Ms Marvel is an upcoming American television miniseries created by Bisha K. Ali for the streaming service Disney+, based on the Marvel Comics featuring the character Kamala Khan / Ms Marvel. It is intended to be the seventh television series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) produced by Marvel Studios, sharing continuity with the films of the franchise. Ali serves as a head writer with Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah leading the directing team.
Iman Vellani stars as Kamala Khan / Ms Marvel, with Matt Lintz, Yasmeen Fletcher, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Saagar Shaikh, Rish Shah, Laurel Marsden, Adaku Ononogbo, Laith Nakli, Travina Springer, and Aramis Knight also star. The series was announced with Ali's involvement in August 2019.
Asian Voice was able to watch the first few episodes of Ms Marvel which came across as one of the first non-stereotyped representations of South Asians, with a beautiful mix of Hindi, Urdu and English along with a dose of Bollywood. We spoke to the lead actors about it.
Speaking exclusively to Asian Voice, Rish Shah said, “I'm so glad that you saw it in a positive light. I mean, it was definitely approached in that way. And for example, you mentioned code-switching. Now that's something we both (Rish and Iman) have grown up around., I grew up in a family where my parents are talking in Gujarati and Hindi the majority of the time. So the fact that that in itself is represented through all this family is so special to be able to see and even music as you say, yeah, that's such a key factor.”
Iman Vellani who plays the role of Ms Marvel (Kamala Khan) told the newsweekly, “It's a wonderful modern American cultural mix, a mix with like how immigrant children see, Bollywood in Pakistan. Honestly, just watching Yasmeen Fletcher as Nakia Bahadir say ‘Eid Mubarak’ in the most beautiful Arabic accent makes my day every single time I watch it. It's like the little things like that really make our show unique and honestly, specificities are why it's it's so real. Every time you see brown people in Hollywood, they're so generalised because you cannot represent 2billion Muslims in South Asia in one character. That's impossible and our show can't do that either. But we've told one specific story about one specific girl and one specific Muslim family. And hopefully, this just opens doors for more people to tell you to know, their specific stories.”
