Welcome to our first-ever Women’s Month Series! Throughout the month of March, we will be highlighting different women in pop culture — fictional characters, celebrities, and activists alike — who we think exemplify accurate and honest portrayals of women in the mainstream media and use their voices to empower and uplift.
Marjan Marwani is a firefighter for the Austin Fire Department in FOX’s 9-1-1: Lone Star. Portrayed by Natacha Karam, Marjan is a transfer from the Miami Fire Department after she gets recruited by Captain Owen Strand to join the 126. As the Instagram famous #Firefox, Marjan will take any free publicity she can while she does daring rescues like saving someone from a car upside down between two buildings. While her celebrity is not always a good thing, Marjan has her 126 family to lean on, even when it comes to barricading her after her hijab falls off. As Owen once said, Marjan Marwani is a big time badass and it’s not hard to see why.
We first meet Marjan when Captain Owen Strand and son, T.K. are recruiting members for a newly rebuilt 126. Marjan is skeptical to join at first, since Owen knows of her Insta fame. Owen brings up that her department in Miami may have been using her as a prop but Marjan wonders if he’s trying to do the same thing to seem “woke.” The discussion ends with Marjan ultimately making the decision to join the 126 and leave Miami behind. The decision proves to be the best one she’s made.
#FireFox
When it comes to calls, there is nothing Marjan won’t do to show off or go viral, even if she doesn’t mean to. After getting literally sucked into a grain silo, Marjan came out without her hijab on. While the 126 were quick to form a fence around her as she put it back on, someone was recording her and put it online where the firefighter instantly went viral. This made the mosque that Marjan is part of kick her out, or rather, suggest that she find another mosque. After talking with Paul, who told her to be proud and hold her hijab up high, Marjan realized that she shouldn’t have to prove anything to anyone.
Meanwhile, a little stint she did for the cameras in the second season made her feel even worse. While responding to a call about a couple who drove over the edge of a bridge, Marjan being #FireFox is being recorded on phones, showing up for her followers and being all happy. However, as she’s trying to save the husband and talking to him, the rope holding the car breaks and the car — with the husband in it — drops down, exploding. It hits Marjan pretty hard since she was seconds away from saving him, but the crew make her feel better with game night. Until Marjan sees a viral video from the wife, blaming everything on her. She goes to her house to apologize, but she and Paul see her last video where she says goodbye. They break in and find her in the bathroom, having cut herself numerous times. They do end up saving her, with the help of a dispatcher and paramedics, but Marjan doesn’t want it going out about what she did.
Although it’s nice at times to be an internet celebrity, since she gets to expose disgusting jocks and popular kids, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Marjan will do whatever to go viral, but even sometimes it’s not the best thing, which is why it’s more important to have her 126 family by her side.
The 126
Marjan is also there for her 126 family, just like they are for her. When Mateo has to pass his AFD exam, Owen tasks Marjan with helping him study since she had the highest score. Finding out that Probie has dyslexia, she hands a copy of the AFD manual to T.K., Paul, and Judd along with recorders and a certain section for each of them so they can record themselves going through the section and Mateo can listen to it. She goes through all this trouble to help Mateo and is there for him on the day of his exam because she cares for him like a brother. And it just shows that there’s nothing she won’t do for her family.
The beginning of the current third season shows just how far Marjan will go to bring back the 126 firehouse. Six months after the shutdown of the firehouse, she was as determined as ever to stop the demolition. Marjan has sabotaged equipment to set them back and when we catch up with her in the season premiere, she handcuffs herself to the front of the firehouse on demolition day.
It’s revealed that Marjan has been the only one that is still fighting for the 126 after eight months, and despite Carlos trying to talk to her, she goes up to Owen’s cabin to convince him to come back and sign an apology letter to Billy. However, the trip doesn’t go as planned and soon, she finds herself saving Owen and immigrants from a cop working with a Mexican cartel. In the end, everyone comes together to watch the 126 get torn down, until Marjan gets a message that the GoFundMe to fund the 126 got fully funded.
Marjan Marwani is all types of badass and it’s not hard to see why. From her fame on Instagram to her 126 family to her daredevil ways, Marjan is the epitome of what it takes to be a woman who stands up for what she believes in and doesn’t let anyone get in her way. While we don’t know too much about her culture and faith, hopefully we’ll get more of that soon and dig deeper into who Marjan really is.
Stay tuned to more of our Women’s Month series at Nerds and Beyond! New episodes of 9-1-1: Lone Star air on Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT on FOX!
