Muslims upset about Fox's 24

[question everything]

Sun, January 16, 2005

Muslims upset about Fox's 24
By Mindelle Jacobs

(snip)

As usual, rogue protagonist Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, is breaking the rules to track down terrorists. But the terrorists aren't eastern Europeans or traitorous government officials this time. The evil-doers are a Muslim couple apparently involved in a mysterious train derailment and the kidnapping of the U.S. Defence secretary.

(snip)

It's shaping up to be another nerve-tingling season. But the depiction of a Muslim sleeper terrorist cell on U.S. soil has vexed the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Organization spokesman Rabiah Ahmed told the New York Daily News recently that the show "casts a cloud of suspicion over every American-Muslim family out there." Frankly, I think CAIR's being far too sensitive. It's just a TV show, for heaven's sake. And the idea that there might be a Muslim sleeper terrorist cell somewhere in North America isn't beyond the realm of possibility.

Twenty-five of the 35 entities that Canada has identified as terrorist organizations are Islamic groups. The U.S. list is likely similar. This has nothing to do with western Muslims as a whole. But it has everything to do with screenwriters imagining there might be some radical Islamists in our midst.

It's not as if it hasn't happened. Remember Ahmed Ressam, the former Montrealer who was arrested in Washington state in 1999 while on his way to bomb the Los Angeles airport? There was also the "Buffalo cell" case - the six young Yemeni-American men who pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism - and a group of other American Muslims found to be part of a Virginia jihad network. Only conspiracy theorists and hatemongers would use these incidents to stereotype all Muslims.

(snip)

Ethnic groups have been complaining about how they're characterized on the screen for decades, says Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. Italian-Americans complained about how they were depicted in the TV series The Untouchables in the 1960s and, four decades later, an Italian-American group is suing over The Sopranos, he notes. In the 1970s, African-Americans objected that they were typecast as drug dealers and pimps in storylines, he adds.

(snip)

Fox announced Thursday it will provide its stations with public service announcements, sponsored by CAIR, that will portray Muslims in a favourable way. A better response would be a commitment to create more roles for Middle Eastern actors and actresses that reflect a variety of characters. That way, says Thompson, any negative stereotypes would be "diluted" by all the other depictions.

As for CAIR, it would be better off raising a stink over more worrisome concerns, like the constant hatred spewed against Christians and Jews by Islamic radicals in the Middle East. In the most recent tirade in this never-ending lunacy, these crackpots blamed the tsunami on non-Muslims.

more..

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Edmonton/Mindelle_Jacobs/2005/01/15/899814.html

[inslee08]

1. I think it's fair

Last year, the terrorists were Mexican.

This year, they're Turk. If they were Arab each year, that would be insensitive. But that isn't the case.

[frogfromthenorth2]

2. Is it me or people are just forgetting the concept of Make Belieive...

Reminds me of some of the stupid comments I heard about the last episode of L&O on this board... It's just a TV show dammit!!!

[Goldom]

3. I would be skeptical,

as 24 has, already, had terrorists of many other varieties, that this was in any way targeting muslims.. -except-.. the creator said that this year he's stopping all that and making them more like our "real life enemies." So, yeah, they're right to be upset.

[yinkaafrica]

6. They should be outraged

The timing and presentation of this show is all fucked up.
There are no sleeper cells, that is a bushism.
This show is a hate crime. Perhaps the anti-defamation league
will put a stop to this show. Not.

[eallen]

8. That would make them right ... why?

Should Christians be upset when the abortion clinic bomber or the activist against gay rights is portrayed as a fundamentalist Christian? And if so, should they be upset at the director or author who is merely drawing on actual events, or at their fundamentalist brethren who spread that kind of thinking?

Right now, fundamentalism is the greatest threat to the liberal west and its freedoms. Internal Christian fundamentalism. External Muslim fundamentalism. If moderate and liberal believers are pissed off at that.. well, they should be. But not at me for saying it.

[slor]

4. I wish they would get more upset...

at the real-life policies conducted by these war-criminals in the whitehouse. Hell, I wish we all would!

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[yinkaafrica]

7. Looking the other way is a big mistake.

Stop hate crimes where and when you find them.

[paineinthearse]

9. Faux IS a hate crime

I usually do not watch the local outlet, but kept it on after yesterday's football game. The game was followed by the local news program. In the story about an avalanch, they must have used the word "fear" (as in the rescuers fear....) at least 5 times.

This morning when I first turned on the TV (still set to the local FAUX outlet) a commercial for their news was running. I was greeted with one of those self-promoting commercials for the local news, spouting the words "child abduction".

Faux loves to promote fear, death and divisiveness in all their programming, including their local outlets, national "news", and entertainment.

[DaCheat]

10. I try to be sensitive

But its a show. Its not even a very good show. Why didnt Romanians protest en masse whenever Law and Order SVU investigated Romanian gymnasts who were actually prostitutes? Why dont the Ukrainians protest the presense of the Ukrainian mafia in movies. The same for the Japanese in WW2 movies. I feel like I am being a resonable person by saying that perhaps because this is just a show, and it presents a people who represent just a tiny minority of an entire race to be terrorists, maybe they should lighten up.