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Showing posts from September, 2021

Why I Like Birds of Prey's Cass Cain

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Image description: character stills of Cass Cain portrayed by teen actress Ella Jay Basco, showing her casual streetwear clothes in the movie of jacket, shorts, sneakers. Why I like Birds of Prey's Cass Cain What I love about the Birds of Prey movie (2020) is the wardrobe choices for the characters.  They're practical, they're cute, they're more casual and everyday; it's the other side of life for heroes/anti heroes, their streetwear. ( x )( x ) I love that. I want to see what clothes they wear in the everyday too, I want to see their accessories.  We all know Bruce Wayne wears a designer suit when he isn't Batman, and that's been done ten thousand times already.  I want to see everyone else's day clothes! The costumes in Birds of Prey also give fans a wider option when it comes to cosplaying their fave women characters. For example, if you wanted to cosplay Harley Quinn before 2020, your live action costume choices from Suicide Squad (2016)

Muslim Supervillains: a tired stereotype

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  Image description: Supervillains clockwise from top left, Iron Man 1 (2008), The Boys TV (2020),  Batman vs. Superman Dawn of Justice (2016), and  Wonder Woman 1984 (2020). Please note the frequent use of Yellow Filter. Muslim Supervillains: A tired stereotype in the superhero genre. - I realised I haven't yet written about British Muslim actor, activist and all round great person, Riz Ahmed , appearing in a superhero movie. Of course as soon as I thought about his character in Venom (2018), I remembered that Ahmed is playing a supervillain, a bad guy; which is a typecast all too common for Muslim and MENA actors. So I decided to list all the times Muslim and Muslim background actors (also referred to as SWANA and/or MENA, which stands for South West Asia and North Africa, and Middle East and North Africa) have been given the role of 'supervillain' in live action superhero movies. Spoiler: it's a lot.  It's also more times than any Muslim actors have appeared

Abubakr Ali cast for Netflix Grendel series

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  Netflix Orders ‘Grendel’ Series Based On Dark Horse Comic With Abubakr Ali To Star From Deadline : Netflix has given an eight-episode series order to Grendel, a series based on the masked vigilante from Matt Wagner’s popular, award-winning Dark Horse comic book series, with Abubakr Ali (Power Book II: Ghost, Katy Keene) set to star in the tite role. With Ali’s casting, he becomes the first Arab Muslim male actor to portray a series lead in a comic book adaptation. The series, written and executive produced by Resident Evil and Supernatural alum Andrew Dabb, comes out of Netflix’s first look deal with Dark Horse Entertainment. Source: Deadline - This is so exciting! Congrats, Abubakr Ali! Can’t wait to see this on Netflix. Casting director, Jen Euston, said on Twitter a few hours ago : " I had no idea that when we cast the extremely talented [Abubakr Ali] that he would be the first male Arab Muslim to portray a comic book lead.  "It’s 2021 and we shouldn’t be the firs

Which nameless MENA character was better?

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  MENA background characters in superhero media: Who did it better, Disney Plus or Netflix? Surprising no one, it wasn't Disney; even the bog standard MENA stereotype is the most/only instance Disney has shown MENA in the MCU since Iron Man 1, thirteen years ago. Let's compare the nameless MENA point by point. Disney first: Falcon and Winter Soldier (2021) Marvel Studios on Disney Plus, minus points for: Racist yellow filter Meaningless dialogue that add nothing to the MENA characters Praising American military = minus 3 points to FATWS/Disney (I could list more but let's stick with the main issues)  Next up,  Netflix: Jupiter's Legacy (2021) Millarworld on Netflix,  points added for: No racist yellow filter used Meaningful discussion is had Character is shown in additional background scenes of the episode = plus 3 points to Jupiter's Legacy/Netflix As far as crumbs go toward any MENA rep, Netflix's Jupiter's Legacy won thi