By: Leela Xie

Over the years, Hollywood and the media have portrayed Muslims as negative figures in society, namely terrorists. Or incorrectly portrayed like the Arabian Knight, a man wearing a turban who wields a scimitar and flies on an indestructible flying carpet. But the new tv-show called Ms. Marvel is shedding new light on Muslim portrayals in the media by showing the family in all its three-dimensional humanity.

“For too long Hollywood and the media have relied on reductive, one-dimensional monolithic characters, as well as lazy sign-posting,” said Rifat Malik from American Muslim Today, a non-profit news organization that challenges negative stereotypes of Muslims from the media.

One of the ways that Ms. Marvel changes all stereotypes about being Muslim or South Asian is the fact her family is portrayed with such solemnity. In old films and television, Muslim parents are close-minded and controlling while children rebel against stifling tradition. Not so with the Khans. They speak a mix of Urdu and English to each other and to friends, and every interaction is pitch perfect.

Kamala’s father Yusuf is kind and warm, instead of the stereotypical stern immigrant. He tries to bridge the gap between what his wife finds acceptable for their daughter and what their American teen daughter wants.

Kamala also doesn’t wear a hijab. According to one Pew study, about one million Muslim women in America don’t wear hijabs, and 48 percent (half a million) don’t cover their hair. The choice to veil, or not to veil, is a private one. Also, putting a character in a hijab has become a lazy shorthand for “Muslim” in TV and film.

The themes of growing up with immigrant parents that Ms. Marvel explores are universal. Which was the outcome that G. Willow Wilson set out to do when she set out to remake Ms. Marvel as a Pakistani-American teenager.

“I spent a lot of time talking to colleagues and friends of mine who have grown up with those hyphenated identities, who come from immigrant backgrounds — Arab or Pakistani, South Asian, African — and sort asking them, what was it like?” she told NPR in an interview in 2015.

Wilson, a Muslim herself, said she dreamed up the character because she wanted to create a body of work that children of various ethnic groups could turn to “to see that they aren’t alone”.