#330: Josué, Lara, Marc, and special guest host Sophia Ansari discuss Ms. Marvel, the importance of positive cultural representation, and the joy of seeing yourself in media. It’s Halal!

Josué Cardona 0:11
Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy we believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. My name is Josué Cardona. And joining me today is Marc Cuiriz

Marc Cuiriz 0:22
Hello,

Josué Cardona 0:23
Lara Taylor.

Lara Taylor 0:24
Hey,

Josué Cardona 0:26
and special guests. And I believe first time on GT Radio. Sophie Ansari

Sophia Ansari 0:31
hello

Josué Cardona 0:34
The Sophie Ansari from Hero Nation.

Sophia Ansari 0:37
Yes. That’s me.

Josué Cardona 0:38
Welcome.

Sophia Ansari 0:41
Thank you. It’s so good to be here. Oh, I feel so happy.

Josué Cardona 0:46
So I did not want to talk about Ms. Marvel without you. And so it was actually it was Lara, who suggested that we need to talk about Miss Marvel and I agree. And I think and I’m curious how you. Yeah, Sophia? What does Ms. Marvel as a character, mean to you?

Sophia Ansari 1:08
So how much time do we have Josué? I told you I have a journal full of thoughts. It’s like my dissertation.

Lara Taylor 1:17
Six hours CE course right here.

Sophia Ansari 1:20
Totally do. That is such a good idea. No, I Okay. Yeah. So I hope you know, if I cry, I know I’m in a safe place. But Oh, Miss Marvel, what can I say? I’ve been processing this for six weeks with friends with my therapist who? Goodness, she doesn’t know anything about comics. But she’s learned so much this past month.

Josué Cardona 1:46
And I’m curious about like, even before the show, rather than just the character in general. Because we’ve talked about this character first first, for so long. You and I Sophia, but just like on GT radio, we’ve talked about Ms. Marvel, so so, so much. And she’s come such a long way. Over the years. Like I was explaining to a friend, Ali from the show. I was like, Oh, the Avengers game like Kamala Khan is the protagonist of that game. Right? And he’s like, you know, that’s like, that’s like now that even with the show out, right, so so she’s incredibly popular character. Yeah. So I’m curious, you know, even before the show.

Sophia Ansari 2:24
Yeah, I mean, reading I growing up, read comic books. And you know, I love love storm, because, hey, you know, she’s not white. And I’m like, Oh, I can, I can see myself in her and always looking for someone who looks like me. Of course, always a fan of, you know, I love Batman and Superman. They mean so much to me. But when Kamala came along, it was the first time where I was like, oh, that’s me, you know, this geeky Brown, Pakistani Muslim girl. You know, I always say, you know, she’s from she’s from Jersey City. I’m from Ohio, which is basically like the same thing she loves wolverine. I find him very attractive, you know, like, geeked out over the same things. And so I just felt like it was like, somebody went back in time, and recorded me as a young, teen, geeky Brown Girl in Ohio. And yeah, made a story. And yeah, she’s always made me feel seen. And so she’s always been just this very special character. I’ve known her and loved her since the very beginning. When I found her, I was like, wait, what, you know, even just to see the word like Pakistani in anything. That was a big deal for me. Cuz a lot of people don’t even understand where Pakistan is. You know, they don’t you know, so. So that was important. So yeah, she’s always been such an important. Yeah, piece of art for me. And then the show comes along. And here we go. Again. Now it’s an actions and it’s, you know, on TV on this other scale, this other whole piece of art, right, we’ve got the comic books, which alone are magnificent, and amazing and funny. But now you have this other piece of art that we can appreciate in a whole new way. And I feel seen again, and I’ve been telling people when within anticipation of the show, you know, sort of worried like, oh, I don’t know, you know, how are they going to do this? And I didn’t even realize the weight I was carrying from the trauma of Muslim depictions and misrepresentations in the media. Like I didn’t even realize I was carrying all of that until I watched the first episode. All of that was lifted away. It was just lifted away. And there’s a lot of my friends that haven’t seen the show. I assuming you all have watched it from Okay, okay. So there’s a lot of my Muslim friends, my Pakistani Muslim friends who actually haven’t watched it. And I’ve been trying to process and understand why. And I realize it’s because, again, we just have decades of misrepresentation, that we don’t want to believe we can have meaningful representation, right? We’re like, expect to be hurt again. Because we’ve just been through so much all the depictions that are out there in the movies and TV of Muslims. You know, we know they’re always vilified or their terrorist or whatever, you know, all of that I felt personal ramifications of that as a Muslim American woman in America, and I wear a headscarf. So there’s also this other target. So I’ve personally felt the ramifications of the depiction in media. So this show, this show is just so meaningful in so many ways, because it really just humanizes Muslims. Right? And they’re just like, normal people. So yeah, I don’t know how much time that was, but I can keep going on. I want to hear your thoughts and not just keep going on and on. But yeah, she just means a lot.

Josué Cardona 6:05
Yeah, we’re gonna touch on a whole bunch of that. And I know for, for me. As someone who actually grew up in New Jersey, and have been to Ohio, I’m not sure how similar those two have been. I haven’t seen all of Ohio. I’ve loved the character for a long time. And, and this show just, I think part of part of part of what has surprised me, and I’m sure we’ll get into all of this is I carry that same fear for Hispanic representation. So I carry it for everybody who’s not white. Right, like every time like, oh, here we go. Because I, I know what it’s like to see. And actually, I heard the actress who plays Kamala on the show, I saw a piece of an interview with her yesterday, where she said, every time you know, you’re, you’re on screen, it’s like, that is representative of your entire culture. And because this show is it’s Kamala, it’s her family, it’s the mosque, it’s the community. And then you get to see so many this, this is the part that surprised me, and I Link isn’t here to remind us that like Disney as a corporation of Marvel, the corporation above all that stuff, but like that, that is true, and seeing how it feels like they care so much to show so many aspects of a culture that I I’m not very familiar with. And most people aren’t unless that’s the community you live in, or you’re close to that, right. And there’s so many, so many cultures that that we don’t get to see like that. And if this was, I don’t know, it felt so responsible and so full of care and like, positive intent, you know, or like, there was, it was, I am, I am shocked. I am shocked by by what this show did. And I’m curious to hear from you, Sophia how I’m shocked that they just did they tried. And I’m assuming that it’s positive representation based on on tik tok alone. So, and I’m curious how you feel about you know, specific things, but, but yeah, like this, this show blew away, like blew me away, and my expectations were or had been surpassed so much. And that’s just like, that’s just on tone ...