Thread by @luminatus1

“The representation of Muslims on screen feeds the policies that get enacted, the people that get killed, the countries that get invaded. The data doesn’t lie. This study shows us the scale of the problem in popular film & its cost is measured in lost potential and lost lives.”

pointed out the shortcomings of Marvel blockbuster Black Panther (“one of the most woke progressive mainstream moments in our culture in recent years”) in which Muslims appear in the opening scenes as terrorists carrying out a kidnap.

“The progress that’s being made by a few of us doesn’t paint an overall picture of progress if most of the portrayals of Muslims on screen are either nonexistent or entrenched in those stereotypical, toxic, two-dimensional portrayals.”

amp.theguardian.com/film/2021/jun/…

“Representation is not an added thrill [because] what people are looking for is a message that they belong,” he said. Soon after, the Riz test – the equivalent of the Bechdel test for the representation of Muslims in the media – was established. Its

theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2…

Its criteria ask whether the characters in a TV show or film are identifiably Muslim, & then whether they are a terrorist; irrationally angry; anti-modern; a threat to western values; or a misogynist (or in the case of a female character, oppressed by male characters)

In his speech, Ahmed went on to ask: “Where’s the counter-narrative? Where are we telling these kids that they can be heroes in our stories, that they are valued?” While more Muslims are represented on our TV screens than ever, it seems that representation isn’t the easy utopia

isn’t the easy utopia that many imagined it would be. Nuance is lacking, & the representation that does exist leans towards a male-oriented presence. As diversity boxes are ticked, and hijabs scattered here & there, the nuance of Muslim identities is strangled further

Dr Nour Halabi, lecturer in race, migration and social movements at Leeds University, says the representation of Muslims in the media and entertainment emphasises “their position as what I call a ‘permanent and impossible enemy’, with a particular emphasis on terrorism.

The impossibility of defeating this presumed enemy is then often attributed to their deviousness and manipulative behaviour – take, for example, Bodyguard, where the show’s plot hinges on the Muslim character lying about her sympathies until the very end.”

Indeed, one of the most notable roles for a Muslim woman on the BBC in the past few years was in the hit Jed Mercurio thriller, released in 2018. The series initially establishes Nadia as a victim who needs to be saved from her husband, a terrorist, but a twist reveals that she

but a twist reveals that she is in fact the terrorist mastermind. The show won a Bafta and was nominated for two Emmys, the acknowledgment from both these institutions further legitimising the regressive stereotypes it employed.

Netflix’s Bard of Blood, produced by Bollywood-royalty Shahrukh Khan, also features Muslims in the default role of terrorists. Even Amazon’s fantastical superhero show The Boys, where vigilantes fight against those who abuse their power, overbearingly presents Muslims as a threat

fight against those who abuse their power, overbearingly presents Muslims as a threat to western values.
In the recent ITV production, Honour – based on the real-life story of 17-year-old British Iraqi-Kurdish Banaz Mahod, who was the victim of an “honour” killing by her family

who was the victim of an “honour” killing by her family in 2006 – the narrative focuses not on Mahmod but on the white police officer who investigates her case.

One persistent trope is that of empowerment coming solely from distancing oneself from religion, with a hijab removal scene now a shorthand gesture in film and TV to show a Muslim woman’s rejection of faith and adoption of western freedoms.

Netflix’s Spanish teen drama Elite used this trope; in a key scene, we see one of the show’s leads, Nadia, walk into a club having removed her headscarf, before going on to drink alcohol & have sex with a white classmate.

Instead of a nuanced approach to her identity, the once-oppressed teenager must make a statement.
Representation is dependent on who is in control of the narrative, and it often does not seem to involve Muslim creators.

Apple TV’s Hala faced similar backlash last year despite being written by Minhal Baig, who based the film on her own experience as a Pakistani-Muslim teenager. The film attempts a more complex portrayal of the life of a Pakistani Muslim hijabi, navigating her faith and culture.

While it is it a good effort, the film falls somewhere between trying 2 overcome these tropes, & playing into them. At the end of the film Hala decides to remove her hijab – though there has been no buildup to this decision, or a sense that she has been struggling with wearing it

while minor male characters are allowed room for growth & complexity. Culture writer Shamira Ibrahim reflected in The Atlantic in 2019: “Muslim women are indeed varied & complicated, but portraying them as largely absent of agency, or somehow wholly separate from the temptations

wholly separate from the temptations or crises that Ramy himself navigates, excludes them from the modern millennial existence in a way that rings false”.