Is Iron Man a Buddhist? Does Tony Stark worship Vishnu? Is Captain America a Jehovah’s Witness or a Raelian? Is the Hulk Orthodox or Protestant Jew? Is Wolverine an atheist or agnostic wolf-man mutant?
I don’t know and frankly, I don’t care. We have no idea of giving a religion to an imaginary character, come on!
And yet, yes, some push their desire for inclusion and diversity that far.
In a trailer released the day before yesterday, Disney announces the release of a series on Marvel’s first Muslim superhero for June. Or rather, a Muslim superheroine who wears the veil when she prostrates herself in the mosque…
- Listen to Sophie Durocher’s editorial broadcast live every day at 7 a.m. 50 via QUB-radio :
HEAVEN WILL HELP YOU
The character of Ms. Marvel already existed on paper in the “comics” of Marvel. But now she appears on the screen.
In this new Disney+ limited series Ms.Marvel, which will be broadcast from June 6, we follow Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old American of Pakistani origin. She lives in New Jersey and has a hard time at her “high school” because she’s different from the others, a “weirdo” as she puts it.
Her life changes completely when she discovers superpowers.
She is passionate about superheroes, as she says. In the trailer, we see Kamala at school, where others mispronounce her Arabic-sounding name, and then at the mosque, where she is veiled like all her co-religionists and where she prostrates herself while praying. Women on one side, men on the other.
This high-profile announcement of a series about Marvel’s first Muslim heroine has caused a lot of talk.
Comedian Mark Ruffalo, who plays Hulk in the Marvel Universe, applauded the franchise on social media, saying it reflected “the world we live in.”
Dear Hulk, how would I tell you that…
Superheroes don’t exist, superpowers don’t exist, green giants who rip their shirts off when angry don’t exist. So how does a superheroine who doesn’t exist (but whose religious beliefs we know) reflect “the world we live in”?
Seeing a superhero prostrate at the mosque is as ridiculous as seeing the Hulk walking around with a yarmulke. Or if we saw Captain America with a turban.
- Listen to the Barrette and Durocher meeting broadcast live every day at 6 p.m. via QUB-radio :
I can’t imagine the Black Widow singing “Hare Krishna” while dancing in a long orange dress before putting on her skin-tight jumpsuit to go save the world.
And how can we think that we wouldn’t start laughing if we saw other superheroes, outside of the Marvel universe, like Spiderman or Batman… taking communion while eating a host?
Why is it relevant to tell us what the character’s beliefs are… especially when this character is only 16 years old!
Are we going to be told if superhero movie characters are Republicans or Democrats? No, of course, because we wouldn’t find it relevant…
THE AVENGERS AT CHURCH?
Admit that it’s still ironic: imaginary characters believe in an imaginary friend, a God who is endowed with… superpowers!