Arabs and Muslims are commonly misrepresented in the media. They are often associated with negative connotations because of the events that happened on 9/11. There's one specific show that aired on TLC that raised a lot of controversy within North America. This show, called All-American Muslim, lasted one season before it was cancelled and taken off the network. It followed the lives of five Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan. This area of Michigan is known for being a very active Muslim community or "hot spot" in the country and is home to the largest mosque in the US.
Below, I listed an article that explains the show in further detail and features a video illustrating what the aim of the show was.
All-American Muslim
As you read in this article, this show originally attracted millions of viewers but as controversy began to unfold, it dropped to 900,000 by the first season's finale episode. I thought this show was interesting to say the least because of the mere idea behind it. The fact that producers of the show thought it would be a good idea to put the lives of Muslims on display to the public is one that I don't understand. Regardless of the fact that the Muslim religion is seen as being a negative religion and people heavily criticize it, there seems no point to this show. I began to wonder if they would start a show that centers around other religions? For example, would TLC air a television show that follows the lives of five Christian families or five Catholic families? Most likely not. But because there is a socially constructed definition of the Muslim religion being negative or "evil", it provides us with a great opportunity to create a new television series?
This show, like I stated earlier, created a vast amount of controversy. But people weren't upset about the same things I was upset about, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph. I listed another article below that discusses why this show was cancelled and the type of controversy that surrounded it.
The Attack on "All-American Muslim"
As the article reads, the show was primarily cancelled because of the audience's reception of it. Many people, specifically the Florida Family Association (FFA), believed that this show was merely "propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda's clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values". The FFA is a very pessimistic group that campaigns against homosexuality and Islamic-American relations. They argued that this show is distracting society from the present-day concerns that the US faces from the Islamic religion.
To tie back to my original thought, why was this show created in the first place?
This show was most likely created to illustrate to society that Muslims are "just like us". They're American, they're funny, they have children, they have jobs and lead lives other than their religious affiliations, etc. It's very sad to me that there has to be a show created like this one to essentially persuade Americans that there isn't an imminent threat to the US because of their presence in North America. This show could have been created to promote diversity, too. Diversity is the awareness and acceptance of difference. If this show was created to promote diversity, it unfortunately failed. Americans possess this evil representation of Muslims and although the events that happened on 9/11 were abominable and horrendous, it doesn't mean that all Muslims are planning to subjugate the US.
My final question is what is our responsibility as consumers when we see discrimination against religion in the media?
We need to become more diverse ourselves. Whether or not the purpose of the show was to promote diversity and whether or not they were successful with doing so, is beyond us. It's our responsibility to ensure that WE, ourselves, are diverse. We also need to avoid buying into these socially constructed definitions of religion. A big contributor as to why Muslims are seen as a potential threat is because we all agree with each other instead of questioning it. Instead of wondering what's wrong with this scenario, we go along with it. Society and people are what create meanings. It is up to us to construct different, more diverse meanings and to better society the best we can.
One thing that I didn't like with the article was questioning whether a network would put other religious-affiliated families on display. I feel that it comes off as a criticism towards putting Muslims on television and distracts from the purpose of your post that ties together at the end. I feel that you could have touched on the point you mentioned about how people argue that the show aims to distract Americans from "present-day" concerns. I think this is crucial and should really be analyzed more thoroughly. It's huge that racism is seen as a thing of the past and to merely bring it up and dismiss it is an injustice. I do like how you sought out action from your audience to broaden their perspectives and promote diversity. I think that's super important and many writers may not think to ask their audience members to be active and involved.
ReplyDeleteI'd just like to point out that anti-Islamic attitudes have been around since far before September 11th. Practically any terrorist attack, bombing assassination, accident etc. that has been dramatically publicized has been assumed to be associated (either underhandedly through society's "atmosphere", or through news or whatever) in some way with Muslim radicalists, or Mideastern people, or influenced by Islamic principles. In the same way that our schema for gender equate to strength/weakness/value etc; our schema for certain religions equate to "violent terrorists". I feel that this underlying assumptions of people have more effect on the success of shows like you discuss and it might've been nice to hear about that a little. However, your post is pretty solid and thorough as it is and it holds value in a much larger discussion. Good post
ReplyDeleteThe show All-American Muslim is a great example toward understanding negative connotations. I think shows like this started first getting produced because many people in the U.S. assume that all Muslims are the same type of violent terrorists, when they are in fact not. This perception seems to be what is popular, so the producers likely though there would be high interest in the subject. I also see it as a good thing that the show was discontinued seeing that our media already portrays Muslims in a bad enough way. I have many Muslim friends that are similar to me as white American-raised male as well, and I think more people need to realize our similarities, even if we don't practice the same religions.
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