Growing up in a Muslim household, we never saw ourselves positively represented on the screen – at least in a Western context. Ever since 9/11, Hollywood jumped on to storylines portraying Muslims as terrorists, bad guys or oppressed women. In these stories there was almost always a white saviour at the centre of the action - our hero, who was determined to save humanity from those "evil Muslims".
It’s these sort of ‘toxic portrayals’ that actor Riz Ahmed wants to combat through the to mentor up-and-coming Muslim storytellers. The initiative was announced alongside a new , titled Missing & Maligned: The Reality of Muslims in Popular Global Movies.
“The progress that's being made by a few of us doesn't paint an overall picture of progress if most of the portrayals of Muslims on screen are still either non-existent or entrenched in those stereotypical toxic two-dimensional portrayals,” Ahmed says in an online video launching the initiative.
Earlier this year Ahmed became the to be nominated for an Academy Award. A moment he regarded as “bittersweet”, saying in a video on his , “I simultaneously wore that slightly dubious accolade with a sense of gratitude personally… I also felt tremendous sadness. How was it that out of 1.6 billion people, a quarter of the world’s population, none of us had ever been in this position until now?”
The grave impact on Muslims by being negatively portrayed on the screen hasn’t passed Ahmed by. As he goes on to say in his online video: “The representation of Muslims on screen feeds the policies that get enacted, the people that get killed, the countries that get invaded. The data doesn't lie. This study shows us the scale of the problem in popular film, and its cost is measured in lost potential and lost lives.”
found, that “predominantly Muslim women and girls are being targeted with verbal abuse, profanities, physical intimidation and death threats in public places, most often while shopping, and most often by Anglo-Celtic male perpetrators.”
, while Muslim men are often portrayed as aggressors and terrorists, the roles for Muslim women on the screen are entrenched in victimhood. “One persistent trope is that of empowerment coming solely from distancing oneself from religion, with a hijab removal scene now a shorthand gesture in film and TV to show a Muslim woman’s rejection of faith and adoption of western freedoms,” writer Mariam Khan points out.
, by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, highlights the negative portrayal of Muslims on screen. Less than 10 per cent of the 200 films studied featured at least one Muslim character speaking on screen. And when Muslims did appear on screen, the study found they were portrayed as “as outsiders, threatening, and as subservient, particularly to white characters.”
Ahmed was one of the supporters of this research and pointed to it on his Twitter.
Seeing yourself reflected on the screen (in a nuanced and positive way) matters. looking at representation on TV and its impact on children’s self-esteem for example, found that the only demographic that didn’t experience lower self-esteem after watching TV was white boys.
As historian Carlos Cortes : “Minorities realise—supported by research—that the media influence not only how others view them, but even how they view themselves.”
Ahmed speaking out about the misrepresentation of Muslims on screen (and backing it with a fund to help out up and coming Muslim storytellers) is a start, but as always more needs to be done. It shouldn’t be left to famous Muslims in the industry to do the heavy lifting.
Saman Shad is a freelance writer.
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