A blonde, white Red Riding Hood lost in a forest of faceless Muslim wolves: This is how “Homeland’s” creators have chosen to represent their show as it begins its fourth season, which sees CIA officer Carrie Mathison stationed in Pakistan. It is also the perfect encapsulation of everything that’s wrong with this show. Since its first episode, “Homeland,” which returns Sunday, has churned out Islamophobic stereotypes as if its writers were getting paid by the cliché. Yet the show, created by “24” veterans Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa and former Israeli paratrooper Gideon Raff, continues to rack up awards, critical praise and millions of viewers. For starters, the show is riddled with basic errors about Islam and the Middle East. Laila Al Arian points out some of the more obvious ones: You don’t need to bury the Koran after someone’s dropped it on the ground; Issa, the son of terrorist leader Abu Nazir, has his name mispronounced by everyone on the show; Roya Hammad — there to remind us that even a Westernized, business-suit-wearing Arab is not to be trusted — is supposedly Palestinian but has a Persian first name. More broadly, “Homeland” carelessly traffics in absurd and damaging stereotypes. The show hit peak idiocy, for instance, at the beginning of season two, when Beirut’s posh Hamra Street was depicted as a grubby generic videogame universe of Scary Muslims in which Mathison must disguise herself to avoid detection. The real Hamra Street is a cosmopolitan, expat-filled area near the American University, where Western chains like Starbucks and Gloria Jean’s compete for customers and no one would look twice at a blonde, blue-eyed white woman with uncovered hair.

In 2014, Laura Durkay wrote a column for The Washington Post titled, " ‘Homeland’ is the most bigoted show on television ."Despite protests from Arab and Muslim writers and activists, Homeland moved on to another season. But this time the questions being raised are reaching more viewers, thanks to the graffiti action. Major news agencies are covering the story. CNN The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times , among others, have featured the audacious protest.

From the BBC: Artists write 'Homeland is racist' graffiti on set







The artists said in a statement that they were initially reluctant about the commission "until we considered what a moment of intervention could relay about our own and many others' political discontent with the series." "It was our moment to make our point by subverting the message using the show itself," they said.



As for how they got away with it, they explain that the Homeland staff simply wasn't paying any attention, since they were trying to construct an intricate set in just two days. Still, it's impressive that the harsh graffiti got through all the way to air without someone flagging it. Footage goes through countless hands — editors, directors, post-production supervisors, and so on. While Homeland has had consultants from the CIA and beyond for the creative side of things, this oversight on the production end is a big one. As New York Times television critic James Poniewozik wrote about the graffiti: "All anybody in charge of bringing the episode to air was able to see was squibbly." And so the Arabian Street Artists don't let Homeland off so easily for missing their insults. "In their eyes," they write, "Arabic script is merely a supplementary visual that completes the horror-fantasy of the Middle East."

Having worked in and around film production, I find it amazing (or maybe not), arrogant, and totally unconscionable that a major company seems to have had no one in the production team who was literate in Arabic—especially when the show is steeped in Middle East portrayals. That question is raised by Caroline Framke in her Vox piece, " Graffiti artists wrote 'Homeland is racist' in Arabic on the show's set. Nobody noticed. Even Stephen Colbert got into the act:

Buzzfeed video posted this piece from a Pakistani perspective, "A Pakistani Points Out 6 Homeland Fails:"







"They’ve actually used the name of our ambassador to the U.S. as the name of the terrorist?"

I make no claims to any in-depth academic study of the Middle East, Arabs, or the Islamic diaspora. My studies on Israel have been focused on Ethiopians there . My travel experience to North Africa has been to Algeria, and my close contact with Muslims has primarily been with U.S. Muslims who are black and Puerto Rican, some of whom are family members. I do have a close friend I talk with frequently who is an astute observer of the scene, who is in Iran.

I follow the topic of Islamophobia as yet another facet of racism, as part of our civil rights struggle here, and pay close attention to right-wing groups embracing it, both here at home and in Europe.

As a person with a degree in Media Studies and as a media observer, participant, and cultural anthropologist, my first focus was on racist media stereotypes and tropes, many of which are now well documented on websites like Arabface!



Arabface refers to the creation and propagation of racist Arab stereotypes and caricatures. The word Arab is primarily used to describe people from the Middle East. Despite the fact that the Middle East is comprised of different countries, with diverse cultures, beliefs and a variety of religions, the people are often characterized by one term, "Arabs." Many people think that all Arabs are Muslims and all Muslims are Arabs but the truth is that there are millions of Arabs who are not Muslims and millions of Muslims who are not Arabs. Iranians, for instance, are Persians, not Arabs. They do not speak Arabic, nor do they have Semitic origins. For many Americans the word Arab is convenient shorthand that references a relatively small number of stereotypical images.

(On a side note, there are related racial/ethnic/religious stereotype pages you should explore that focus on Blackface!, Yellowface!, Brownface!, Redface!, and Jewface!, respectively.)

In 2005, the Sundance Film festival presented a short film, Planet of the Arabs, by Jacqueline Reem Salloum, a New York-based filmmaker and artist.



During her MFA studies at New York University she created pop infused art (toys, gumball machines, etc) documenting histories of people, including her family, that have been altered or erased and challenging the stereotypes of Arabs. Salloum’s love for filmmaking began after creating her short video piece, “Planet of the Arabs” (2005 Sundance) which then lead her back to Palestine to direct her first feature length documentary, “Slingshot Hip Hop”, (2008 Sundance). Salloum recently directed short documentaries for Arab American Stories on PBS TV, a music video for DAM sponsored by UN Women, “If I Could Go Back in Time”, and a short kids film, “Yala to the Moon” (2012 tiff Kids). Salloum continues to write/direct films, music videos and teach workshops at universities and institutions in the US and internationally.

A trailer-esque montage spectacle of Hollywood's relentless vilification and dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims. Inspired by the book "Reel Bad Arabs" by Dr. Jack Shaheen. Out of 1000 films that have Arab & Muslim characters (from the year 1896 to 2000) 12 were positive depictions, 52 were even handed and the rest of the 900 and so were negative

Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People is a documentary film directed by Sut Jhally and produced by Media Education Foundation in 2006. This film is an extension of the book of that name by Jack Shaheen which also analyzes how Hollywood corrupts or manipulates the image of Arabs. This documentary argues that the slander of Arabs in American filmmaking has existed since the early days of the silent cinema and is present in the biggest Hollywood blockbusters today. Jack Shaheen analyzes a long series of demeaning images of Arabs through his presentation of various scenes from different American movies which he has studied. This image that is characterized by showing Arabs either as bandits or as a savage, nomadic race, or shows Arab women as shallow belly dancers serving evil, naïve, and greedy Arab sheiks. Most important is the image of the rifle in the hands of Arab "terrorists". The film then explains the motivations behind these stereotypes about Arabs, and their development at key points in American history, as well as why it is so important today. Jack Shaheen speaks at the beginning of the documentary about the extent to which Arabs face slander and manipulation in Hollywood, commenting that he has formulated this view of his after having seen hundreds of films produced, in the past and at the present. He also talks about how bleak the views are, those of which are borne by the Western civilization (and he refers to it as – our civilization -) admittedly confessing how these views directly attack the Arabs' humanity. Furthermore, he mentions how this same image took shape in several patterns to feed the same substance that is continuously demonizing the Arabs, thus; the image had to repeat over and over and it was depicted in scenes in several films that heavily abuse the Arabs' behaviors and morals.

Award-winning film authority Jack G. Shaheen, noting that only Native Americans have been more relentlessly smeared on the silver screen, painstakingly makes his case that "Arab" has remained Hollywood's shameless shorthand for "bad guy," long after the movie industry has shifted its portrayal of other minority groups. In this comprehensive study of over one thousand films, arranged alphabetically in such chapters as "Villains," "Sheikhs," "Cameos," and "Cliffhangers," Shaheen documents the tendency to portray Muslim Arabs as Public Enemy #1--brutal, heartless, uncivilized Others bent on terrorizing civilized Westerners. Shaheen examines how and why such a stereotype has grown and spread in the film industry and what may be done to change Hollywood's defamation of Arabs.



Dr. Jack Shaheen



I have Lebanese roots. I was born in the United States in Pittsburgh. I grew up in a very small steel town right outside of Pittsburgh. I went to college in the Greater Pittsburgh area, served in the military. After the military, I went to work for the United States government in Germany. I lived in Germany for three years, came back, earned my Masters and PhD. In 1969, I started teaching core courses in mass communication, had nothing to do with the Middle East at all, and while I was teaching at the university, my children caught my attention to some really ugly Arabs in a children’s cartoon. That was in the mid 70’s, and at that time I had a Fulbright and I taught there from 1974 to 1975 and I traveled extensively with my family throughout the Arab world.



He would eventually become a professor of media studies at Southern Illinois University, establishing himself as a formidable media critic publishing works on the social significance of public broadcasting and on nuclear war films. But the academic support that he had earned would fade as soon as he turned his attention to unfair media portrayals of Arabs. His first article on the topic remained unpublished for three years. One publication described it as "too well written," to be printed, claiming that other ethnic groups would then want to publish similar essays that surely would not be as good. "It was because of their prejudices. It had nothing to do with the quality of the writing," said Shaheen bitterly. Despite being stigmatized, his work being labeled "Arab propaganda," Shaheen chose to expand his research and write a book, "The TV Arab," which would also wait years for publication. He received dozens of rejection letters despite the help of a book agent who would tell him that he'd "never in all his career experienced so much prejudice." It was the Center for the Study of Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University which finally published the book, after years of waiting in frustration. When he received the letter that read "Dear Mr. Shaheen, we have read your manuscript and would like to publish it," he thought he had read it wrong. "I kept rereading it, looking for something I missed." "When I look back, I don't know how I did it, what kept me going being alone, with no help from anyone (other than his wife Bernice)." Shaheen said that among his colleagues, he went from being known simply as 'the Pittsburgh Steeler' to being 'the Arab professor.' "And colleagues would not speak up to defend me," Shaheen said, the pain still apparent in his voice. "A few did, but by and large those who were on committees didn't." "Why are you defending the Arabs," Shaheen said detractors would ask him, or "Why are you defending the Muslims?" (Shaheen is an Orthodox Christian. A sense of responsibility, compassion and a sensitivity to "hurtful images" are what he said motivate him in his fight. "The greatest sin of all is silence," he said, loosely quoting Martin Luther King Jr.



For an in-depth, full-length documentary you should take a look at Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People To supplement the film, I suggest Shaheen's book:Dr. Shaheen has had an interesting life journey, which he discusses in this 2014 interview In " Jack Shaheen: A life dedicated to fighting racism ," he talks about the difficulties he had to confront in order to pursue what has become his life's work.What's important is that those of us who are not Muslim, nor Arab, nor middle eastern, must fight back against all of the hatred used to inflame how we view others. We can look to our Canadian neighbors for an example. The repeated attempts made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper—the master of hate politics —to make the niqab a major inflammatory issue failed.

Here in the U.S. we have watched and will continue to see Republicans (and sadly, a few Democrats) use xenophobic speech to turn out their voters. Push back. Reach out to and support groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). And turn off Homeland.

Hat-tip: I want to thank my friend, fellow Kossak and screen-writer Yasuragi, for calling this grafitti activism story to my attention.