Ms. Marvel inspired me to keep writing

Even if it is for an audience of one

Anum Hashim
4 min readJul 20, 2022

Recently, my husband and I watched Ms. Marvel.

Besides, my husband is a superhero fanatic; we both watched Ms. Marvel because we were excited to see a superhero with a Pakistani-American background on mainstream TV.

Image of TV with Ms. Marvel title by author
Image of TV with Ms. Marvel title by author

We're both Pakistani-Canadian and could not remember a time when Pakistanis were portrayed in a positive light in mainstream movies or tv shows.

After the end of the first episode, he turned to me and said,

"I didn't know I needed to see myself represented!"

Many of the show's scenes felt like they were taken from our lives directly — from the wedding dances to curfews in high school and walking through the market for wedding errands.

We finally felt seen!

It's good to be different.

It got me thinking about bringing your true self as a creator.

I have felt the need to blend in for a long time at work and in life. This is something that many immigrant children think about because we're trying to fit into an existing world. We try to avoid the attention we might get for being different.

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Anum Hashim
Anum Hashim

Written by Anum Hashim

Finance professional / CPA on a break from corporate life. I write about money, productivity and life as a content creator.