“Using charm, humor and universal themes, a pair of Netflix shows and a big-screen rom-com are providing a timely corrective to Trump-era alarmism about Muslims,” says leftist critic Caryn James in a "Critic's Notebook" article for The Hollywood Reporter titled "Undemonizing Muslims, One Comedy at a Time." James, who freelances about film for The Wall Street Journal and the BBC, listed several new comedies that help counter negative images of "demonized" American Muslims.
Amid the inflammatory rhetoric and bigotry of the Trump presidency, film and television seem to be entering a brash new era of social activism. The ban on travel to the U.S. from certain Muslim countries may be in effect, but several smarter-than-fear autobiographical comedies are shattering the kind of ugly stereotypes that, at least in part, have provided the rationale for such a ban: Kumail Nanjiani’s hilarious, emotionally warm rom-com The Big Sick, Aziz Ansari’s brilliant Netflix series Master of None and Hasan Minhaj’s sharply funny Netflix standup special Homecoming King offer a realistic and refreshing corrective to alarmist images of Muslim immigrants and their American-raised children.
Does James not remember that former President Barack Obama issued a travel ban on those same countries of President Trump’s ban? I’m sure she left that out because it doesn’t fit the narrative of Trump bigotry.
James writes that through comedy, Nanjiani, Minhaj, and Ansari are united in the way their work “approaches cultural identity — through the relatable theme of relationships between grown children and their parents.”
The Big Sick is a true story based on Nanjiani’s experience of dating a white woman (who later becomes his wife.) His parents believe he is a committed Muslim who is religious and open for arranged marriages. Which he isn’t. When each of the families learn of the other and the “cultural divide,” hilarity ensues. (It’s a bit like the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, only with Muslims instead of Greeks.)
In his show, Ansari plays a character named Dev that keeps a secret from his very religious Indian parents – he eats pork and loves it. Minhaj, who has his own comedy show, reminisces of the time he told his father of wanting to marry a Hindu woman, not an Indian Muslim woman, something his father doesn’t take to well.
James explains that it is through these examples of humor and warm moments, Minaj, Ansari and Nanjiani relate to the average American. "Each character respects his heritage but doesn’t want to turn into his parents. Nothing is more universal. The comic fear of being yelled at by your mom or dad, even as a grown-up, spans every ethnicity and religion in existence. In depicting that common experience, social themes emerge naturally in these works, with complexity and ambiguity.”
James then takes a dig at the “stereotypes” Americans have of immigrants “feeding off” the system: “The parents in these comedies are not just warm and goofy; they are white-collar professionals. Dev’s father and Minhaj’s mother, for example, are doctors. Their professions refute the stereotype of immigrants feeding off America.”
Really? Because I don’t recall any stories on immigrants taking a hit for taking advantage of the American system – sure – there are stories of illegal immigrants that take advantage of the system – again, Caryn’s lame attempt at trying to lump every Trump supporter as an anti-immigrant.
Noting that these comedies may have far to go in “undemonizing” Muslims, Caryn ends with a more pessimistic take on a storyline in the HBO television show Veep:
Veep, the most pointed satire on television, reveals the distance between the humanistic optimism of these new comedies and the actual state of American politics today. This season, former President Selina Meyer has a romance with Jaffar, a Muslim diplomat from Qatar. (He’s also the great-grandson of an arms dealer: This is Veep, so no one is pristine.) She seems to have found happiness. Then she decides to run for president again. We have never seen her so emotionally raw or genuine; still, there is no question in her mind or her advisors’ about what she has to do — break up with the Muslim guy to preserve her political life. It’s not as charming a picture of American society as on Master of None, but capturing that brutal reality is its own kind of resistance.
