TLC's American Muslim Reality Show Breaks Stereotypes
By Riaz Haq
CA
Do all Muslim women wear hijab and all Muslim men sport beards? Are all members of the Muslim faith terrorists bent on attacking the West? Are they all Martians? Are all Muslim women meek and subservient, and their menfolk tyrants? The first ever reality TV about Muslims in America on TLC channel answers these and other questions by breaking down many common stereotypes.
All-American Muslim follows the daily lives of five Lebanese-American Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan -- the Amens, the Aoudes, the Bazzy-Aliahmads, the Jaafars, and the Zabans. Ms. Rima Fakih, a Lebanese Shia Muslim resident of Dearborn, won the national beauty pageant last year to become the first ever Muslim Miss USA.
The show premiered on TLC with record 1.7 million viewers in November, earning critical acclaim from The New York Times, USA Today NPR, Time Magazine, The Atlantic and many other publications, according to Washington Post. The first episode, “How to Marry a Muslim,” helped TLC achieve its highest ever Sunday prime-time ratings in more than a year among women from 18 to 34.
Here are some interesting tidbits from the TV series:
1. The student body at Dearborn's Fordson High School featured in the show is overwhelmingly Muslim -- as many as 95% of the students are Muslim. The school football team is coached by Fouad Zaban, a Muslim. Muslim members of the football team fast during Ramadan, even on days they have games. At away games, they are sometimes subjected to epithets like f-ing Arabs, terrorists, camel jockeys, etc.
2. In the first episode of the season called "How to Marry a Muslim", Shadia Amen wants to marry a non-Muslim named Jeff, a Catholic. Her choice is something her father and her brother struggle with. But it doesn't stop her from marrying the man of her choice.
3. Nina Bazzy Aliahmad is a miniskirt-wearing leggy blond Muslim businesswoman who shocks her friends and family by announcing that she plans to open a night club during the first episode. Nina is a strong woman determined to get her way.
4. Samira Amen-Fawaz is struggling with infertility, turns to religion and decides to start wearing the hijab again hoping that it will help her overcome her problem. Careful choice of fancy hijabs by her appears to be a fashion statement, and surprising to some that hijab and tight clothing are not considered incompatible.
5. Mike Jaafar is Deputy Chief Sheriff of Wayne County where Dearborn is located.
The reaction from the notorious Islamophobes and xenophobes in America has been predictably strong and negative.
Florida Family Association (FFA), a conservative Christian group, denounced the show as “propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law.”
Other Muslim bashers in America were quick to add their hateful voices. Pam Geller, notorious anti-Muslim bigot, who has been involved in the anti-Islam protest against "Ground Zero" mosque project chimed: “Every company is to free to choose where they put their ad dollars. 64 companies have now pulled their ads. And rightly so. It’s is not that the show about Muslims. It is that the show was predicated on a lie and the relentless propaganda of Islamic supremacists.”
The unfortunate effect of the Islamophobes' rhetoric is that Lowe's Home Improvement stores chain caved in and pulled its commercials from the show. Lowe's move was criticized by hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, actress Mia Farrow and California State Sen. Ted Lieu, and Simmons offered to buy all remaining spots on the show from TLC. There are fresh reports that the show is now sold out with new advertisers stepping in to fill the holes left by Lowe's and Kayak.com.
In a Washington Post blog, John Esposito lambasted the anti-Muslim bigotry in strong terms. He wrote that "the furor over All-American Muslim underscores yet again the extent to which Islamophobia exists despite the adamant claims of its enablers and practitioners that it does not. The fact that one cannot have a single show on a Muslim family without Muslim bashers insisting that portraying a normal family is somehow insidious because the show does not show the ‘dark side’ of Islam demonstrates the extent to which they engage in the creation of a collective guilt, brush-stroking a religion and a majority of its followers with the actions a fraction of 1 percent of Muslims."
Many conservative Muslims have also criticized the show. In a recent call-in show on NPR Radio, some argued that women without hijabs and those wearing revealing clothes do not represent them, while others complained that the show only represents Lebanese-American Muslims who are a small slice of a large, ethnically and racially diverse Muslim population in America.
Talking about the critics of the show on NPR radio, California-based American-Muslim playwright Wajahat Ali said that "it's almost a thankless role for anyone to depict Muslims in the mainstream right now. You can't please people within the communities themselves who, I think, want an unrealistic portrayal of - what I call the avatar of perfection. Or, they need to see their representation, right? So they say like, listen, if that Muslim-American character does not represent me, it ceases being authentic and valid. And I think the - what we have to do instead is say, listen, that is just one story, or some stories, of people who claim to be American Muslim, and I have to respect that space and let them be."
Let's hope that All-American Muslims first season is a great success which leads into its second and third seasons to portray the great diversity of race, ethnicity and thought among Muslims in America. This national exposure on prime-time tv will help demolish all kinds of negative stereotypes promoted by the Islamophobes as part of their hateful agenda against Muslim Americans.
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