Season 3 of the popular
Showtime series Homeland aired
earlier of this week. If you’ve never
seen Homeland, I would whole-heartedly recommend watching it. It’s an American
narrative of the War on Terror based on the Israeli show Hatufim (Hostages) that
focuses on the story of Adrian Brody, a US Marine who was held captive by
Al-Qaeda for eight years. Upon his return, the CIA is led to believe that he is
a danger to US internal security.
Homeland has received many awards (such as a 2012 Emmy for best drama
series) and is among Barack Obama’s and David Cameron’s favorite shows. Despite it being an incredibly entertaining
and thrilling show, many critics (including myself) argue it promotes,
according to one Al Jazeera column, “American and Israeli fantasies of
anti-Muslim American multiculturalism.
It would take pages and
pages to catch the show’s inaccuracies and racist and xenophobic undertones.
However, one incident really sets itself apart as an almost-too-clear example
of Said’s thesis is Orientalism. In Season 1, Brody converts to Islam during
his captivity (this is central to the CIA’s suspicion that he is a threat) as somewhat
of a spiritual escape. When he is shown praying in Arabic, his pronunciation of
Arab words is not quite correct. This would not normally be an issue, however,
linguists have noticed that he “seems to
have an Israeli Ashkenazi, even a Benjamin Netanyahu, accent and not a typical
American one,” according to one scholar.
It turns out that the actor who plays Brody was tutored by Ashkenazi
Jews (of which I am one). This is a
stark exemplar of our inclination to portray the Middle East as an exotic and
foreign place through the lens of an American-Israeli partnership in the
region. That being said, this is a
fantastic show that I cannot recommend highly enough.
I think that while this show may have tones that 'fantasize of Muslim American multiculturalism', it also can put Muslim Americans in a frame of thought that all government people feel threatened by Muslims. This reminds me of a Muslim friend of mine telling me that he would feel uncomfortable coming to my house and asking if my father didn't like Muslim people. Which is the most ridiculous thing someone has ever said to me, hands down. I believe that shows like this give a false portrayal of our world and I avoid them. Much like the show, The Newsroom, my father was a fan of until they had an episode where a Egyptian news source removed his scarf and showed his face for the journalists. In real life, if an Egyptian source had shown his face during the revolution--he and his family would be gone and the TV characters would not be able to buy him back or pay someone off.
ReplyDeleteShows like this lead into our public being misinformed because they rely on shows like this as a valid source of information and thought process. As ridiculous as it seems.
I wouldn't recommend it to most people, but I'm sure you are able to look at it without seeing those misinterpretations as realities.
I am confused - what are you trying to say?
ReplyDelete