Comics as Public Pedagogy: Reading Muslim Masculinities through Muslim Femininities in Ms. Marvel

Khoja-Moolji, Shenila; Niccolini, Alyssa D.

doi:10.3167/ghs.2015.080304

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…Further, Miriam Kent's (2016) media reception study on Kamala Khan's debut was discussed in two parts of this manuscript because of its salient observations of the character's intersectional representation-a perspective that was consolidated by my participants. Shenila S. KhojaMoolji and Alyssa D. Niccolini's (2015) discussion on the representation of normal in the Ms. Marvel comic was of significance in my analysis of the participant perspectives on normalcy. Carolyn Cocca's (2016) interventions on raced and feminized bodies helped my analysis of participant perspectives on Eurocentric beauty standards and how Kamala contests this representation when compared to her predecessor, Carol Danvers.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Before coming in contact with the terrigen mist, earlier in the evening, Kamala snuck out to a party where she met up with several peers who made fun of her overbearing parents and strict culture. Soon after her contact with the terrigen mist, Carol Danvers, Captain America, and Ironman descend from above in a "celestial" stance (Khoja-Moolji & Niccolini, 2015), and they first chide her for disobeying her parents before they officially pass on the Ms. Marvel mantle to Kamala. Urdu music plays in the background in the midst of all this, and the translation is of a Sufi poem by Amir Khusro, "The Yellow Mustard is Blooming."…”

Section: Ms Marvel: the 'Moderate Muslim' Empoweredmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While Khoja-Moolji and Niccolini (2015) discussed the comic's normalcy and Othering factors, it is important to note intersectional feminist accounts on analyzing Ms. Marvel's "relatability." In her article, "Unveiling Marvels: Ms. Marvel and the Reception of the New Muslim Superheroine," Miriam conducted a media reception analysis of editorials that discussed Kamala Khan's debut, aimed at offering "an insight into Ms. Marvel and the feminist discourses highlighted by the text and responses to it" (p. 523).…”

Section: She's Still Respecting Her Religionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Muslim identity in America with the series. However, they also discussed the concept of normalcy being presented in the first volume as a white America characterized by an invisible white, middle-class Christianity (Khoja-Moolji and Niccolini, 2015). This was not erroneous on their part because the comic can be interpreted in this way.…”

Section: ) As We Recall Khoja-moolji and Niccolini (2015) Pointed Out...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Iconic Muslim Superhero: Muslim Female Audience Perspectives of Marvel’s Muslim Superheroines

Hosein

2024

Preprint

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This dissertation critiques the construction of the American Muslim female superhero where Muslim identity is treated as an intersectional identity. It incorporates critical race theory, postcolonial feminism, affect theory, audience studies, postfeminism, and feminist comic studies. While American Muslim superheroes have existed for many decades, their representation flourished during the War on Terror. I first position the Muslim female superhero in the current social and geopolitical context in the West by discussing the underpinnings of the imperialist project in her construction. In the process, I discuss the ways she emphasizes Western exceptionalism and white male saviorism; and its implications for Muslim masculinities by depicting them as savage oppressors of women in comics written by White, non-Muslim men. I examine the attempts of Muslim writers to rehabilitate these images in the Ms. Marvel comic series, ending with a discussion for the potential of both these gendered representations in my Conclusion. The field of Muslim audience studies has been overlooked in scholarship despite the increase in negative representations of Muslims in Western media. This study contributes to that understudied area with an audience study examining young adult female Muslim perspectives of three Muslim superheroines – Sooraya Qadir (Dust), Monet St. Croix (M), and Kamala Khan (Ms.Marvel). If we analyze the conditions of possibility that led to an influx of American Muslim superheroes during the War on Terror, it becomes clear that the Muslim superheroine has two functions. For dominant audiences, she alleviates white guilt when we consider the increase in state violence committed against Muslims during this war. But for Muslim audiences who are frustrated with Orientalist depictions of them, she provides relief from these depictions, making their reactions an affective phenomenon. Because participants viewed their religious identity in conjunction with their racial, sexual, gendered, and cultural identity, I provide a critique of Arab Muslim femininity through emphasizing Black, South Asian, and LGBTQ Muslim identity. Finally, I discuss gendered Muslim identity in superhero comics through analyses of Islamic wear as costumes, and class representations of Muslim men.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Ms Marvel: the 'Moderate Muslim' Empoweredmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: She's Still Respecting Her Religionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: ) As We Recall Khoja-moolji and Niccolini (2015) Pointed Out...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Iconic Muslim Superhero: Muslim Female Audience Perspectives of Marvel’s Muslim Superheroines

Hosein

2024

Preprint

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“…While most previous scholarship on Wilson's Ms. Marvel recognizes Kamala's nerdiness as part of her identity, its focus usually lies elsewhere, exploring issues of gender (Gibbons, 2017, Khoja-Moolji andNiccolini, 2015), race (Dagbovie-Mullins and Berlatsky, 2020) or religion (Peterson, 2020). One exception is Aaron Kashtan's book chapter on the representation of female comics fandom in Ms. Marvel.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘A place where everybody is a legendary hero… and a total dork’

Cicholewski

2022

EIRJ

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Nerddom plays an important role in G. Willow Wilson’s superhero comic books series ‘Ms. Marvel’: Its protagonist, Muslim Pakistani American teenager Kamala Khan is a comic loving, fanfiction writing, videogame playing nerd. The nerd community full of likeminded individuals provides her with a nurturing safe haven distracting her from the feelings of loneliness brought about by conflicts with her ambitious parents and by the Islamophobic bullying of her classmates. Reading this idealized representation of the American nerd community as a heterotopia of compensation in the Foucauldian sense, I argue that the diegetic nerds of ‘Ms. Marvel’ work to raise more awareness for the diversity of real-world nerd subculture by normalizing the presence of Muslim women of colour within it. Thus, ‘Ms. Marvel’s’ reimagination of nerddom as an open, welcoming, and egalitarian space debunks traditional stereotypes of nerds as white, socially inept young men and simultaneously celebrates the potential of nerdy interests to encourage mutual understanding between people from diverse backgrounds, as my analysis of exemplary passages from the book series will show.

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Masculinity and Muslims: Contemporary Debates

Roose¹

2021

Handbook of Contemporary Islam and Muslim Lives

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Comics as Public Pedagogy: Reading Muslim Masculinities through Muslim Femininities in Ms. Marvel

Cited by 11 publications

References 0 publications

The Iconic Muslim Superhero: Muslim Female Audience Perspectives of Marvel’s Muslim Superheroines

The Iconic Muslim Superhero: Muslim Female Audience Perspectives of Marvel’s Muslim Superheroines

‘A place where everybody is a legendary hero… and a total dork’

Masculinity and Muslims: Contemporary Debates

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