Jalal Baig: Watching my son watch ‘Ms. Marvel’ feels like a game-changing event

My 3-year-old son lives in the Marvel Universe. Whether on-screen or with action figures, he is an animated and invested participant in the exploits of Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man and Hulk. Along the way, these superheroes have inspired his birthday theme, attire and even pandemic masks.

But though these comic characters bring daily joy to my son’s life, I often worry that they leave him with the impression that heroism is the sole preserve of white men. Until recently, there was no one in his Marvel imagination who shared the contours of his hyphenated identity: Muslim, Pakistani-American.

This unfamiliarity is now giving way to understanding however with the new Disney+ series “Ms. Marvel,” which brings the teenage superhero Kamala Khan, better known as Ms. Marvel, to the small screen. Conceived and crafted by Muslim and Pakistani creatives, the show pushes back against Hollywood’s dehumanizing and racist handling of brown individuals and their communities. And in the details of Kamala Khan and her world, my son not only finds a necessary reflection of himself but also timely reassurance that he can be the superhero of his own narrative in America.

On the surface, “Ms. Marvel” is the story of a geeky teenager and Marvel comic fangirl who stumbles upon her own cosmic superpowers. But for parents like me, it is much more: simultaneously a superhero and human tale that melds American adolescence with the sometimes uncomfortable, first-generational experience of Pakistani culture and Islam.

This is evident in the many details through which the show captures crucial parts of the Muslim and South Asian lived experience in America. Kamala is a regular 16-year-old who is summoned by a high school counselor to get serious about her future, daydreams about the superhero Captain Marvel, breaks curfew to attend AvengerCon with her friend Bruno and crushes on a boy named Kamran. At the same time, the Pakistani teenager says “bismillah” before her driving test, dances to Bollywood songs at her brother’s wedding, eats biryani, wears shalwar kameez, attends Friday prayer and wears a necklace with her name in Arabic.

Though my son is still young, I already see him responding to the parts of his own life that he recognizes in the episodes of “Ms. Marvel.” On the screen, he watches the Marvel universe coexist in the same space with the Urdu language, Eid celebrations and Pakistani songs like “Peechay Hut” and “Pasoori.” He excitedly emoted at the mention of “abu” (Urdu word for father), sang along and danced to songs, and perked up when he heard the adhan (Muslim call to prayer) during scenes.

This is possible because Ms. Marvel – both the character and the show that shares name – has been birthed and reared by those inside Kamala Khan’s community. The character was introduced by Muslim American co-creators G. Willow Smith and Sana Amanat in 2014. Amanat has since become an executive at Marvel and a producer on the streaming series. She is joined by British Pakistani head writer Bisha K. Ali and South Asian directors and actors, including 19-year-old Pakistani-Canadian Iman Vellani, who plays the teenage superhero.

Because of this, Islam is deftly and realistically handled through the characters on display. The faith is neither glorified or demonized, and allowed to merely exist as a part of some lives and not others. Kamala’s friend, Nakia, wears a hijab as a source for personal purpose, while others do not. Her brother, Aamir, is pious and bearded, while others are not.

Similarly, other cultural and religious issues that often go unaddressed or get cursory mention are also prominently showcased in the storyline. Female empowerment in Islam is explored through Nakia’s impassioned campaign and eventual election to the local mosque board. On a different front, the surveillance of mosques post-9/11 is recast through the prism of the Marvel Cinematic Universe when federal agents from the Department of Damage Control barge into Islamic center to investigate an “enhanced individual.” And finally, the painful 1947 partition between India and Pakistan and its traumatic legacy is presented across episodes to illuminate Kamala’s backstory and origins of the bangle that unlocks her powers.

Seeing my toddler assimilate even a fraction of what the series represents feels like a game-changing, seismic event. Just knowing that my son now inhabits a world in which his likeness is reflected in a superhero is unshackling for a parent. And watching him play with a Ms. Marvel figurine tells me that he can now orient himself more organically in his own imagination.

When children like my son have models that look like themselves, parents like me can spend more time telling our brown children what they can become instead of what they absolutely are not. It means that the racism and Islamophobia that were spawned and perpetuated by negative depictions of Islam in the media are finally being meaningfully countered, at least in part.

“So many of us weren’t in the textbooks, weren’t in the movies. What instead happens is implicitly you realize: I’m not the protagonist in the American narrative. I’m not the hero. I’m at best the sidekick,” Wajahat Ali, a playwright and author of “Go Back to Where You Came From,” told me. “With this insidious stuff, you learn to hate your skin color, your accent, your name. But once you see yourself represented well, and once you see diverse America affirm you, it is very powerful.”

It is not the burden of Kamala Khan to reflect every Muslim American way of life or to be a perfect avatar of our collective existence. “Ms. Marvel” should instead be an invitation to and impetus for more content that authentically captures our ballooning tent of identities. “If the population growing up is more multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural, it follows that the art should reflect this,” said Omer Aziz, author of the forthcoming book “Brown Boy.”

Repeatedly throughout the show, characters utter the words inscribed on the bangle given to Kamala by her great-grandmother: “What you seek is seeking you.” For too long, Muslims have sought fair and true representation in Hollywood. It finally seems to be coming our way, too.

Jalal Baig is an oncologist and writer based in Chicago.