Ms Marvel s pretty great so far. Sure, it s not flawless, and it s not a flawless adaptation,
but it s done a lot in 2 episodes to prove itself, and to put to rest the concerns some
people had after the trailer dropped not least myself. But I don t want to talk about the
show generally, or even it s reception, which has been, yeah, pretty solid, so long as you
discount the sweaty dweebs who review-bombed the series before it even aired, because apparently
allowing a female minority to play the central role in literally one of over 30 MCU projects,
is, like forcing politics down the audience s throat? Like the existence of non-white
non-male people is somehow inherently ideological? But yeah, if we ignore those loonies, people
seem to agree that on most levels, this a show that really works. What I want to do
in this video, then, is dig into WHY it works, because I think there s one key trick the
show pulls again and again that s crucial to this success. And it all comes down to
Ms Marvel s unique visual style. This show looks great. It s got a fun and
kinda unique way of visualising Kamala s perspective on her world. But this phenomenon goes a little
deeper than you might think. It s not just a cool comic-booky aesthetic because this
is a comic-book adaptation, or anything else that shallow. Let s take a step back. Typically,
Marvel films don t really lean too heavily on things like this, sequences which present
to us reality warped through the perspective of our characters. As a general rule, what
we see onscreen is what s happening. Even more visually inventive MCU properties like
Multiverse of Madness or WandaVision don t tend to break this rule. The most fun part
of the former is how the camera moves through the world, and with regard to the latter even
the weirdest, sitcom-ified chunks of the show technically do actually exist as signals being
broadcast from the hex. And, while exceptions do exist (gotg climax), none of them really
break this rule, and play with this perspectival subjectivity with the panache Ms Marvel does.
And none of these moments have the same effect as a sequence like this.
But enough beating around the bush what effect am I talking about? Why do moments like this
matter? Well, remember the focus and scope of this show are pretty different from standard
MCU fare. The closest comparison would be, say, Spider-Man Homecoming, but if Peter d
never gone to Germany, and if the climax was a bit less grandiose. This is, at its heart,
a teen drama - the arena is a relatively small cross-section of jersey city, and the stakes
are personal. The reason this isn t less engaging than anything that d come before, though,
is that, when you re a teenager these personal stakes feel just as big and important as,
say, flying cities, or interstellar battles. When you re in school, when you re going through
all this for the first time, it s all-encompassing. That s true as I m sure all but the youngest
of my viewers can attest. But while it s true that even seemingly small things are made
monumental in the teenage mind recognising that truth is one thing, and representing
it onscreen is another. If you go watch any one of like, 20, Disney channel shows when
you get older than, say, 16, all this teenage drama stops feeling big and starts feeling
unimportant and uninteresting. But Ms Marvel finds a novel way of getting past this, and
of representing this teenagerness. And that s through these visual sequences moments when
the world tangibly alters. Moments when interiority is externalised. I m thinking of bits like
this, or of Kamala s Be My Baby singalong in episode 2, where her little family home
is lit up by strobing pillars of neon light making real for us the bursts of emotion she
s feeling within. How do you represent that teenage mindset,
where our individual worries, and problems, and feelings seem like they re the whole world?
By embracing this subjectivity, and actually warping the diegesis of the show, until these
problems and feelings literally become the world around us. We don t see the reality
of the story, like we do so often in MCU properties. We see these events as Kamala does the things
she thinks are important become massive to us, the things she finds cool pop from the
screen. And while this basic principle isn t the most unique idea in the world, what
is pretty fresh is the way Ms Marvel expresses this drifting of perspective through interpolating
that most iconic of all modern visual forms the comic book. It doesn t stop there, though
the show brings this principle forward one last time filtering this world again through
the visual language of social media. So what we get here is a show whose central trick
allows the teenage perspective to innately become our perspective a central trick which
expresses this teenage perspective in two major ways the comic-book aesthetic and the
graphics of social media. And these two major ways capture Kamala to a tee a modern, hyper-online
teen, and a good ol fashioned comics-nerd. So that s the magic of Ms. Marvel. That s
the visual conceit that makes this teen drama format work so well, even in a franchise where
objectively way bigger conflicts are the norm. That s the move which connects us, through
an intensely personal link, to Kamala Khan. This externalising of interiority. It s honestly
really cool, and I can t wait to see how they use it for the remainder of the season.
A semi-related phenomenon is the way Ms Marvel displays another sort of drifting perspective
between how we, the audience, perceive the MCU, and how its perceived by its inhabitants
the way comic-con like events are popping up to celebrate- what is essentially, in-universe,
a handful of private paramilitary soldiers which team up every few years to solve problems
largely of their own creation. In Avengerscon we even see people cosplaying Loki and remember,
all these people know about Loki is that he dropped by, killed a bunch of people, and
got captured, like a decade ago. There s a growing convergence in Ms Marvel between in-universe
fan culture and ours, then and I m not sure how intentional the weirdness around this
is, but it s interesting to think about nonetheless. And look I m sure there s criticisms to be
made of Ms Marvel. A lot of people were upset by the changes made to her powerset, and the
knock-on effects these changes would have on the central themes those first comics explored
so powerfully. It seems like the show s at least cognizant of this issue, and is making
some attempt to preserve these ideas, but if it isn t working for you, then that s a
totally valid critique to have. And while there s been a lot of positivity around the
representation in the show, some aren t happy with it and again, yeah, I m sure that s a
valid response. But I do think it's worth acknowledging what this show gets right and
for me, this includes the reality-warping, perspective shifting visual trickery that
the show pulls off so well. I d love to know if you guys feel the same way, so let me know
below whether this show s passed your vibe check, but that s about it from me for today.
Oh, actually, hey, go follow me on Twitter, it s been like months since I last plugged
that, so, you know, imagine I did a smoother segue into that little bit of self promotion
and go check out my library of banger tweets. But yeah thanks for watching, and a big thank
you to all my Patrons onscreen now, especially Kevin Douglas, Ian Fyfield, and Thrawn7.