scholarly journals "Ms. Marvel," Tumblr, and the industrial logics of identity in digital spaces

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher M. Cox
Keyword(s):  
Comic Book ◽  
Gendered Identity ◽  
American Muslim ◽  
Pakistani American ◽  
Identity Markers ◽  
Marvel Comics ◽  
Identity Expression ◽  
Racial Ethnic ◽  
Digital Spaces

This essay examines fan interactions on "The All-New Ms. Marvel Backstage Pass," a Tumblr site initiated by Marvel Comics to promote the Ms. Marvel (2014–) comic book. I conceive of this site as a space in which racial, ethnic, and gendered identity dimensions can be uniquely articulated in accordance with identity markers of the Ms. Marvel character, a female teenage Pakistani American Muslim. These articulations are possible due to Tumblr's unique affordances as a mediator of fandom formation—affordances that are both technological and social. For Ms. Marvel fans, Tumblr affords opportunities for intertexual and paratextual productivity, orienting emerging fans into broader rites and practices of fandom participation and specific forms of identity expression undertaken in accordance with identity vectors of Ms. Marvel, its creators, and its fans. For Marvel Comics, fan activities on "The All-New Ms. Marvel Backstage Pass" are a source of promotional labor inflected with the veneer of authenticity, providing the company with a centralized means of instigating fannish promotion and emboldening an emergent audience that corresponds to institutional desires for audience diversification. This Tumblr therefore brokers the economic and institutional drives of Marvel Comics and the cultural drives of an emergent diversified fandom.

Kamala Khan, Miles Morales, and Marvel Now!

2020 ◽  
pp. 207-226
Author(s):  
Nicholaus Pumphrey
Keyword(s):  
White Male ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
American Muslim ◽  
Considerable Resistance ◽  
Pakistani American ◽  
Marvel Comics ◽  
Toxic Culture ◽  
Black And Latino

In 2012, Marvel Comics created a diversity campaign called Marvel Now! Several new characters were developed in order to add diverse superheroes to the Marvel Universe in an attempt to attract new fans through representation. This introduction of new heroes brought readers a Pakistani-American, Muslim Ms. Marvel in Kamala Khan, as well as Miles Morales, a Spider-Man of Black and Latino heritage. Given the stereotype that the majority of comic book fans are white, cisgender males, there was considerable resistance from traditional readers regarding these two new characters. This chapter examines the responses that arose from the assumed threat to white, cismale identity, the gatekeeping within comic book readership, and the toxic culture of the white, male fanboy.

scholarly journals Yes, We Khan—Diversity and De-Monsterization of Muslim Identities in Ms. Marvel (2014–)

Nordlit ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Borg Andreassen
Keyword(s):  
New Jersey ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
American Muslim ◽  
Pakistani American ◽  
Marvel Comics ◽  
Muslim Identities

In 2014, Marvel comics introduced a new character to take over the mantle of the superhero identity Ms. Marvel. The new heroine is Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old girl born and raised in New Jersey. Khan is Marvel’s first Pakistani-American, Muslim superhero to headline her own comic book; as such, she represents a move towards diversification in a historically conservative, white and masculine genre. In addition, Kamala Khan comes into existence in a political and social context where the 9/11 attacks, the ‘War on Terror’, and Islamophobia continue to reverberate. This article explores how the Ms. Marvel comic functions as a critique of the ways in which social norms, stereotypes and prejudices have monsterized multicultural, Muslim identities, especially in the years following 9/11. Conducting analyses of Khan’s conflicted relationship to her own identities and issues concerning visibility and concealment, I explore how these negative framings affect her self-perception, and in turn her self-representation. Lastly, I aim to illustrate the ways in which the comic challenges monolithic and monstrous representations of Islam through its depiction of diverse, multicultural, Muslim identities.

scholarly journals Pakistani-American Muslim women identity negotiation as reflected in diaspora literature

LEKSIKA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 83
Author(s):  
Nur Asiyah
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Identity Negotiation ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Hybrid Identity ◽  
Diaspora Literature ◽  
Diasporic Literature ◽  
American Muslim ◽  
The World ◽  
Pakistani American

Identity is significant issue in the world. Pakistani-American Muslim women faced the problems of identity because they got different treatment in the society. This study reveals how do Pakistani-American Muslim women negotiate their identity and the result of negotiation? This research was done under descriptive qualitative research. The data of the research are the words, phrases, and sentences from diasporic literature entitled Saffron Dreams by Shaila Abdullah that published in 2009.  To analyze the data, this study used postcolonial theory based on Bhabha’s hybridity and Tomey’s identity negotiation concept. Based on the research, it is found that Pakistan American Muslim women negotiate their identity by mindful negotiation namely adapting American culture and shaping hybrid identity. They change their fashion style by putting off their veils. They replace Arabic name into American style to hide their religious identity. In building the house they American building with Arabian nuance. On the other hand, in assimilating the culture to get a job, Pakistani American Muslim women must fight harder because of the striking differences in culture and the idealism they believe in.

Wampir antybohaterem? (Próżne) zmagania z rolą superbohatera na przykładzie Morbiusa, żywego wampira.

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (49) ◽  
pp. 37-47
Author(s):  
Michał Wolski
Keyword(s):  
Comic Book ◽  
Marvel Comics

The aim of the paper is to analyze the American comic book character named Michael Morbius, the Living Vampire, who appears in Marvel comics and other audiovisual texts of culture (most notably the 1994 Spider-Man animated TV series). Morbius is not only an interesting exemplification of the vampire motif, but also can be described as the antihero – an outsider, a misfit and a morally ambiguous person. The paper also tries to answer the question of what makes characters recognized as contemporary antiheroes so popular – not only in comics, but, for instance, also in TV series – and in which ways can they appear in superhero comics. null

Genius in a Box

2020 ◽  
pp. 365-370
Author(s):  
Alexi Worth
Keyword(s):  
Rhode Island ◽  
Art History ◽  
American Art ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Pop Art ◽  
California State University ◽  
State University ◽  
Marvel Comics ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter includes a 2017 article by artist and art critic Alexi Worth wherein he reviews two exhibitions centered on the work of the “King of Comics” Jack Kirby: Comic Book Apocalypse: The Graphic World of Jack Kirby at California State University Northridge and What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present at Rhode Island School of Design Museum. This chapter focuses on the relationship between comics and Pop Art, discussing the use of Kirby’s cover for Young Romance #26 in Richard Hamilton’s groundbreaking Pop Art collage Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing (1956) and Kirby’s place in art history. This chapter discusses Dream Machine,Kirby’s dynamic drawing style and influences, and the twists and turns of his career at Marvel Comics.

MS. MARVEL AS A REPRESENTATION OF THE STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN IDENTITY

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Ashika Prajnya Paramita
Keyword(s):  
Minority Group ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Identity ◽  
Western World ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Muslim Immigrants ◽  
American Muslim ◽  
American Society

In early 2014, Marvel Comics released a new series called Ms. Marvel. The main character of this series is a Pakistani-American Muslim girl named Kamala Khan. Her story is a breakthrough against the negative representation of Islam in the Western world, especially after 9/11. This research examines five issues taken from the first volume of the Ms. Marvel comic book series. The paper discusses the reason why this series is substantial in the struggle of Muslim immigrants to survive as a minority group in the United States. The results show that Ms. Marvel serves as a medium of communication for the under-represented American Muslim community. Furthermore, by accepting the new superhero, the American society itself has also transformed and it is beginning to adapt to the idea that Muslim immigrants are members of their society.Keywords: Muslim, superhero, comic book, identity, popular culture

‘You be very mindful of how you act’: Post-9/11 Culture and Arab American Subjectivities in Joseph Castelo’s The War Within (2005) and Hesham Issawi’s AmericanEast (2008)

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Petrovic
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Sensitivity ◽  
Arab American ◽  
Pulitzer Prize ◽  
American Films ◽  
American Muslim ◽  
Pakistani American

Petrovic asserts that The War Within (directed by Joseph Castrello based on a screenplay by Tom Glynn and the Pakistani American actor-writer Ayad Akhtar who also plays the lead role in the film and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for his play Disgraced [2013]) and Hesham Issawi’s AmericanEast are two of very few American films to centralise the experience of American Muslim lives in their narratives and portray their characters with a sense of humanity and cultural sensitivity instead of crudely drawn caricatures.

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