Ms. Marvel: Deliciously Halal?

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Would you give G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona’s Ms. Marvel to your daughter or young nephew to read?

I think the answer in most instances would be a loud and affirmative, “Yes!” It is after all quite inoffensive and mainly concerns the travails of school and family life; if complicated in this instance by the fact that the main protagonist is a Pakistani-American Girl. The comic is friendly, instructive, educational, and has a placid attitude towards the dangers of everyday existence. It would seem to be, in a word, “safe.”

And what exactly are the dangers Kamala Khan faces in her first three issues? She is tricked into taking alcohol by insensitive classmates, breaks her curfew and is grounded, is sent to detention for accidentally destroying school property, helps a pair of accident prone lovers, is involved in a friendly hold-up at a corner store, and is injured during the accidental discharge of a firearm.

In many ways Ms Marvel is a return to the more gentle pleasures of the comics of yore; dialing back the myth of a violent America propagated by TV shows like CSI, Criminal Minds, NCIS et al.—where murderous psychopaths reside on every corner and corpses are to be found on every other doorstep and school dormitory. Can a superhero comic subsists on stories culled from ordinary high school life? Well, the sales figures on future issues of the comic should tell the tale in due course.

The central issues at stake in Ms. Marvel are conformity and difference, subjects which are  balanced precariously at this historical moment in America (and Europe) where the simple act of wearing a hijab might be cause for derision.

Perhaps the comics’ greatest achievement is to make the life of a Muslim girl in America perfectly ordinary. Part of the success of Jaime Hernandez’s Locas lies in just this effect—the way it shapes our understanding of an unfamiliar culture, revealing its core of basic humanity. Something similar occurs in Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation where the setting (environmental, legal) and motivations may seem strange but the reactions completely “human.” With that moment of recognition, Iranians stop becoming headline material or screaming terrorists (a la Ben Affleck’s Argo) but individuals in all their complexity.

I don’t think Wilson’s work is quite at that level in Ms. Marvel but there is a trace of gentle subversion about it; much of it related in humorous vignettes. A visit to the neighborhood mosque for a halaqah (religious study circle) is not an occasion for harsh harangues of deeply conservative mullahs but some questions concerning Islamic theology and issues surrounding the place of women within the mosque and society. The first page of issue one has Kamala sniffing a “greasy BLT” which is described as “delicious, delicious infidel meat”. This is followed by the suggestion that she try fakon instead (“it’s not that terrible”). Buddhists face similar philosophical “problems” when encountering vegetised meat dishes; a culinary art form in itself.

Ms.-Marvel Pork

Wilson’s subversiveness doesn’t lie simply in these small challenges to authority but in more subtle mouldings of this thoroughly “white”, Christian-Jewish form of expression—the American superhero comic.

Present day Islam is not especially enamored of figurative works of art, but the image of Kamala confronting the Avengers in the form of Iron Man, Captain Marvel and Captain America is clearly an instance of borrowed iconography. Lamps are not rubbed in the course of issue one of Ms. Marvel but the Terrigen Mists and the appearance of the Avengers suddenly within its folds do suggest the appearance of Jinn bearing gifts, and we all know how badly that usually turns out. The soundtrack to their arrival is a qawwali song by Amir Khusrow (“Sakal ban phool rahi sarson”), sufi devotional music which some might find intoxicating.

Ms Marvel Trinity

That’s Captain America as an Islamic mystical being straight from the pages of the Qur’an (as angels are from the Bible). But more than that, the image is clearly a syncretisation of well known religious forms—it is a Transfiguration with Moses and Elijah on both sides of a female Jesus. Iron Man has his left hand raised in a gesture which either suggests the Trinity or the giving of a benediction. Captain Marvel herself is posed in a manner which immediately brings to mind images of the Assumption of the Virgin—right down to her flowing waist ribbon. The birds surrounding her are presumably modern day versions of the cherubs we see in Renaissance paintings. To borrow a phrase from Ms. Kamala Khan, it’s all “delicious, delicious infidel meat.” One assumes that Kamala—aged sixteen and forbidden to mix with boys at alcohol fueled parties—is a virgin herself.  One also assumes that Wilson and Alphona are not entirely convinced of the merit of the iconoclastic claims of hadith literature.

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AND LO! The angels said: “O Mary! Behold, God has elected thee and made thee pure, and raised thee above all the women of the world.  Surah 3. Al-i’Imran, Ayah 42

 

Christopher ZF writing at The Stake is eager to let readers knows that:

“In this instance Kamala’s gods are not God, but another trinity that inspires her: Captain America, Iron Man, and the central religious figure of Kamala’s imagination: Captain Marvel….The manner in which Wilson and artist Adrian Alphona handle what could be a potentially fraught subject is instead refreshing in its candor…this scene is not a ham-handed, irreligious, or silly affair….”

The caution is understandable though obviously not my cup of tea.

This appropriation of imagery is clearly tied up with Kamala’s own conflicted sense of identity and her cultural influences (both knowing and unknowing)—a desire to fit equally into “normal” white American society and the traditions of her parents, with these parts seemingly irreconcilable. She’s a dark haired Alice in Wonderland, taking the bottle labeled “Drink Me” to become small or the cake with “Eat Me” written on it to become a leggy white blonde—all of this done in the interest of assimilation. The creators obviously thought long and hard (or maybe not) when they decided to make her a “human with Inhuman” lineage. Kamala’s vision is no more than a reflection of the mishmash which constitutes her subconscious desires. As “Iron Man” says to her, “You are seeing what you need to see.” If only Captain America was more halal.

Noah writing at The Atlantic doesn’t quite see it that way though. Concerning Kamala’s shape shifting powers he writes:

“You could see this power as a kind of metaphorical curse, reflecting Kamala’s uncertainty; she doesn’t know who she is, so she’s anyone or anything. I don’t think that’s quite what it signifies, though. Changing shape doesn’t mean that Kamala erases her ethnicity…Rather, in Ms. Marvel, shape-changing seems to suggest that flexibility is a strength. Kamala is a superhero because she’s both Muslim and American at once. Her power is to be many things, and to change without losing herself.”

And that is undoubtedly the final destination of Wilson’s story. The first three issues are in all likelihood a journey to that point of realization.

Perhaps the greatest subversion of all is that Ms. Marvel might be the most religious comic book published by Marvel in decades. Not anywhere as overt as the Spire Archie Christian comics but arguably in the same tradition. Islam both informs Kamala’s action and the conflicts she faces at school and at home.The centrality of Islam in Ms. Marvel was probably considered uncontroversial by Wilson’s editors (save Sana Amanat who is Pakistani-American) because of the ethnicity of the main protagonist—in America, race and Islam seem almost indivisible and therefore “excusable.” At the risk of stating the obvious, this rigidity in terms of race and religion is part of Wilson’s challenge to her readership in a country where the word “Muslim” often conjures up images of “brown” or black individuals. The fact that a blonde, white woman is taking moral action on the basis of the Qur’an is an essential part of Ms. Marvel’s narrative.

In Culture and the Death of God, Terry Eagleton writes that:

“Societies become secular not when they dispense with religion altogether, but when they are no longer especially agitated by it….as the wit remarked, it is when religion starts to interfere with your everyday life that it is time to give it up….Another index of secularization is when religious faith ceases to be vitally at stake in the political sphere…this does not mean that religion becomes formally privatized, uncoupled from the political state; but even when it is not, it is effectively taken out of public ownership and dwindles to a kind of personal pastime, like breeding gerbils or collecting porcelain…”

American society is “agitated” by Islam but Muslims have almost no voice in the political sphere. Kamala Khan may be the central figure of Ms. Marvel but she is an “other”—not us, someone strange, someone else—with seemingly little to say about how Americans should lead their lives; she has no religious or moral prescriptions which could affect white America. She is someone else’s porcelain collection. This makes the comic “tolerable” in the eyes of Marvel’s paymasters even while Disney enforces a policy of not taking the Lord’s name in vain in song.

The commentators at Deseret News have an even more innocuous explanation for this new venture:

“Comics are a “survey of the pop culture medium,” Hunter said, adding that the religions brought up in modern comics reflect modern society.

He said mainstream culture is talking about Muslims. According to the Pew Research Center, the Muslim population in the United States is projected to rise from 2.6 million in 2010 to 6.2 million in 2030, which shows Muslims are a growing market and topic in the U.S….Ms. Marvel’s Muslim heritage was chosen as a reflection of what the mainstream culture is interested in…Publishers are not just appealing to certain religious markets, however. They’re also using religious comics as a way to tap into the market of unbelievers, too, Lewis said.”

How wonderfully bland it would be if this was the comic’s sole raison d’être. This gentle and most politically correct of comic book stories is sometimes more clever than it seems.

 

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Further Reading

(1) G Willow Wilson on Kamala’s powers. Lots of background information in this interview:

“Her power set was actually the toughest thing, I think, to narrow down in the character creation process,” Wilson said. “I really did not want her to have the classically girly power sets – I didn’t want her to float. I didn’t want her to sparkle. I didn’t want her to be able to read people’s minds. I think a lot of these sort of passive abilities are often given to female characters – becoming invisible, using force fields. I wanted her to have something visually exciting, something kinetic…. The idea of making her a shape-shifter nicely paralleled her personal journey.”

(2)  Mariam Asad, Zainab Akhtar, and Muaz Zekeria discuss “What the new Ms. Marvel means for Muslims in Comics.”

If Aggression Is the New Pink, Does That Mean We All Have to Hit Things?

Yesterday, Chris Gavaler wrote about female superheroes, arguing that they’ve been around for a while, that people of all genders love them, and that it’s about time we got to see a film dedicated to watching female superheroes hit things. Chris cited a study by Kaysee Baker and Arthur Raney that showed that, in superhero cartoons, women and men behaved just about the same — they hit things, they saved people, and so forth. Baker and Raney found this a little disturbing; they were worried that heroes of either gender had to be more masculine and aggressive to be heroic. To which Chris responds, well, who says that aggression has to be masculine? “Because if aggression is now gender-neutral, how can being aggressive also be “more masculine”?”

Chris has a point — and that point is a neat summation of empowerment feminism, which is the feminist perspective which says that women should be able to do everything men do, especially if that “everything men do” includes holding and wielding power. The lean in movement is empowerment feminism, and so (as Chris shows) is the enthusiasm for female superhero movies and the desire to see Hawkgirl bash in some baddie with her mace. America is really into power (we’re a superpower, after all) and so it’s not a surprise that empowerment feminism is generally speaking the most popular manifestation of feminism.

It’s so popular, in fact, that it can be easy to forget that it doesn’t necessarily appeal to everyone all the time. But here, at least, is one dissenting voice.

[Wonder Woman’s] creator had…seen straight into my heart and understood the secret fears of violence hidden there. No longer did I have to pretend to like the “Pow!” and “Crunch!” style of Captain Marvel or the Green Hornet. No longer did I have nightmares after reading ghoulish comics filled with torture and mayhem, comics made all the more horrifying by their real-life setting in World War II…. Here was a heroic person who might conquer with force, but only a force that was tempered by love and justice.

That’s Gloria Steinem, describing her relief at discovering the original Marston/Peter Wonder Woman comics, in which, as she intimates, there weren’t a ton of fisticuffs and violence. Instead, Wonder Woman tied the bad guys up with her rope of love — and was tied up by them. Loving submission and bondage games, yes; bashing people’s heads in with maces, not so much.

Chris rightly points out that there isn’t anything essentially masculine about violence; there are plenty of women throughout history who have enjoyed hurting other folks. And yet, at the same time, you don’t just get out from under millenia of culture by having Scarlet Johansson kick somebody. Violence and aggression and war have traditionally been encoded male. Lots of feminists, from Steinem to Virginia Woolf to William Marston, have pointed out that masculinity is wrapped up in an ethos of force and violence — that being a man means, in many respects, being violent. And while one reaction to that can be, with empowerment feminism, to point out that women can be violent too, another approach is to say that the non-violence which has traditionally been associated with women is not an aberration or a failing, but a resource. Women do not have to be embarrassed or ashamed that they don’t like Captain Marvel hitting people; rather, they can point out that hitting people is possibly not such a great way to solve problems, and that equating goodness manliness and heroism with hitting people is, perhaps, a failure of imagination which can, under the right circumstances, get people needlessly killed.

Along those lines, one of the things that I most enjoy about the new Ms. Marvel series by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona is how uninterested it is in uber-violence. Three issues in, and our teen protagonist, Kamala Khan, has encountered exactly zero supervillains. After she gains her shape-shifting powers, the first thing she does is to turn her hand giant (embiggen!) and fish a damsel in distress out of a lake. The damsell in question fell in the lake after her boyfriend knocked her in — not in the process of a sexual assault, as you’d think if you’d read too many superhero comics, but simply out of stupidity and drunken horsing around. This is a world in which heroes exist and heroism matters, but it’s not a world in which that heroism is necessarily linked to violence.

In issue #3, Kamala does have her first fight. She sees her friend/sweetie-in-waiting Bruno getting held up at the convenience store where she works, and (after trying to call for help and discovering her cell phone is out of batteries) she transforms into Ms. Marvel and starts swinging with her giant embiggened fist.

Sort of. The robber is Bruno’s brother, and he’d already given up on the theft before Kamala barged in. She easily defeats him, crushing him in with that fist (“you’re squeezing really hard!”)…but not before she does far more property damage than he ever could have managed by himself. And then, after she lets him go (he’s promised to apologize and never come back) he accidentally shoots her. The last image of the comic is of Ms. Marvel sitting on the ground, her giant hand extended out in front of her, looking shocked and confused, an iconic hero reduced to a confused adolescent girl, as the guy she was saving freaks out and the “villain” sits off to the side looking at the gun in his hand in horror.
 
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My suspicion is that Ms. Marvel is going to discover that her rubbery hide is effectively bullet proof, and hopefully all will end more or less well. But it’s rather nice to have a superhero story where violence ends up being, not a solution, but a complication.

Ms. Marvel, in other words, critiques super-hero violence — and the reason it’s able to do that is absolutely in part because the series is not just a superhero story, but a girl YA coming of age story. The narrative is interested in Kamala having adventures, definitely, but it’s also interested in her figuring out who she is, which means (among other things) working out her relationship with her (shape shifting, sometimes adult Caucasian va-va-voom superhero, sometimes adolescent Muslim girl) body and discovering that her annoying good geeky friend is in love with her. Lee and Ditko couldn’t figure out how to make Spider-Man a man except through violence and trauma and more violence. G. Willow Wilson, though, is drawing on a narrative tradition quite different from boys’ adventure, which means that for her, growing up doesn’t need to mean watching your dad die and beating up his killer.

Ms. Marvel has been exceedingly popular (it keeps selling out at my local comics store) — but, given the low sales of even really popular comics, it seems unlikely that it will be turned into a superhero movie any time soon. Still,it’s worth noting, perhaps, that other superhero stories about women on the big screen — the Hunger Games, say, or Twilight (where Bella gets to be a superhero by the end) are significantly more ambivalent about violence, its effects, and its efficacy than the standard Marvel/DC superhero/supervillain thump-fests tend to be. Maybe that’s because they’re working to appeal to women (and for that matter men) like Gloria Steinem, for whom narratives of violence are alienating rather than empowering.