Reel Bad Muslims: The Presence and Absence of Muslims in American Media
There are over 3 million of us in America. Over 3 million Muslim-Americans in the United States and yet there are only two images that represent us. The dichotomy of “the terrorist” and “the traitor”.
On February 3, 2016 President Obama visited a mosque in Baltimore. During his visit, he noted the distorted image most Americans have about Muslims, and the President called for some deserved and diverse representation on television. "Our TV shows should have some Muslim characters that are unrelated to national security, it's not that hard to do." Obama supported his statement by referring back to a time when there were no positive Black characters on television. I grew up with The Cosby Show, but I assume the America that Obama grew up in had Black-Americans starring as society’s enemies on the news and on the television shows.
Television is a medium for current cultural climates. When something is happening in our society, it is eventually and inevitably reflected in our entertainment. More often than not, it is difficult to decipher between actual reality, and the projected realities that enter our homes on the daily through primetime television shows. Unless you are a part of a group or movement that is intentionally and actively being ignored(or slandered), you may not notice the subtle editing and manipulations of cultural actualities. I am a part of such a group. I am Iranian and I am Muslim. I am also American but I haven’t felt American in a long time. I wasn’t even aware of how unAmerican I felt until after September 11, 2001. I am a Muslim-American citizen that has felt both targeted and neglected by the media for most of my adult life.
Before September 11th, I didn’t notice that there was no family like my own on TV. I guess it is easy to be oblivious to being ignored when you have not been forced to realize or believe you are different. It wasn’t until I felt targeted and misrepresented that I noticed my absence in television entertainment. The absence of Muslim-Americans who are not terrorists, extremists, or backward and uncivilized barbarians. Muslims who grew up in America in the same classrooms, extracurricular activities, and experiences as Christian and Jewish Americans. I grew up with the same familiar television characters, watching the same sitcoms, and enjoying the same series in my home as my peers did. And I didn’t notice that my family was missing from TV because I greenly assumed that every family was the same. That they had the same daily problems inside and outside of their homes.
It wasn’t until I was desperate for the rest of American society (and some of my friends) to understand that every family was the same that I yearned for my family to be on TV too. Iranian-American author and commentator Reza Aslan put it best, “Muslims are never going to feel like a part of the American family until people start to make fun of them on TV. That’s how minds have always been changed in this country.”
After 9/11 there was a sudden and significant increase of Muslims and Middle Easterners on TV. If this group of people had a presence in the media before, it wasn’t as bold or obvious. The contexts and narratives in which Muslim characters began to appear were almost always the same.With war and terrorism being a current and consistent subject, dramas became drawn to plot lines that cast Muslims as “America hating extremists”. On most shows, there always exists the gratuitous one good Muslim who is westernized, modern, and pro-America. The aforementioned is a sympathetic character that is inserted to remind viewers that it is unfair to stereotype and discriminate against all people of Middle Eastern descent…But it mostly feels like an attempt to cover their asses.
While that may seem like a balance or an attempt at equalization it is not. Portraying a Muslim that stops terrorism in the same episode that portrays another Muslim as a terrorist, is to contain Muslims in a binary context. Muslims are more than just terrorists and non-terrorists. We are people and we are Americans that deserve complex character sketches, that evolve and revolve around more than whether or not we seek to destroy the West. Muslims can be teenagers with acne scars and crushes, they can be detectives, and they can even be heros and heroins.
Homeland is one of my favorite shows and one of the biggest proponents of this very dichotomy by which all of the Muslim characters play one of these two roles; terrorists or traitors who become willing collaborators with U.S. intelligence forces. On the show, the religion of Islam itself is depicted in a shadowy suspicious way...If you pay close attention, every time Brody is praying, it is in a dimly lit and dusty garage with an ominous Middle Eastern sounding musical track supporting the scene. Whether it be due to a lack of care or as a part of an intentional agenda, the show perpetuates negative stereotypes through blatant and extra-textual aspects. For example, when aesthetically depicting Hamra, a street in Beirut, Lebanon, Homeland shows us a rundown and scary third world place derived from an over generalization and combination of Middle Eastern imagined nightmares. Walking down this dangerous street, Carrie has disguised herself as a religious woman in order to be incognito, hiding her blonde hair and blue eyes. In reality however, Hamra street is an urbane, hip, and modernized place with a variety of Westernized chains such as Starbucks, lining the street that is also home to American University. A street on which no one would look at Carrie or her blue eyes and blonde hair twice, especially in a negative way. The street is littered with Western expats, and in fact and in reality, Carrie would probably go more unnoticed if she did not cover her hair or dress in modest clothing. Despite the blatant Islamophobic undertones presented in every aesthetic endeavor, the writers and creators of the show claim to be making efforts that challenge the potential preconceived beliefs and stereotypes of their audiences.
Homeland builds its entire foundation upon a compilation of every stereotypical political and religious aspect of the Middle East, irresponsibly and incorrectly creating one combined negative identity for the ethnically and culturally diverse region. The result and end product is a diabolical perception of an entire region and its people as one united barbaric threat. Unbeknownst to many Americans, the Middle East as a region is ethnically, religiously, and culturally diverse. Many of the countries are engaged in conflict because of their varying histories and identities. You may argue that this is all just entertainment, just a TV show and that TV shows all have antagonists and villains. However, I would argue that at a historically sensitive time and temperature these stereotypes carry a lot of weight. Especially when many Americans do not personally know any Muslims, their families, daily routines, or peaceful beliefs.
Simultaneously, these same stereotypes are used to set a tone, and prepare a people for the justification of military operations and domestic surveillances in the name of national security. In that way, Homeland is a medium for maintaining racist ideologies that have real effects, on the real lives of many Muslim Americans and their families abroad.
Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, the creators of Homeland (who were also the creators of 24) continue to receive critical acclaim, awards, and millions of fans for the irresponsible content they are producing.
When Obama called for the much deserved depiction of normal everyday Muslims on TV, he was regarding television as a means of easing cultural and religious tensions. Despite the potential television has to usher in a better and more understanding era in society, it is more often used to do the opposite.
There have been a few attempts to portray Muslims as ordinary people on television, such as TLC’s All American Muslims, which was cancelled after its first season. The show was too boring compared to the exciting and thrilling dramas that are favored, featuring the duplicitous and always politicized Middle Easterners engaging in acts of espionage or treason. Even on ABC’s show Lost, the Middle Eastern character, ‘Sayid’ was a former Iraqi Republican Guard whose profession previous to being stranded, was to interrogate and torture civilians.
I could go on forever, or at least until I bore you. But instead, allow me to leave you with a thought; almost a year after Obama’s visit to the mosque in Baltimore, Donald Trump will be inagurated. It is more imperative than ever to sharpen our perceptions and diversify our televisions. Let us be aware that the content we watch, the characters, and story lines we invite into our homes become the racial representations we welcome and receive. The President-elect ran and won on a movement towards segregations and regressions. Our art, our artists, and our televisions need to be reflections of the society we aim to be, not the one we risk losing.
