COMM 380:  Media Criticism

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Putting a Muslim character on a television screen has never been the norm.

 

It has never been easy to visibly depict a character as Muslim. As time progressed, throughout the shifting

ideological and political contexts in the U.S., we have observed explicit and implicit changes in the patterns and stereotypes that have been following Muslims around for decades.

 

Nonetheless, with the many headways made toward creating a more inclusive and representative environment, Muslims still face the issue of being inaccurately depicted, whitewashed, otherized, exotified, normalized; in other words, there is still a gap between the media industry and everyday Muslims (Ryzik, 2016).

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This gap is further augmented with the deep-seated effects seen in the post 9/11 era, defining what it means to be a Muslim in America.

 

Even before the attacks on 9/11, Muslims were still being depicted “as misogynistic brutes with backward and mysterious customs” (Nittle, 2019). Muslims were almost always depicted in the camel-desert setting, diamond shop owners, belly dancers, anti-Americans, foreign villains, oppressed women, etc. all of which are tropes that follow suit with political agendas of the time.

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In the aftermath of 9/11, the widespread discourse around Muslims saw a major shift towards violence, terrorism, and savagery, mounting strong Islamophobic sentiment. Here, we see this widely cited notion in the field of communication, particularly cultivation theory, come to full effect: media as a mirror to society. In a society widely dominated by fear resulting from the war on terror, attitudes towards the Islamic faith and public sentiments about Arabs and Muslims developed and seeped into all forums that contribute to public opinion-making (Panagopoulos, 2006). It wasn’t before years of healing that shows began seeing purpose in diversity, and somehow, it’s still at a bare minimum. ABC’s hit drama, Quantico, gained quick exposure by heavily advertising the soon-to-be recurring Muslim characters. Eager viewers saw the prospective hijab-wearing female character and just had one request: “please don’t let her be a stereotype” (Gandhi, 2015). The excitement around Quantico finally normalizing Muslims momentarily distracted viewers from hyper-patriot and oppressive stereotypes depicted through the effects of exoticization and Otherization.

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There is ample discussion around the presence of microaggressions, “subtle and covert manifestations of bias,” in the life experience of gender & sexual minorities and people of color, but barely any research around the microaggressions facing religious minorities (Hanson, 2019).

 

A study around the depiction of Muslims in TV found six themes of microaggressions that raised red flags: 1) Endorsing Religious Stereotypes of Muslims as Terrorists, 2) Pathology of the Muslim Religion, 3) Assumption of Religious Homogeneity, 4) Exoticization, 5) Islamophobic and Mocking Language, and 6) Alien in Own Land (Nadal et al.,2012). According to Nadal, Griffin, Hamit, Leon, Tobio and Rivera (2012), exoticization is instances where people view other religions as trendy or foreign. Otherization comprises the actions taken to equate certain religious traditions as abnormal, inferior, or homogenous. (Nadal et al.,2012). It’s no surprise that within just a couple of years, a hit ABC drama, Quantico, raised red flags just as it was trying to dodge them. The reality of the matter is that writing twin, female, Muslim characters is just not an easy feat, and it might never be so long as the characters’ identities are centered around their faith.

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ABC’s Quantico is a TV drama about a unit of FBI recruits who find themselves in the middle of a terrorist plot. In efforts to shatter the expectation of the foreign immigrant antagonist, Lebanese-born Yasmine Al Massri was cast for the roles of both Muslim FBI agents, Nimah and Raina Amin. What should have been an effort to normalize Muslim characters living a normal everyday life ironically turned into a miscarried attempt to represent rarities on American television. While showrunner Josh Safran vowed to never cast a Muslim terrorist on the show, conveniently placing two Muslim recruits just wasn’t enough.

 

The Quantico twins quickly became fan favorites especially among young Muslims who yearn to see someone that looks and lives like them. Except here, the hijab-wearing twin often has to endure uncomfortable conversations with colleagues about her personal choices, clothing, and love life. Given that well-rounded, badass Muslim women on screen are so unusual, there was an obvious inclination to both explain and emphasize the presence of the token characters. To counteract the anticipated notion of the ‘Other,’ the new characters were made to only fit if they were portrayed as “hyper-patriots,” anti-aliens, tasked with a mission to defeat terrorism in one way or the other (Mohammed, 2016). Ironically, this very mission alienates the characters, turning them into objects fully defined by their Muslim faith.

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Being identified as a Muslim character through visual storytelling often takes the form of the hijab, or head covering. Although the show officially cast two Muslim characters, Nimah’s character strikes viewers differently because of the lack of truth in her hijabi depiction (Mohammed, 2016). While it is normal for Raina’s character to indulge in a romantic plot because of her non-religious appearance, Nimah falls in love with Simon, a secret member of the Israeli Defense Force. Nimah’s forbidden love story starts off as a controversial stunt but takes a dreaded yet expected turn for the worse when she invites Simon over and expresses her interest in him by removing her hijab. The cliché “I am rebelling against my traditional Muslim family” narrative is exacerbated by this stereotypically oppressive expression of love (Mohammed, 2016). Here again, we see the double standard in full effect where the twin characters are both Muslim but only one of them is exotified and forced to compromise her religion for a man, and further perpetuate the “oppressed woman” pigeonhole by appearing liberated when unveiled.

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If Muslims themselves struggle to live in the same light as others, then how can it be expected to portray their characters with unrealistic ease? The television industry has a long way to go before writing the inner conflicts of Muslim characters without distinguishing them from their faith. The creation of a modern-dressing, non-compromising, self-governing, everyday Muslim character has yet to be seen on popular television. Nonetheless, Muslim viewers enjoy seeing Raina and Nimah’s progression, but they want to see “a Muslim Olivia Pope, a Muslim Meredith Grey” (Gandhi, 2015). Rather than working to carefully create a character like this, Quantico took a weak checkbox representation of a Muslim female and instilled all the traits that would otherwise make a mainstream crime scene investigation badass.

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Storylines like this form the basis of cultivation theory, which links heavy television viewing to a greater likelihood of having a skewed perception of social reality and perceiving the real world to be more dangerous than it is (Hanson, 2019). In other words, the more television people watch, the more likely they are to view it as a mirror to numerous social and political occurrences (Selepak & Cain, 2015). Because this instance of exotification took place on popular television, cultivation theorists believe that the cumulation of similar portrayals will eventually lead viewers towards holding certain beliefs and perceptions around the depicted audience group, eventually altering their worldview (Nurullah, 2010). The millions of people who are exposed to shows with inaccurate portrayals of Muslims can cyclically cultivate and perpetuate this flawed portrayal onto other mediums and in their own life experiences (Stamps, 2017).

 

The presence of counter-stereotypes does not necessarily mean that the stereotypes no longer exist. At the end of the day, we consume culture through TV, so token efforts are as harmful as none at all.

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Bibliography

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Gandhi, L. (2015). Young Muslim women weigh in on the hijabi character in 'Quantico'. NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/12/14/459670190/we-asked-young-muslim-women-to-weigh-in-on-quanticos-hijabi-character

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Hanson, R. E. (2019). Mass communication: Living in a media world (7th ed.). SAGE Publications.

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Mohammed, S. (2016). 'Quantico' gives a solid go at diversity – but sometimes they failed. The Tempest. Retrieved from https://thetempest.co/2016/01/18/entertainment/quantico-is-not-diversity/

 

Nadal, K. L., Griffin, K. E., Hamit, S., Leon, J., Tobio, M., & Rivera, D. P. (2012). Subtle and overt forms of Islamophobia: Microaggressions toward Muslim Americans. Journal of Muslim Mental Health, 6(2). doi: 10.3998/jmmh.10381607.0006.203

 

Nittle, N. K. (2019). A look at common Muslim and Arab stereotypes in TV and film. ThoughtCo. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/tv-film-stereotypes-arabs-middle-easterners-2834648

 

Nurullah, A. S. (2010). Portrayal of Muslims in the media: “24” and the ‘Othering’ process. International Journal of Human Sciences, 7(1), 1021–1045.

 

Panagopoulos, C. (2006). Trends: Arab and Muslim Americans and Islam in the aftermath of 9/11. The Public Opinion Quarterly,70(4), 608-624. www.jstor.org/stable/4124213

 

Ryzik, M. (2016). Can television be fair to Muslims? The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/arts/television/can-television-be-fair-to-muslims.html

 

Selepak, A. G., & Cain, J. (2015). Manufacturing white criminals: Depictions of criminality and violence on Law & Order. Cogent Social Sciences, 1(1), 1104977. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2015.1104977

 

Stamps, D. (2017). The social construction of the African American family on broadcast television: A comparative analysis of The Cosby Show and Blackish. Howard Journal of Communications, 28(4), 405–420.

https://doi-org.mutex.gmu.edu/10.1080/10646175.2017.1315688