Our Normal Is Marvelous: A Ms. Marvel Essay

This essay was written in July and August of 2023

When it comes to South Asian representation in mainstream Western media, it tends to not exactly be good. With recent exceptions in the form of Season 2 of Bridgerton, The Good Place, and Never Have I Ever, most of the time, we’re limited to side characters, and rarely get chances to play the main character(s), and when we do, it’s caricatures or stereotypes. 

But then, Ms. Marvel came onto the screen. A show about a Pakistani Muslim teenage girl growing up in Jersey City, in a coming of age journey learning what it means to be a hero and finding a “normal”. 

Ms. Marvel highlights the collective trauma South Asians have gone through because of British occupation and Partition in 1947, from the divide between Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims, the divide between Indians and Pakistanis, to getting on the last train. While the partition happened nearly 75 years ago, we’re still dealing with the effects, including the intergenerational trauma, of what the British have put us through, and in episodes 2, 4, and 5, the show doesn’t shy away from showing just that. 

Ask any Indian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi person, I can almost guarantee you their family has a partition story, and it isn’t good. This goes for Kamala Khan, the main character of the show, as well as her family. 

“The British left us with a mess. It was very hard for many people. And then there was a Civil War”-Muneeba Khan, Kamala’s mother. 

“Every Pakistani family has a partition story, and none of them are good”-Aamir Khan, Kamala’s older brother.  

While Ms. Marvel does highlight the generational trauma our communities have because of Partition, it also shows our generational joys, from the close, loving relationships we have with our family and friends to the joys of going to our motherland. We especially see the joy from the close relationships we have with our family and our communities in the bedroom scene where Aamir and Kamala talk when he brings her chai, the bathroom scene with Muneeba and Kamala, the pre-wedding scene with Yusuf and Aamir, and the scene with Kamala, Muneeba, and Sana in episode 5. I wish we could’ve gotten more episodes to see them, as well as Tyesha, Nakia, Sheik Abdullah, and Zoe. In my opinion, that was one of the best aspects of the show.

In the bathroom scene, we see Muneeba talking to Kamala about how America was her mountain. When Muneeba, Yusuf, and Aamir came to America, they just left their home and had very little money. But then, they found their family. 

“I found the mosque. I found Auntie Ruby and Humaira and I found my family and I let them love me”-Muneeba Khan. By being in their community, they are choosing love, the bravest thing a person can do. “A man who chooses love is never alone”-Yusuf Khan. 

As I mentioned before, In America, there aren’t exactly a lot of big tv shows and movies that center around South Asian actors and characters. Also, when you have problematic and outright racist representation, such as Ravi from Jessie, Baljeet from Phineas and Ferb, and nearly everything about the Disney movie, Aladdin, it makes it much harder to see someone like you as a hero. 

We see Kamala struggle with this in the first episode, comparing how she looks wearing her Captain Marvel cosplay to the picture of Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel, taped above her mirror. When she compares herself to Carol, we see her feel uncomfortable, representing how South Asians are negatively impacted by the beauty standard of America favoring the traits of white people. 

In episode 6 when she poses in front of the mirror again, now in her own suit influenced by her Pakistani heritage, she is confident in herself and her abilities. Ms. Marvel shows that the brown girls can be heroes and save the day. 

It shows positive, powerful Muslim representation where characters are proud to be Muslim. In episode 2, we see Nakia and Kamala talk, and Nakia mentions how when she’s wearing hijab, she feels like herself. It’s not shown as something that oppresses her or something she needs to be freed of.

We see positive role models in Sheik Abdullah and Aamir, and I wish we could’ve had more episodes to give them more screen time. Not only is Sheik Abdullah an amazing leader and Aamir an amazing brother as well as striving to be a good Muslim, they are both examples of healthy, nurturing masculinity. And for Kamala Khan specifically, she is a hero because she is Muslim.

In Episode 6 when Kamala and Yusuf are sitting on the roof, he says to her “When you save one life, you save the world”-Yusuf Khan.  This is a reference to the Quran(5:32), and shows that Kamala does what she does because of her Muslim values. While it may not be “perfect” Muslim representation, it’s responsible representation of the Muslim community. 

For South Asians in America, I think it’s safe to say at least once in our lives, every one of us thinks, in terms of culture, “how can I be more normal?” Whether it’s being teased for bringing food from our culture in our lunchbox and being called smelly or weird, being made fun of for your accent, or being at this divide between the culture in our homes and the culture outside our front door. That’s when I realized, and also, I think when Kamala realized when talking to Kamran, “There is no normal. There’s just us, and what we do with what we’ve been given”-Kamala Khan. 

For kids of South Asian immigrants, and, frankly, to any children of immigrants, I imagine this rings true to a lot of us. Like I mentioned before, navigating between the culture in your home and in society, trying to find the same sense of normalcy as others, it’s exhausting. But, in reality, it’s impossible. There are a lot of people who are like you in a lot of ways, but there won’t be someone who’s exactly the same as you, so your normal will be different from others and vice versa.

We don’t have to fit into an idea of normal that wasn’t made for us, and Ms. Marvel shows us that. As a collective and as individuals, we create our own normal.