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shapinglightAll right, I suppose I might as well just do it.
This article (which contains extensive spoilers for Homeland) explains far better than I could why I find the show so problematic, while some of the comments on the article explain why I've said very little about it so far.
I watched the entire first series with all my hackles raised and 'this is racist' warning bells going off in my head. And I'm watching season 2 feeling the same way.
More behind cut, with spoilers up to ep 2 of season 2, which is as far as we've got this side of the Pond.
In fact, I don't know why I'm watching it at all. Maybe because I still have a possibly deluded hope that there'll be more to it than Muslim=evil and anyone with an Arab name, if not a terrorist themselves, is obviously involved in terrorism somehow. But as of two episodes in, it doesn't look that way. Even the apparently decent imam of the mosque in season 1 turned out to be knowingly harbouring a wanted terrorist (Walker). Also, just when I thought of something positive the show could have done with Brody - wannabe senator announces he's a Muslim, tells the American public to deal with it - I realised it can't be done because Brody is a cold-blooded murderer and he'll have to be punished for that at some point. Besides, we all know he only became a Muslim because of Stockholm Syndrome.
Not to mention the show has stretched the bounds of credibility yet again in the first two eps of season 2, giving us not only an alliance between Al-Qaida and Hezbollah (like that's ever going to happen), but an apparently westernised Arab female character (with a Brit accent, no less, so that's two Hollywood villain stereotypes rolled into one) who is an Al-Qaida agent. All I can say is, not bloody likely. Al-Qaida is not the KGB. And in case we had any doubts what their kind of hardline view is of women who think for themselves, or behave in a way they don't consider appropriate, there's a fourteen year old girl with a bullet wound in her head in a Birmingham hospital to remind us.
But anyway, the sheer WTF-ness aside, it's the show's pandering to what is already rampant paranoia that gets me.
Okay, as some of the comments on the article point out, Homeland is a drama. Anyone who confuses it with reality is stupid. But really, would a little more nuance have hurt the show that much? I really thought we were going to get that in season 1 - that there'd be a 'good' Muslim character in the mix somewhere to balance all the bad ones - but I was wrong.
As it is, you get a way more balanced view of a Muslim community in Citizen Khan.
YMMV, of course, and I probably still will watch it, if only because it would be hypocritical to criticise something I haven't watched.
This article (which contains extensive spoilers for Homeland) explains far better than I could why I find the show so problematic, while some of the comments on the article explain why I've said very little about it so far.
I watched the entire first series with all my hackles raised and 'this is racist' warning bells going off in my head. And I'm watching season 2 feeling the same way.
More behind cut, with spoilers up to ep 2 of season 2, which is as far as we've got this side of the Pond.
In fact, I don't know why I'm watching it at all. Maybe because I still have a possibly deluded hope that there'll be more to it than Muslim=evil and anyone with an Arab name, if not a terrorist themselves, is obviously involved in terrorism somehow. But as of two episodes in, it doesn't look that way. Even the apparently decent imam of the mosque in season 1 turned out to be knowingly harbouring a wanted terrorist (Walker). Also, just when I thought of something positive the show could have done with Brody - wannabe senator announces he's a Muslim, tells the American public to deal with it - I realised it can't be done because Brody is a cold-blooded murderer and he'll have to be punished for that at some point. Besides, we all know he only became a Muslim because of Stockholm Syndrome.
Not to mention the show has stretched the bounds of credibility yet again in the first two eps of season 2, giving us not only an alliance between Al-Qaida and Hezbollah (like that's ever going to happen), but an apparently westernised Arab female character (with a Brit accent, no less, so that's two Hollywood villain stereotypes rolled into one) who is an Al-Qaida agent. All I can say is, not bloody likely. Al-Qaida is not the KGB. And in case we had any doubts what their kind of hardline view is of women who think for themselves, or behave in a way they don't consider appropriate, there's a fourteen year old girl with a bullet wound in her head in a Birmingham hospital to remind us.
But anyway, the sheer WTF-ness aside, it's the show's pandering to what is already rampant paranoia that gets me.
Okay, as some of the comments on the article point out, Homeland is a drama. Anyone who confuses it with reality is stupid. But really, would a little more nuance have hurt the show that much? I really thought we were going to get that in season 1 - that there'd be a 'good' Muslim character in the mix somewhere to balance all the bad ones - but I was wrong.
As it is, you get a way more balanced view of a Muslim community in Citizen Khan.
YMMV, of course, and I probably still will watch it, if only because it would be hypocritical to criticise something I haven't watched.