It capitalized upon the terror of 9\/11 by portraying most Muslims (even those who are American) as terrorists, cast a suspicious eye toward anyone who looked remotely like Sallah from \u201cRaiders of the Lost Ark,\u201d and pretty much ensured that Westerners would know Islam through only the prism of suicide bombings, religious extremism and oppressed women in burkas.
When it comes to exploiting fear of the other for personal gain, the far right has nothing on liberal Hollywood.
Television producers, writers, actors and network execs \u2013 many of whom have openly criticized ultra-conservative politicians for their intolerant views \u2013 have done more to popularize Islamophobia over the last 15 years than all of Trump\u2019s campaign proclamations.
\u201cThere has never been liberal Hollywood when it comes to the portrayal of Muslims on TV,\u201d says professor and author Jack Shaheen , who\u2019s been researching the subject since the mid-1970s and served as a cultural consultant on films such as \u201cThree Kings\u201d and \u201cSyriana.\u201d \u201cThey\u2019ve reinforced the idea that many Americans now have \u2013 that all Muslims are terrorists. They knew they could get away with it because no one was going to protest. They\u2019ve been playing to the balcony, and in doing so, they\u2019ve been getting the ratings.\u201d
That dynamic grew exponentially after the 9\/11 attacks: While President George W. Bush delivered dozens of speeches about how ours was not a war against Islam but \u201ca campaign against evil,\u201d network television was busy putting the finishing touches on the series that came to embody TV\u2019s narrative about our war against evil Islam.
Eight weeks after the attacks, Fox released \u201c24,\u201d a series steeped in scheming, swarthy Muslims and the heroic efforts of a very nonswarthy Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland). The series outlasted both of Bush\u2019s terms and spawned an army of like-minded shows.
The next phase in television terrorism drama included Showtime\u2019s \u201cSleeper Cell,\u201d which arrived with the tagline \u201cFriends. Neighbors. Husbands. Terrorists,\u201d and \u201cHomeland,\u201d where the mere act of a man praying toward Mecca signaled foreboding events. And with a title like \u201cTyrant,\u201d it was clear that FX\u2019s drama about an American Arab family was no \u201cCosby Show.\u201d
Even network TV\u2019s good Muslims, like Sayid on \u201cLost\u201d or Alex of \u201cQuantico,\u201d were defined by their connection to Saddam\u2019s Republican Guard or terror groups who kill in the name of Islam.
\u201cIt\u2019s like the LGBT community 30 years ago,\u201d says Sue Obeidi, director of the civil rights advocacy group the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Hollywood bureau. \u201cEvery time there was a gay character on TV or in film, the story line would be about AIDS. Almost all Muslim story lines up to now are connected to terror. Even if they end up being a good person, it\u2019s often discovered under a cloud of suspicion.\u201d
There is no doubt that homegrown terror attacks in the U. S. \u2013 from San Bernardino to Orlando \u2013 have helped bolster arguments that art is only reflecting reality.
But as University of North Carolina professor Charles Kurzman and David Schanzer, Duke University professor and director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, wrote in a 2015 research paper , \u201cLaw enforcement agencies in the United States consider anti-government violent extremists, not radicalized Muslims, to be the most severe threat of political violence that they face.\u201d
Television of late has been trying to adjust to a changing world by developing more diverse narratives and investing in more projects by creators and writers of color, including Shonda Rhimes (\u201cScandal\u201d), Kenya Barris (\u201cblackish\u201d) and Nahnatchka Khan (\u201cFresh Off the Boat\u201d). But despite the number of shows that have Islamic terror elements in their plots \u2013 from \u201cMadam Secretary\u201d to \u201cCSI\u201d \u2013 Muslims behind the camera are rare.
That lack of representation was glaringly evident in the fifth season of \u201cHomeland,\u201d when graffiti that read \u201c ‚Homeland‘ is racist\u201d in Arabic made it into a scene. Artists hired to decorate the wall of the fictional Syrian refugee camp slipped the words in, and there was no one else on set with enough knowledge of the Arab world to catch their subversive message.
\u201cHollywood is not necessarily biased toward a particular political view, but it is biased toward what does and doesn\u2019t make money,\u201d says author Reza Aslan, who recently co-created an ABC pilot for a comedy about an American Muslim family in the age of Trump. \u201cSince 9\/11, the market wanted these almost comic book characterizations of Muslims as the bad guy. But that market has dried up. It\u2019s not interesting anymore. They want different narratives about Muslims and Middle Easterners, and networks are looking for ways to do that.\u201d
Characters who arrived during the seemingly endless presidential campaign of the last year and a half have definitely signaled a shift.
In HBO\u2019s critically lauded \u201cThe Night Of,\u201d we met Nasir Khan (Riz Ahmed), an average college student accused of a crime that had nothing to do with terrorism; his journey through the legal system highlighted an institutional prejudice.
Aziz Ansari\u2019s Netflix series, \u201cMaster of None,\u201d depicts him as a struggling actor who finds himself in all sorts of painfully normal situations \u2013 bad dates, flubbed job interviews, disappointing his immigrant parents \u2013 situations far too commonplace for TV\u2019s Muslims before him. \u201cIf we don\u2019t do it, who else is going to do it?\u201d Ansari said, explaining why he created the show.
Yet in an unforeseen twist, Trump\u2019s election has potentially accelerated the interest in more nuanced story lines involving actors like Ansari.
\u201cRight after the election \u2013 I\u2019m talking the day or two days after \u2013 we had people in the industry reach out to us: the USA Network, Amazon, Hulu, a major network,\u201d says civil rights advocate Obeidi. \u201cThey have directives from their networks to watch for Islamophobic tones. Not that the studios were giving directives for Islamophobic story lines before, but now they\u2019re saying, \u2018We need consultants because our studio wants to be careful of certain red lines.\u2019 That\u2019s all new.\u201d
The recent presidential election is such an extraordinary moment in American history, says Aslan, that there\u2019s a new drive among the network and studio executives he\u2019s met with to create a counter narrative to Trump\u2019s.
\u201cThey want to make a statement about American ideals and the people who make this country what it is, whether that is focusing on minority groups, African American, Muslims, Jews, or whether it\u2019s just simply presenting a different side of the American story,\u201d Aslan says. \u201cBut I can say with absolute confidence the industry has been galvanized by this election.\u201d
And whether you believe it or not, television is the frontline of shaping public perception. Even when it comes to depicting the oh-so-mysterious Muslim.
\u201cIt\u2019s pop culture that\u2019s going to change opinions about how people feel about one another,\u201d says Obeidi. \u201cGovernment can protect our rights as citizens \u2013 or maybe now with Trump it won\u2019t \u2013 but it\u2019s really TV and film that changes the way people feel about one another.\u201d<\/p>\n