Indian man out of love in Marvel’s ‘Eternals’

The Failure of Diversity: The First Indian Superhero Out of Love in Marvel’s ‘Eternals’

I was standing in a noisy, barely contained line of schoolboys outside a classroom, indulging in my usual habit of stand up comedy. It was the mid-90s. My routine consisted of an imaginary scenario where the top heroines of the time pestered me with phone calls and visits at my house. Suddenly, a teacher, a bespectacled white woman with a nasal voice, figuratively pulled me by the collar into a classroom where the sixth form girls – the only female students – were vegetating. The teacher asked the several white girls if they would ever go out with me on a date. Politely, looking down at the short ethnic minority man wearing his older brother’s cast off blazer, the girls declined.

The point of this bizarre ritual was to humiliate me, the ethnic minority man, to show that we were unworthy of romantic love. It was meant to destroy my confidence in myself. But the performance did not work. It failed. Even at the time, I knew that I had got the reaction from the girls because they were white. Everyone knew that white women thought we were undesirable. What do I mean by ‘we’? We call ourselves British Asians in England if we hail ethnically from the subcontinent. A brief quote about a male, British Asian character from Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth in 2000 shows that the Western presumption is that we are not attractive:

Pulchritude – beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection. Beauty in a tall brown young man who should have been indistinguishable to Joyce from those she regularly bought milk and bread from, gave her accounts to for inspection, or passed her chequebook to from behind the thick glass of a bank till. (1)

British films like Bend it Like Beckham extend these conceptions when they represent sexual freedom and desire for British Asian woman as a release from coupling with British Asian men. America is hardly innocent of these characterisations. In The Big Bang Theory, the Indian Raj is the only one that cannot get a girlfriend, much to the amusement of the audience it would appear, who could not get enough of this running joke. In light of such racist, unspoken assumptions, the bizarre ritual that I was subjected to should not be seen as an isolated incident. As I will argue, it informs the representation of us on the screen. Ethnic minorities that have historically come from the subcontinent. Even when lip service is being paid to ideals of ‘diversity’, used as a tactic of selling movie tickets.

Kingo: The First Indian Superhero and Western ‘Diversity’

The Indian character in the Marvel Eternals team is Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani). This is a historical role, the first superhero from South Asia on a Western screen. In an interview, Nanjiani spoke of the grave responsibility of portraying Kingo in a representative way that accorded with ideals of diversity:

The responsibility is a real thing, because there haven’t been other South Asian superheroes in the MCU, or any other Hollywood mainstream movie for that matter… I can’t represent every South Asian person in the world, because we’re all completely different, right? So while there is that responsibility, I want to do a good job. (2)

Eternals itself has been marketed as a positive ‘diversity’ film. Salma Hayek (Ajak) says, “the Eternals film is a “huge” step forward for diversity and inclusivity in the film industry”, sentiments echoed by Gemma Chan (Sersi). (3) This marketing tactic has indeed influenced audience reactions. Oliver Jones of the Observer says that “one of the most impressive aspects of the Eternals is how the culturally representative team’s identities play into the theme and story in powerful and essential ways”. (4)

However, for all the talk, Kingo carries the racist, Western association of undesirability and failure at love. That is, Kingo is a failure in Western diversity, a continuous failure which is always represented, tragically enough, as a success. A short reflection on how Kingo is related to the other Eternals reveals that Kingo loves no one. Kingo is loved by no one. He is an Indian man completely out of love in all its variants, romantic and non-romantic.

Everyone else in the team of Eternals either loves a team mate, is loved by a team mate, or has a partner, as in the famous gay pairing between Phastos and his partner that showcases homosexual couples for the first time in a Marvel movie. Except, that is, for Kingo. Sersi and Ikaris love each other and have even been married at one point. Makkari and Druig are falling in love. Sprite secretly loves Ikaris. Thena (Angelina Jolie) is in a relationship of love and protection with Gilgamesh. Even Ajak, who appears to be solitary and celibate, has been described as a beacon of love by writer Chloé Zao, who comments, that the role called for “a woman with the heart the size of the ocean” and represents a powerful, maternal love. (5)

So this is Western ‘diversity’. Even when we are portrayed as superheroes, we are unattractive, out of society, unable to form not only romantic relationships, but other loving relationships. In fact, as we see when his film posters are shown, Kingo conceals his immortality by reproducing asexually in his Hindi film avatars where he is his own grandfather, father and self. He is like some virus outside of normal sexual reproduction. Ironically, one poster is for a Hindi film (‘Bollywood’) entitled ‘Yuva Prem’ (Young Love), where Kingo plays a romantic lead. It is only in another non-Western cinema and space of imagination that he can be recognised as a lover.

In contrast to Kingo (and the other ethnic minority men in the movie), the white man is constantly loved romantically by women. The main character, Sersi, only falls in love with white men. There is not only a love triangle between Sersi and two white men, but also a love triangle between Sersi, Sprite and Ikaris for the white man. The white man is repetitively, irresistibly desirable, the Indian man is supposedly not. Not only this, but in the ending of the movie, the white man’s love is the ultimate saviour of all humanity, in a reworking of the trope of the white saviour. Ikaris fails to stop Sersi’s plan to rescue humans which he believes is counter to the mission of the Eternals because he still has feelings for her. To add insult to the negative and racist depiction of an Indian man and white love supremacy, Sersi and Ikaris have an Indian wedding, attired in Indian costume. Emphasising the point that, even on the Indian’s own terrain, the white man is the victor in love.

Kingo is not absolutely, entirely excluded from the domain of love. In fact, he is the only one that can see the secret love that Sprite has for the white man, Ikaris. He is relegated to just looking at the field of love and not being a part of it. Like a sexually frustrated viewer who seeks solace in pornography, Kingo can only look at the love of others as an outsider. Also, Kingo dreams of being in the position of the desirable white man. While Ikaris steals Kingo’s sexual and romantic identity by having an Indian wedding, Kingo can only unsuccessfully play at being the desirable Ikaris on film. Thus, Kingo is introduced via the ‘Bollywood’ song sequence, for a film called “Shandaar Daastan-e-Ikarus” (The Splendid Story of Ikaris). Predictably enough, the dance performance is strained and comical.

Conclusion

The bizarre ritual that was played out in my youth, ‘proving’ my undesirability as a South Asian is a mainstay in British and American media, although it has received little critical attention. Because it is such a solidified set of implicit assumptions. When we were finally able to be seen as superheroes on a Western screen, all the old prejudices were added to our representation. The worst thing is that all of the female directors, authors and screenwriters that I have cited above all have something in common. Those that cast us as undesirable are mixed race or ethnic minority women themselves. Perhaps showing that racism against the self by such women is tactfully exploited by the Western system of representation.

Yet, Marvel has taken over the world and is celebrated for being ‘diverse’. So this is what diversity means in the modern world? In fact, Western ‘diversity’ is a continual and embarrassing failure of real representation and real inclusion. The on-screen portrayals of us in the West and their bizarre, racist rituals have always and will always fail in my eyes. Because I do not hate myself. I have been given love and status as a loving being in this world. At home, my nickname is ‘Sonu’ (‘handsome’).

1 Zadie Smith, White Teeth (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2000), 273

2 Anon, “Eternals actor Kumail Nanjiani’s Kingo is a genuine Bollywood superstar in these retro posters, also starring his father and grandfather”, November 12, 2021, Indian Express, https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/hollywood/eternals-kumail-nanjiani-kingo-bollywood-superstar-retro-posters-see-photos-7619071/, accessed 03.01.2022

3 Anon, “Eternals has ‘most diverse cast’ ever and is ‘huge’ step forward for film, says Salma Hayek”, Thursday 4 November 2021, https://news.sky.com/story/eternals-has-most-diverse-cast-ever-and-is-huge-step-forward-for-film-says-salma-hayek-12459569, accessed 03.01.2022

4 Oliver Jones, “Eternals’ Is a Refreshingly Romantic Reminder of the Power & Purpose of Event Films”, 10/24/21, The Observer, https://observer.com/2021/10/marvel-eternals-review-chloe-zhao-angelina-jolie-richard-madden-gemma-chan/, accessed 05.01.2022

5 Tracy Brown, “Why ‘Eternals’ cast Salma Hayek as a Marvel superhero who leads with love”, NOV. 5, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-11-05/eternals-salma-hayek-marvel-chloe-zhao-superheroes, accessed 05.01.2022

Agnes Grey by Anne Brönte (1847).

Agnes Grey is about the trials and tribulations of a governess in the Victorian period. Agnes sets out to become a governess and despite setbacks, finally becomes valuable to a family and her charges. Eventually, she opens up her own school with her mother. The novel deals with such things as insubordinate children, the grievances of trying to teach incapable and ignorant students, rank materialism in society, issues of animal cruelty and animal welfare, etc. Other big themes include religion, love and marriage, constant preoccupations of the Victorian novel.

What struck me most about this novel is that Anne was regarded as the shyest and most timid of the sisters and that Agnes seemed to have a similar character. It is therefore interesting to see how such a character who is at the whim and mercy of those that dominate tries to stamp her own authority on the world. Can such wallflowers really make it in the wider world and make any difference to the dominant and their way of life, their education? The novel is ambiguous in its message about this. Some of Agnes’s rich and powerful young charges clearly repudiate her authority and her lessons. However, even when her charges fly in the face of her teaching, some of them still think enough of her to invite her into their homes and judge of their lives. The work is based on autobiography so one wonders if it is not wishful thinking on Anne’s part that she has her authority acknowledged by others and is valued.

Because the theme is about the establishment of authority it naturally involves questions of power in Victorian society. Agnes constantly comes up against the structures of power which she longs to be a small part of but is turned away. She is frequently humiliated and made to feel her own insignificance as a person. The novel is therefore quite interesting as a meditation on what power feels like to an outsider to the system of privilege and status, the centre of authority.

The most striking face of power and its corruption was when a beauty in the novel used her personal appearance to flirt with men and then turn them down when their intentions became serious. There is some meditation on beauty in the novel but it is indicative that power of any sort is seen to destroy and injure others – is this the basis of power as it operates? Does it always need a victim?

One disappointment of the novel – again a symptom of wishful thinking – was the happy ending of the novel. The heroine endures misery throughout but finally gets her reward. The problem with this was that it was completely unrealistic and went against the main message of the novel which is that the governess in Victorian society had to suffer unnecessarily, that occupations for women were degrading and insufficient. The ending just panders to the public which always wants a happy ending.

When are we intimate with others?

Being intimate with someone in a conversation is a deeply moving and lasting experience. We feel that we have been fully understood for once, in a world where we are largely misunderstood. Swirling, cascading feelings of closeness, belonging, connection, satisfaction. The mind is flooded with good chemicals. We feel refreshed, renewed… more human. But, at the end of the day, when you review your conversations with others – if, like me, you do – do you remember feeling really intimate with another person? Take today for example. Most of the things I talked about with family members were practical and tied to daily concerns. When is it, exactly, that we are intimate? Even when we are with our closest friends, family or significant others, intimate conversations do not happen all the time. They are reserved for special occasions. As a young man in search of love, and as a writer and a human, I think the quest for intimacy and someone to have it with is one of the key quests of my life, if it is not the only one. Such is the importance and relevance of this topic: the conditions of intimacy. That experience of being fully understood which is apart from our normal, transactional conversations.

Having intimacy depends on both sides of a conversation. There has to be a type of perfect reciprocity which is rare in life, since we are all usually in a different head space at different times. For intimacy to occur, one has to be receptive and so does the other. One has to let down one’s guard, so does the other. One has to be willing to confide and think deeply, and so does the other. Such conditions seem to require the apparatus for serious thinking: time, relaxation, privacy, lack of distractions, a strong feeling in the mind, absolute sociability, the support of a strong and long-lasting relationship.

Yet there are also exceptions. Sometimes, one is most intimate with strangers. I believe there is a psychological term for this, when one opens up to someone one doesn’t know. I forget it for the moment. Perhaps this form of intimacy is even more psychologically interesting than the more conventional form. Is it based on a type of daring? Or does it seek to free itself from the burdensome judgement of people we have known for an age? Is it a more liberating and productive form of intimacy in building relationships?

What does it say about the human condition that we don’t have intimacy always? Perhaps we cannot trust all the time, and perhaps this is natural, given what other human beings can be like. Perhaps we wear armour for most of the days of our lives, an impenetrable skin which does not let others inside or for us to go outside of ourselves and live in an other for a while. If connection is so energy sapping and such a leap and expenditure of trust and risk, such an invitation for potential misunderstanding or even hurt, then intimacy may be the rare and choice fruit of our lives. We are not always fully understood. Which is why intimacy is so special and fulfilling. Yet one imagines a world where we can all be intimate with each other, fully understood. Perhaps this is the ultimate, if not expressed and recognised, goal of the human condition. To be fully, finally, understood.

Decisive Dinners and Chow Choices

Food is simple, right? But consider. A predictable predicament. Friends, family, work, any social situation. One person wants to eat Chinese. Another one wants Mexican. A third Italian, a fourth American fast food. One is vegetarian. One is vegan. One is pescatarian. One is an environmentalist. One is a health fanatic. How to choose?

When I was a simple and trusting child, the idea of choosing what to eat in any meal I had never entered my mind. I would simply just eat whatever my mother gave me. Even if I didn’t like what was made, I had to eat it. Rebellion or the imagination of something different wasn’t even present as a remote possibility. We had a rule that we could only get up from the table if we finished the food that was in front of us. It was only when I was a teenager that I started eating what I wanted and chose to eat, and, even then, my mother still largely dictated what was on the table.

Fast forward to the present moment for most people, the ones that haven’t stubbornly (ignorantly?) remained the child I was. The food landscape has completely changed. There is more choice, a bewildering number of cosmopolitan world food choices. Authoritative discourses around food abound. There are scientific demands for a five a day and various health and ‘brain foods’. Add to this all the potential negatives surrounding the idea of food nowadays: the nagging thought of impending environmental crisis and the adult awareness of global systems of inequality and unfairness in terms of food production. Not to mention the atrocious conditions of suffering of animals led to the slaughter. Food choices are not so simple any more. Moreover, they are heavily and unavoidably politicised and tied to feelings of guilt and moral reprehensibility. Is the meal I’m going to eat going to result in the disinheritance of the children to come, the taking away of the good things of the world? Has this chocolate bar been produced by modern day slaves?

The amount of thinking time given to decision-making around food choices has exponentially increased since I was a child, in the span of thirty years or so. What has changed? When I was a child, I could simply trust the older generation and eat what they gave me. Now the scenario has changed. We cannot trust the older generation any more. New knowledge has usurped the system of deference and obedience. There has been a veritable explosion of words around the idea of food. We are faced with the existential crisis of knowing, of being forced into independence and moral responsibility. Our food choices have become difficult ethical choices that cry out for education and knowing. We have to research everything that we eat before we put it into our mouths. It is no longer a question simply of what tastes good, what is traditional.

Is this emphasis on decision and choice, the time it takes, such a burden? There are some positives. In many ways, the current burden of decision over food choices takes us back to the primordial past of humanity. Then, when the human race was exploring what was edible and what was not, there was a massive risk. What one ate could have made one sick, even fatally so. But ultimately, the courage and hardihood required to chew on anything and everything led to the knowledge of what could be eaten and what was useful and productive to eat. Like then, the current situation of hard food choices and risks promises to lead to a better tomorrow and more sustainable and healthier food, as well as a fairer food community. For those that have not remained the child I once was.

What would a place without relationships of power look like?

I look aghast at the world around myself, the outside to my being. The outside is structured by relationships of power. There is the exploiter-exploited relationship. There is the ruler-subject relationship. There is the majority-minority relationship. Every relationship is one of power.

Throughout life, I have been involved in each of these relationships. I have also been systematically corrupted by power and its effects on my mind and body. I have been the most horrible of villains. In each case, context coerced a state of being.

As I sit here with a fresh page before me and a flight into anonymity, I wonder to myself if there could ever be a place without power relationships. What would such a place look like, where there was perfect equality? Where each had all the power and none the power? Can such a place exist?

In the Sikh religion, Sikhs all sit on the floor to promote an ideal of equality when they attend a place of worship. However, even there, power relationships must exist. Some have more wealth, some more influence.

One thinks of a picture where there is no power. All that I can think of is a place without any relationships. One man as an island. And even then, power will already have corrupted the individual.

We cannot live our life without power. There is no freedom from power. You wish to escape from politics? Perspectives collide everywhere. One form of seeing, reading, being clashes with all others. Without the clash, could there ever be anything?