So there’s a new Canadian film out in cinemas at the moment called Sabah. It’s about a Muslim woman who falls in love with, wait for it… a non-Muslim man. Original, huh? It’s being touted as a serious My Big Fat Greek Wedding. (Too easy, you really don’t need me to comment on that).
Anyway, besides the romantic comedy aspect of it, I was quite amused to note Sabah’s version of hijab. She has lots of skin and hair showing, and any older she’d look like a Greek woman I used to buy lollies from when I was in school, which is apt since the film is totally like My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
I am amazed at the trash that comes through cinemas in general, but I am yet to be truly impressed by any efforts relating to Muslims.
First I should point out that I genuinely have no issue with presenting less than flattering portrayals of Muslims and Muslim communities globally if it serves a decent purpose; rather my gripe lies in the fact that no heartfelt Muslim voices seem to resonate throughout these stories. Where are Muslims who actually like being Muslim in all of these representations?
Instead, they are, without exception, poor renderings of how Muslims go about their daily lives, and essentially, they are Western constructions of how Muslims should “feel”. So it’s a no-brainer that any film will feature an ogre for a brother, a long-suffering Muslim woman, and a man who always wants a non-Muslim girl (necessary guilt and friction follow). In other words, there’s always lust, sex and forbidden love. This is inaccurate and disturbing on so many levels, mainly because there are no other portrayals to balance out the pap.
Last year I read about, and saw only parts of (it was definitely not suitable viewing), a film called ae fond kiss. And guess what happens in that movie? The repressed Muslim guy falls in love with the carefree blond non-Muslim woman who doesn’t “get” his lifestyle and family commitments.
Whatever.
13 comments ↓
I think the problem is that the Muslim movie watching market isn’t very big and so directors and film producers are always going to ignore it and produce things that, to use the artsy fartsy latte-drenched cliche “speak to” the biases and ignorance of the average movie-watching public. i.e. idiots.
I appreciate your point, but the issue isn’t whether there is a Muslim market for the films. Really, the problem is that poor representation will have a detrimental effect on non-Muslims’ perceptions of Muslims. As you said yourself, these films “speak to the biases and ignorance” of the general movie-going public and that’s why I find the trend in crapola movie-making so alarming. We’re getting nowhere.
Some more examples:
From Australia, there’s Marking Time, an ABC mini series dealing with refugees (once again forbidden love)
From the US, Sleeper Cell, which deals with terrorists and undercover Muslim CIA or FBI agents, and, oh yeah, a blonde American woman who makes the main protagonist crazy with desire but also sorry for doing bad things with her (see the guilt/friction thing)
I do agree that mainstream (includng mainstream ‘arthouse’) films are not very clever.
But for some reason this topic reminded me of Naguib Mafouz, and his ‘Cairo trilogy’ of novels. Most of the plot elements you mention as being unrepresentative of real Muslim life are in his novels.
Well I didn’t say there aren’t elements of truth, but it’s not representative if there is nothing to balance out the negative images, which is my whole point. If you read the post again, you’ll see that I’m criticising the overall quality of these portrayals and the fact that they are very sexualised stories.
And I also think your example is evidence of the same problem in literature. I think Baybers, one of the authors on Austrolabe, wrote a great post on this very issue. The difference with your example being, obviously, that Mahfouz is Egyptian, doesn’t make the Hollywood treatment anymore realistic or accurate. Most of the pap coming from the Arab world (Mahfouz isn’t pap) deals with the same thing and most of it is aimed at Western readers.
No one is suggesting these things don’t happen. My contention is that the overall product is lacking and as a whole, cannot be representative of what is an extremely diverse community. I’m Muslim, and I am yet to see a reflection of what I know of myself or others in these characters or stories. It’s hard to get it right, but my point is, no one is even attempting to.
Well – I do sympathise, but your problem isn’t exactly unique. I’ve yet to see an Australian film which reflects what I am.
Unfortunately I just cannot empathise with you in finding that the stories are “sexualised”. I just have no conception of an ‘ordinary’ (as opposed to deliberately ascetic) life without sexuality might be like.
Actually, I’ll continue …
1. You are concerned that films/books written by and/or for Western audiences and featuring Muslims in the plot do not correctly represent Muslims.
(Quibble – I bet you wuldn’t like the way Muslems are portrayed in Mexican, Thai, Chinese or – some – Indian works either, but you portray it as a ‘western’ problem.)
2. You think that the product “cannot be representative of what is an extremely diverse community”.
3. The logical conclusion is that you think Muslims shouldn’t be portrayed in films or books?
Once again we have no mainstream footprint in an art-form that transmit stories in the contemporary world. As the recently departed KP used to say, if you don’t own a television station you don’t get an opinion. In this way, if you don’t make films you don’t get to say what goes in them.
Yes the rest of the world misrepresents what we think is an accurate representation of us, but why is that surprising, where Muslim / Arab mainstream cinema?
Why doesn’t some petro-Saudi create a studio and fund a series of highly entertaining mainstream films about that depict Muslims as they wish?
Albert, the fact that you cannot discern these stories as sexualised only highlights the saturation hyper-sexualised society in which we live, something that you now implicitly accept as normative.
Human beings defecate and urinate several times a day, but I don’t see these transmitting in mainstream film. People assume that it happens but it is inappropriate to show it. Most other cultures and until recently western culture used to regard the sexual act as a private one, which was only referred to in film by allusion. Now we have to see it gynaecology style.
I think that Petro-Saudi studios could fund a blockbuster about Salahudeen, with me in the lead and Peter Costello as my horse. Boy George could be Richard the lionheart and John Michael Howson could be Phillip of France.
That’s the bottom line: we need a Muslim film industry in which appropriate material is produced. For example, I would love to see a studio bring our history to life in a similar fashion to what Hollywood has done with 300 and the Battle of Thermopylae.
Until we have Muslim film producers, Muslim writers and Muslim artists producing the sort of material we want to see, we will be at the mercy of the ignorant, ill-informed and malicious. Given the effect that these artforms can have on shaping perceptions of Muslims within and without the community, it’s probably about time that Muslims do something more than photocopy pamphlets and hold lectures.
It’s interesting that you take my objection to the sexualised nature to mean “life without sexuality”. I think Baybers dealt with that well enough though above so I won’t comment further on that.
I would like to say how surprised I am at your gripes (quibbles) with what I am saying. I really don’t see that I have said anything particularly controversial or inaccurate. The fact is, representation of Muslims is almost always crap. It’s really that simple. For example, you rarely see a character who happens to be Muslim; when Muslims feature it’s usually in a negative fashion, and/or is limited to Western conceptions.
I don’t portray it as anything, I simply use the Western example, since I don’t spend much time watching Thai, Chinese or Mexican films. I have no doubt Muslims are portrayed in a less than balanced manner in many parts of the world, however, right now I’m dealing with Canadian and American examples. Since I live in a Western country, I find those kinds of films and literature affect me more than the Thai ones. (I like Thai food though, if that counts for anything).
Reread my comments. My point is, the way it stands at the moment, it is severely lacking and isn’t even beginning to scratch the surface of what is a very diverse community.
No, the logical conclusion is for someone to attempt to portray Muslims realistically. That means not subjecting Muslims to continuous degrading portrayals. As Baybers and Amir pointed out, it’s something that Muslims themselves probably need to attempt.
My one big gripe with Arab/Muslim/Iranian cinema (other than it is in another language) is that it is DULL. Iranian cinema especially is almost always represented as allegorical. The problem is that midway during the film, I’ve given up caring. Invariably it attracts a pretentious class of cinema patron that I despise.
It would be great is some Arab director could do something along the lines of some of my favourite films
Armageddon (Bruce wills saves the world)
Predator: Arnie vs a cyber pasthun (especially predator 1 and alien v predator) the latter one departs from the original’s Beowulf’s roots.
The Jack Ryan series
The Godfather movies,
Iranian cinema isn’t that bad, Baybers. Yes, some of it is pretentious, but there are significant, often political, messages contained within them.
I think Children of Heaven is a beautiful film and just one example of Iranian cinema that gets it right.
I would be curious to see how your version of Aramageddon pans out though.
“It would be great is some Arab director could do something along the lines of some of my favourite films
Armageddon (Bruce wills saves the world)
Predator: Arnie vs a cyber pasthun (especially predator 1 and alien v predator) the latter one departs from the original’s Beowulf’s roots.
The Jack Ryan series
The Godfather movies,”
Ahhhh. I’ll assume that (because you have included the ‘Godfather’ series) you are not being sarcastic.
You object to nipples (well, bare arms, probably) but you like loud explosions and idiotic plots.
Sounds like you have avoided one sort of Evul Weste and bought right into another.
I can’t be bothered going back and c&p-ing, but my understanding of (one of) your points was: because Muslims are such a large and diverse group, it is impossible to give an accurate protrayal of them via a few characters in a film.
The only way to avoid that problem is to not include Muslims in films.
(Gays, feminists, Greeks, Italians, Vietnamese, Communists, Catholics, Aborigines are just a few of the Australian groups who would have said the same thing at some time in their history.)
I don’t think anybody has said that. The issue isn’t that some films and TV shows wheel out the same hackneyed stereotypes of repressed Muslim men and oppressed Muslim women but that that few films ever seem to get beyond that.
It makes as much sense to suggest that the natural consequence of disliking this narrow portrayal is not to portray Muslims at all as it would to suggest that the only alternative in the 1950s to the portrayal of Africans as either in Blackface or as tap-dancing, bumbling crypto-primates was to avoid any mention of them. The fact is that there is always an alternative and that is to show some alternative views.
As I’ve said before, I don’t have much hope that this will happen of its own accord because it seems that much of the portrayal of Muslims in the media is designed to appeal to the audience’s ideas about Islam and Muslims. For example, few non-Muslims can imagine that a woman might want to cover her hair and dress modestly, so the portrayal of Muslim women is often one in which she is trying to escape from the veil and religious conservatism.
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