My Dream of Becoming Hollywood's First Hijabi Talk-Show Host

Growing up in a traditional first-generation Muslim Canadian family, I have struggled with a dilemma when it comes to my career: Should I satisfy the vision my parents have for me of becoming a doctor, or should I pursue my own dream of becoming a talk-show host?

Throughout my childhood, I cultivated ambitious fantasies of a career modeled after entertainers like the actress Zendaya and dancer Julianne Hough. It wasn’t until my sophomore year of high school, however, when I stumbled upon the talk show The Real, that I became captivated by the idea of becoming a talk-show host. I vividly remember performing a talk-show skit in front of my grade 10 religion class and being hit with a wave of realization that this was my calling.

Yet there was one obvious roadblock that instilled a sense of doubt and hesitation within me: my racial and religious identity as a hijab-wearing, Muslim Canadian woman of color with Pakistani roots.

Inspired by my mother, I first began to wear the hijab in grade 3. While I was thrilled to do so, and in awe of the beautiful message the hijab depicts, I wasn’t able to fully commit to wearing it full time until five years later, feeling hesitant because of judgment and shame. There were plenty of other women who adhered to this practice in my high school, but I noticed it instilled a similar sense of shame I had overcome within many of them.

I eventually realized that this shame was in no small part a byproduct of feeling pressured to conform to North American beauty standards that have ignored Islamic, or any other nonwhite, ethnic traits. And where did we learn about those beauty standards? The media.

Although I grew up watching a fair amount of Bollywood, I found myself increasingly attracted to Hollywood-produced content, as many first-generation children do. I was incredibly disappointed, however, to realize that the vast majority of these productions were (quite literally) cast in Black and white.

I was bothered by the fact that I rarely, if ever, saw myself reflected by anyone — talk-show host or not —on the 21-inch Philips box TV set I was so enamored with as a child. The division between the (over)abundance of white women and the scarcity of women of color, especially Muslim women, has always operated upon me as an impression of unwelcomeness. Every female Muslim character I did see was linked to harmful stereotypes of us as powerless entities in need of saviors.

As Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer has said, “Little kids need to be able to turn on the TV and see real-world representations of themselves.” Representation matters; the images on our screens impact viewers in a real way. And yet while Canada is a country called home by over a million Muslims, and although roughly 1.9 billion individuals across the globe share this identity, our representation in Western media has mostly been restricted to token characters created in careless attempts at diversity.

In recent years, the entertainment industry has slowly woken up to the idea that representation is important and has become a more welcoming space for underrepresented groups. Take Iman Vellani, an up-and-coming actress from my hometown of Markham who will be playing the title role in the highly anticipated TV series Ms. Marvel, Marvel’s first Muslim character to headline her own comic book. Canada’s first hijab-wearing TV news anchor, Ginella Massa of CityNews, was cast in 2016, and since then has become a role model for Muslim women all over the country and has continued to succeed in her industry; she recently debuted a new CBC show, Canada Tonight with Ginella Massa. Producer Zarqa Nawaz is also doing an incredible job of putting Canadian Muslim women on the map, from her most notable show Little Mosque On the Prairie to her newest project Zarqa, a show that would be the first mainstream Canadian comedy told from the perspective of a Muslim woman, which is in development with her own production company FUNdamentalist Films — Nawaz is paving the way.

As a journalism student in the heart of Toronto, I am surrounded by people from all walks of life and am constantly reminded of the variety in our world. I am dedicated to voicing the concerns of my nation as well as creating a positive and realistic image of my people. With aspirations as grand as mine, while identifying as a member of a deprecated community, I’m cognizant of the fact that I have to work twice as hard. But I’m willing to do so. I will prove myself by following my dreams of becoming the very first hijab-wearing Muslim Canadian talk-show host in Hollywood. I will strive to promote diversity and embody hope, determination, and possibility for future generations. As Academy Award winner Viola Davis says, “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity.” I say it’s time to allow our people to access and maintain a platform. It’s time for real change and substantial advances to be taken. And it’s time to finally declare female Muslim representation.