The Incidental Muslim

Muslims in pop culture

A few years ago, at the peak of my love affair with DVDs (I had a lot of time on my hands), and when I had run out of new releases to watch, I came upon the film Enough, featuring a very tight-looking J-Lo. I’m not even sure what drew me to it – other than curiosity, and quite possibly the aforementioned boredom (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it).

Not surprisingly, I wasn’t enthralled by the film, but I was amazed to find a Muslim character in the role of a supportive and caring father-figure type. He helps to rescue J-Lo’s character, Slim (that’s really her name), from her violent husband.

That her saviour’s religion is Islam doesn’t feature in the film beyond a cursory acknowledgement – the women in his family wear headscarves, and his name is Mustapha, a common Arabic name. Still, I was a bit excited. It was significant for many reasons, not the least of which was the seamless appointment of a Muslim in an ordinary, yet quietly heroic, role.

Mustapha’s religion is background noise, not the focus, and his presence in the film says so much without being explicit; Muslims are just like everyone else, and – wait for it – they can be kind and welcoming and give you weird-looking but hearty food when you need nourishment and a place to stay. The cultural points of difference are dealt with warmly and truthfully, far from the often condescending manner to which we’ve become accustomed.

Similarly, a Gwyneth Paltrow flick, A Perfect Murder, also features a Muslim character. This time it’s a sympathetic cop trying to help the heroine whose husband is attempting to have her murdered. The film’s writer, Patrick Smith Kelly, explains in the DVD commentary (maybe I had too much time on my hands) his motivations for including the role. He used to play football with some Palestinian Muslim boys in a local park and got along well with them. He wondered why Americans never got to see Arab men like that – friendly, active and just trying to get through the day like everyone else. So he decided to write one.

These are the sorts of characters, in all types of creative media, that we need to see more of because they say more than any well-meaning story focused on Muslims can. Like attendees at an interfaith meeting, the obvious ‘pro-Muslim’ deal is like preaching to the converted. Ordinary characters, however, inject positive energy into the ‘Muslims = human’ vibe.

In Australia, it’s rare to see a Muslim character in one of the many dramas on television. In 2012, there was a bit of an uproar over the lack of diversity on Australian TV, period. It’s the same deal with American TV programs. I’m not up to speed on Europe, but judging by some of their grim film offerings, it’s not much better there.

As much as a fiction story may reflect reality, it often provides us with a sanitised, ‘white’ version of difference in the world. How often do we see cultural and religious difference beyond a token brown character or a few scenes in the local Indian restaurant in a nod to ethnic diversity? The alternative is most often a take on the Muslims-are-oppressed schtick. Yawn.

This problem of exclusion extends to all forms of storytelling.

Growing up, a book was never out of my reach. (I don’t want to brag, but I was a library monitor in primary school.)

I loved American fiction in particular – on the sappy side, Sweet Valley High and The Babysitters Club, but also, of course, Judy Blume’s coming-of-age novels. Yet, despite common threads (namely, being an awkward teenage girl), I never related to the characters in these stories. They had curfews, while I was hardly allowed to go out. They could date boys, while I was at a girls’ school and never got to interact with guys. They could wear shorts and tank tops, while everything I wore had to fall below the knees and cover my shoulders.

I never really trusted this ‘other’ world that I was exposed to in books and films. It wasn’t a universe that included or acknowledged my reality, let alone my existence. You could find a token Asian girl or black family, but never did you see a Muslim. The best we got were some Libyan terrorists in Back to the Future.

So it is with great relief that I see the narrative shifting. No longer are films and books merely telling stories about us, as though our lives don’t extend beyond painful oppressive cliché, and as if we have no means by which to tell our own stories. Think what you will of reality TV, but the recent addition of All American Muslim, its cancellation notwithstanding, is significant because it depicts a different way of life, yet its ordinariness shows humanity.

All of this is what will change the way Muslims are portrayed and generally perceived. In fact, the transition is already underway.

We’re seeing a new wave of storytellers – writers, filmmakers, musicians, photographers, bloggers and YouTubers. We take the reality of a multi-cultural society and transmit it through film, literature, and just about any other type of media you can think of. We’re humorous, dramatic and creative, but most importantly, we’re truthful.

We’re the ones taking the troubled couple that is Muslims and the Media and forcing them to get some counselling. Like J-Lo’s Slim, we all have a pain threshold, and it’s time we said ‘enough’.

This article originally appeared on Aquila Style on June 27, 2012

My first true love … imagination

I was introduced to movies from a young age, but I was rarely allowed to go to the cinema. My parents - moreso my dad - didn’t approve of their children going, though it was never really clear to us why. I put it down, primarily, to a lack of trust (dark room full of strangers). But they also didn’t like us watching movies, which was strange given dad owned a video store.

It was inappropriate. Not right. Haram (forbidden).

My movie consumption therefore primarily occurred in my living room, through the power of my father’s video store collection and our two-piece VCR, which had more buttons than a NASA mainframe.

Still, I loved going to the movies on the rare occasion that I could. Maybe it was that I felt like a grown-up, but it was also a joyous, intoxicating escape. Until this day, I can still remember many of the films I saw for the first time on the big screen: The Karate Kid; Watership Down; Twins; Batman (and I’m really confirming my age now when I say it was the Michael Keaton version). One of the most memorable trips was to see Electric Boogaloo, the sequel to family favourite Breakdance, on its opening day.

We also bundled into my eldest brother Alex’s Volvo on Boxing Day, when Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker was released in 1988.

Once, in a miracle of wonder, I was once permitted to attend a double session with a friend and her mum. The double was, admittedly, my idea. I needed to get as much film-going in as I could since getting to the cinema was such an infrequent occurrence.

Practical I was. And I had moxy. I would invest days convincing my parents to allow an excursion. It would start with a conversation – light, airy, no biggie. I’d explain why the film I wanted to see was kid-friendly. And more often than not, I’d commission Alex to take me, so my pleas always had the questionable gravitas of brotherly supervision thrown in for effect. I say ‘questionable’ because Alex himself was subject to numerous rules about comings and goings, though these were understandably relaxed the older he got.

Alex was happy to help me out, but I don’t think he loved the red tape. Getting local authority’s approval for an outrageous property development would’ve been easier than obtaining a permission slip for the movies from my parents.

Still, the love affair had begun and nothing – not time, distance or a tongue-lashing from my dad – would keep us apart.

It continued this way for many years. Petitions to see films at the cinema, not just on VHS (now hired from Blockbuster because dad had closed his video store ages ago).

Eventually, I finished high school, leaving behind strict education regimes. Floating nervously into the more freewheeling, somewhat carefree days of university, I had a lot of breaks between classes. I’d go to the cinema, a lot. Sometimes I’d go with a group, but more often than not, I went by myself.

I loved it. It felt strangely like coming home. For so long I’d been on cinema rations. But being a uni student gave me more freedom, and I was finally able to go whenever I wanted.

It was during an afternoon session of Good Will Hunting in a very trying week that all of this really cemented things in my mind – or rather, perhaps it’s where this newfound sense of belonging began. It was near empty on a gloomy day. I was in a down mood, but slowly, the story drew me in. My mood lifted. I connected to the tale playing out on screen, surprised because I hadn’t expected to like it.

Something in me awakened. It was that sense of connection, in a dedicated space. While nowhere near a religious experience, there was something truly special about watching the film.

It was, I’ve since concluded, because everything feels better in the cinema. The chaos of life, the pain of ordinary experience, and the hopefulness of love and achievement. We seek it all, and we look for that universal connection to others who seek it all, too. We like to be moved, to feel and question in a safe space, all the while asking ourselves what we would do if something as fanciful as what we’re watching actually happened to us.

We never feel like we can be the heroine who clicks with the handsome stranger in a cafe. We don’t believe in coincidence in real life, even though it happens all the time. We want to believe that, like in the well-told hero’s journey, there is a timeline, a way of making sense of our pathways.

And so it is that we find ourselves in this hallowed room of human despair, longing and joy.

A few years ago, I watched an independent gem called Amreeka, about a Palestinian-Christian woman who wins a Green Card lottery (it exists), and migrates to the US with her son. Divorced and broken, but unable to contemplate a life of checkpoints, she decides that she’ll take a risk and move in with her sister and her family.

It’s beautiful, even if it’s not exceptional storytelling. For me, it was the first time I saw something of my life playing out on the screen. I’ve connected to many characters and so many stories resonate with me, but this was me. Christian or Muslim, the cultural aspects of my upbringing were being played out on the screen.

My former screenwriting teacher Allen Palmer used to say: They’re called moving pictures, so move me.

And that’s exactly what happened when I sat in the cinema that day watching Amreeka. Finally, something universal that I could connect to on an even deeper level; the Arab experience without the sinister undertones.

No special effects or fear factor, just my favourite dark space, partly filled with some like-minded souls. And there on the screen, a moving picture, a story that told me something about the universality of human experience.

The new face of Muslim pop

Years ago, before Australian Idol won our hearts and Guy Sebastian got buff, there was a show called Popstars. At the time, one of my brothers suggested I audition because he knows I love to sing. I can carry a tune, but my experience was limited to school choirs, a couple of eisteddfods and a hairbrush in the front of the mirror when I was five, which really doesn’t count. I was also wearing a headscarf at the time – something I’d never seen on any contestants. (Spoiler alert: I didn’t go).

While we have pop stars throughout the Muslim world, I don’t know how many of them are women or, more specifically, visibly Muslim. Even though such pop stars are nothing new, a female in a fashionable looking scarf is unique.

Enter Yuna, a Malaysian singer with a sweet set of pipes, an eclectic indie/pop mix of music that wouldn’t seem out of place in a Grey’s Anatomy episode, and a headscarf. I first came across her music a few years ago, when a Facebook friend posted a grainy YouTube video of her singing live. She was, in a word, amazing.

Nowadays Yuna has more than 1.3 million fans on Facebook, and her self-titled debut album, which features tracks produced by the well-respected Pharrell Williams, entered the US charts last August. While she currently resides in the US (she’s signed to FADER Label), she’s also the ambassador for some well-known brands in Malaysia. And there was also a performance on CBS This Morning, which isn’t too shabby an achievement.

This is all very significant, for a few reasons. Not only is Yuna unique to the Western music space, but she’s confronting for more conservative Muslims who aren’t used to seeing Muslim women sing in public. Even Muslim pop stars in the Middle East tend to be hijab-less (i.e. they don’t wear a headscarf). They play a certain glamorous part, and religion is forgotten. Having someone attempt to marry faith and culture in this way is new and also a little audacious.

But, as Yuna told CBS, I have beliefs and I have religion just like everybody else. But at the same time, I’m just a normal girl. I write music, I play music. And I sing.

I’m not here to argue the merits of a woman singing in public from an Islamic perspective, as there is little to debate on this. For many Muslims, even if they listen to music (many don’t), it wouldn’t be considered an appropriate career path for a man or a woman – though few seem to blink when Zayn Malik makes up one-fifth of a boy band (namely, One Direction).

For me, the most interesting things to come out of this are not only how courageous it is for a Muslim woman to declare her faith and embrace her musical talent publicly, but also what it will mean for younger generations.

I admire Yuna’s conviction – she could’ve ditched her headscarf and played to pop type, but she has remained unique and kept her hijab on. This shows a dedication to her faith, and I’m sure many female Muslims are heartened to see it. But she’s also a subject of criticism,