lives in a salwar-kameez styled costume, we learn that different cultural influences can result not only in friction and resistance, but confluence and fulfilment. The show constantly challenges artificial borders and upholds their porosity. Kamala becomes a superhero when she learns to travel between worlds to serve her purpose; if she cannot undo a tragic event such as the partition that tore families and nations apart, then she can at least reunite her own family, across generations. Along the way, she also makes peace with the messiness and unfinishedness of her (and all) identity and finds conviction in the thought that there is no ‘normal’ from which people deviate.
This is also why the villains of the piece — the agents of Damage Control surveilling and profiling ‘enhanced individuals’ and the superhumanly-gifted Clandestines — despite seemingly being on opposing sides, actually are united in their moral rigidity about cultural differences. If the agents are ridiculously paranoid in their suspicions of brown superheroes and sneer at ‘what happens when the wrong people get powers’, then the Clandestines too are willing to abandon/kill their own, and themselves die for the sake of their nativist dreams of returning to their home and destroying other worlds. On the other hand, Kamala’s family thrives because it warmly embraces differences instead of shutting them out with cold suspicion; this is as true of her great-grandfather Hasan, who offers home, heart, and Rumi’s poetry to a wandering Aisha, as it is of Muneeba and her husband Yusuf, who welcome their children’s friends and partners from other races. Even though Kamala’s grandmother Sana too never feels completely at home like the Clandestines, what distinguishes her from them is her ability “to find beauty in the pieces” of her lost world.
The story encourages us to question received narratives about ourselves, whether state narratives from British officials in the 20th century or American ones in the 21st century, or neighbourhood gossip across the ages. Kamala’s true moment of self-discovery doesn’t arrive from hearing any of the several stories she encounters on her quest, but from a moment of faith in which her great-grandmother summons her and she both witnesses and participates in her family history. Repeatedly, the show impresses upon us the importance of venturing beyond one’s narrow world, and of choosing faith, love and courage over distrust, hatred, and apathy. In a world rife with religious and cultural bigotry that demands and rewards uniformity, and mistrusts and punishes difference, Ms. Marvel celebrates differences and the transformative power of our imagination.
Notably, the show also centres the power of the family and the community in anchoring the individual. Kamala derives strength from her family that finally understands and trusts her and assures her she is not alone, unlike Kamran who is abandoned by his mother for his ‘betrayal’. The Muslim community at the mosque rallies in her support in defiance of Islamophobic state surveillance, as do her friends, who risk their safety to help her save Kamran who is being hunted down like a terrorist. And it is not Kamala alone who protects her neighbourhood from harm, but the neighbourhood too forms a protective circle around her in the end. Ultimately, the show leaves us with the enduring suggestion that if given a chance to find their place in the world, and with the faith and support of their friends, families, and communities, the young wield the superpower to build bridges, heal past wounds, and save the world from succumbing to its narrowness of vision.
