Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page had an interesting column this week, “It couldn’t hurt to have a Muslim ‘Cosby Show.” “It’s hard to be afraid of the people we see on TV sitcoms every week,” the Pulitzer Prize winner argued, explaining that television has the power to shape public perceptions and that something like a Muslim Cosby show would not only fight prejudice, but help Muslims feel more a part of America.
Page’s column mentions at least one Muslim-related show, “Funny in Farsi,” that never made it on the air; he misses another, “Aliens in America,” which I wrote about in 2007. The show lasted one season before the CW network cancelled it in 2008. Aliens was about a dorky Wisconsin high-schooler who strikes up an unlikely relationship with a Muslim exchange student from Pakistan staying at his home. Critics and many viewers loved Aliens, created by the same producers who created the hit series “Mad About You.”
While TV can have a positive influence, a 2007 study from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life suggests that personal contact is the best way to win acceptance from neighbors; in other words, the Americans who were least likely to have anti-Muslim views were those who personally knew Muslims.
But if I remember the CW comment boards from the time the show was introduced, a lot of viewers derided the show as liberal TV people polluting the airwaves with Muslim propaganda. At least one person asked how come networks never produced shows casting Christians in a positive light, never mind that the CW also produced the religiously themed 7th Heaven, about a pastor and his family.
At www.mediabizbloggers.com, one reporter curiously reported, “There were many concerns expressed about Aliens, the pilot of which plays right into every Hollywood stereotype about small-town America and presents the young Pakistani Muslim as the very soul of tolerance and enlightenment — a naturally combustible combo these days, or so one might assume.”
To be fair, many Muslims also derided the show as a smear against them. But the point is, while TV might be able to help change some minds, we should be careful not to expect too much from a Muslim Al-Cosby show, should one ever be made. For some people, as comments at the CW indicated, bigotry is so intense that no television show will make a difference.
Meanwhile, there have been at least two decent tries abroad to depict Muslims as regular people: From Canada, “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” which is now in its fourth season, depicts a Muslim family in small-town Saskatchewan. In Germany, “Turkish for Beginners,” about a single German mom and single Turkish dad, each with teenage kids, who get married, lasted three seasons.
