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Jun. 20th, 2022 01:30 pmThe Ms. Marvel Disney+ show is two episodes in and it's great! If you liked the comics, you'll love the way they're adapting the visual style into a live action show, and the characters are great and complicated and fun.
But it's also kind of a punch in the nose how much the show is about Kamala and her cultural background. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's great. Muslims dance in this show! And there are lots of different kinds of Muslims representing a diversity of viewpoints and attitudes and senses of identity and approaches to American life.
But "Jews danced" in Hawkeye in the sense that a character danced whose never-appearing sister had a mezuzah on her apartment door, with no acknowledgment in dialogue of any Jewish identity. And "Jews danced" in Moon Knight in the sense that the alter-ego of a Jewish character, whose Jewish identity is acknowledged in the observance of shiva for his brother and a Star of David necklace but not in any way in the dialogue, briefly dances. The alter-ego might be considered Jewish, but he never says anything to indicate such an identification.
And Ms. Marvel shows how possible it is to tell stories in the MCU where religious and ethnic identity informs characters in rich, deep ways. And I love it, I've loved every minute of it so far, but also I keep watching and thinking why couldn't the Jews also get that? I'm sick of having to do all this work just to read the faintest glimmers of Jewish identity into the MCU.
But it's also kind of a punch in the nose how much the show is about Kamala and her cultural background. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's great. Muslims dance in this show! And there are lots of different kinds of Muslims representing a diversity of viewpoints and attitudes and senses of identity and approaches to American life.
But "Jews danced" in Hawkeye in the sense that a character danced whose never-appearing sister had a mezuzah on her apartment door, with no acknowledgment in dialogue of any Jewish identity. And "Jews danced" in Moon Knight in the sense that the alter-ego of a Jewish character, whose Jewish identity is acknowledged in the observance of shiva for his brother and a Star of David necklace but not in any way in the dialogue, briefly dances. The alter-ego might be considered Jewish, but he never says anything to indicate such an identification.
And Ms. Marvel shows how possible it is to tell stories in the MCU where religious and ethnic identity informs characters in rich, deep ways. And I love it, I've loved every minute of it so far, but also I keep watching and thinking why couldn't the Jews also get that? I'm sick of having to do all this work just to read the faintest glimmers of Jewish identity into the MCU.