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Remember when Kumail Nanjiani first posted this Instagram photo showing off her new look for “Eternals?” This was probably the first time the actor, known primarily for his stand-up comedy, co-wrote and starred in “The Big Sick” and starred in “Silicon Valley”, found himself becoming something of a lightning rod regarding the frankly alarming body standards that Marvel has helped normalize.
There are several complex elements to this discussion, such as the undeniably racist body shame thrown in Nanjiani’s path for simply doing what her white co-stars have been doing since the MCU’s inception. But there’s also the equally hard fact to ignore that the shaping process to such an extreme extent is both unhealthy – intentional dehydration is a common way to achieve the ‘washboard abs’ look – and further reinforces the “ideal” standard that men (and especially South Asian men) are conditioned to internalize.
In a profile with GQ, Nanjiani is well aware of this overall conversation and her own place within it. “I’ve discovered in the last year and a half since I took this photo that I am very uncomfortable talking about my body – and it has become less and less comfortable.” Although he does everything he can to make his own that he chose to make this change to his body, the actor also admits that it “upset” his “Eternals” director, Chloe Zhao, who adds her own point of view that she just “… I wanted to make sure he didn’t feel like he had to do it for me.” Hinting at his responsibility to add a long overdue portrayal to the Marvel franchise and his character’s disguise as a Bollywood star (who are commonly described as muscular action heroes), Nanjiani says:
“If I’m playing the first South Asian superhero, I want to look like someone who can take on Thor or Captain America, or any of those people.
From the 60s to the 90s, I know almost all the greats [Bollywood star]. I was like, I want it to be believable. I want to feel so powerful in this role. “
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