I hate to agree, but... I agree.
I've watched pretty much all of the first season some years back on YouTube. I don't know anything about Canadian broadcasting, what's allowed to be a channel and which isn't, but in the U.S., we have quite a few Christian radio stations, network and cable channels, production companies and publishing houses, etc. and etc., and sometimes, they'll make cheesy, horrible TV shows and movies like this show.
This show has its issues. First of all, it has an obvious agenda that I can agree with, certainly: to humanize and normalize Muslims in North America. That's an admirable goal, in and of itself. The problem is the execution of said agenda: it's preachy, it's dull, and it's not challenging enough.
Why does it revolve around a mosque? If you wanted to tell Christians and other Canadians that, "hey! Muslims are just like you!" why do you have your entire show centering around a mosque? If you wanted to prove that Muslims are normal, balanced people with lives outside of their religion, and are a part of everyday society instead of boxed-in and only focused on their own concerns, centering it around their mosque does the complete opposite of accomplishing this goal. Why couldn't it have just been about a family in Toronto or something? It should've been like the Cosby Show. The Cosby Show was about a black family, yes, with the explicit purpose of showing what a middle-class black family looks like to '80s Reagan-era America, sure, but every. single. episode. was not about them being black: it was about Theo not doing his homework, or Vanessa letting Rudy get hurt on her watch, or Denise sneaking off to a concert, or Sondra coming over for Thanksgiving and having a lover's quarrel with her husband Elvin, or the grandparents coming over and making jokes, or the husband of one of Heathcliff's patients being nervous about having a kid and becoming a new father. Little things like that. Centering the show around a mosque doesn't debunk the stereotype that Muslims are a bunch of fundies obsessed with their religion. And it doesn't dissolve the suspicion many have here that this show must've been promoted by some Muslim PR firm or something because this show has such a simplistic objective that it meets in the most basic way at all costs. It could've been much more complex than this, and it's not. And that's sad.
And that's before getting into the characters: one of my least favorites, despite the fact that I don't actively hate any character, and I actually kind of like this one regardless, as contradictory as that sounds, is probably Rayyan. Of course, you have to have the girl in the hijab be the loudest and most feminist in the bunch to go against stereotypes, except that works in the opposite direction as well, because it looks so obvious. I don't care for hijab myself (I'm an atheist), but I believe people can wear what they want, provided it's not obscene or trying to incite a riot, but I don't buy that wearing hijab, or dressing "modestly" as so many religious people define it, isn't just telling women what they can wear and controlling them. So I, as a feminist myself, don't buy whatever feminism is inherent in covering one's hair for "modesty" reasons or for "God." That's one of the most propagandistic things this show presents. Good on the show for having an African Muslim, though; I've always liked that, because you don't hear about them a lot, only the Arab and South Asian ones. I also don't mind Tupper, although his real-life counterparts in the U.S. are far worse.
I bring up the Christian channels because, in the U.S., if we had a Muslim entertainment industry much like our Christian one, this is the kind of pap they would come out with. "Christian" stuff like those bad Left Behind movies are made with the mentality of "be as ostensibly Christian as possible, first; be anything else, afterwards." It's so concerned with being as apparently Muslim/Islamic as possible that it fails to be a good sitcom on its own, much like Christan rock is horrible and Christian films are bad.
And I say this as an American who likes Canadian shows, particularly the original 1980s Degrassi series. I know Canadians can be challenging when they want to be: I'm pretty sure no one would've let a girl get pregnant by her boyfriend, get kicked out of school by the PTA, and then, raise the kid on American teen shows of that decade; and I'm sure you wouldn't have had teenagers argue about abortion, and ONE teenager getting an abortion that same episode, either. They can challenge Muslims and everyone else in the same manner, too. Sheesh.
And no matter how bad this show is, it deserves better than any American network getting the rights to this and making their own bastardized "adaptation" in the States. BLECH.
And BTW, this is funded by your tax dollars? Ooh.
This is the Happy House
We're happy here, in the Happy House...
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Navaros
13 years ago
And no matter how bad this show is, it deserves better than any American network getting the rights to this and making their own bastardized "adaptation" in the States.
It would
literally be impossible for an American version to be worse, as the existing version is already as bad as it could possibly be.
On the contrary, if American producers were smart, they would indeed make this show, but they would make it in a way that portrays Muslims in a realistic light and actually deals with Muslim issues.
That is how the marketers for the Canadian version marketed the pilot - like it would deal with real Muslim issues such as terrorism and Muslim beliefs, and that lie by the marketers is the one and only reason why the pilot had good ratings. What the show actually delivered instead was a few vastly unfunny jokes in the pilot about the lead being accused of being a terrorist at an airport, wherein the White people are portrayed as stupid racist hicks. Then after the pilot, all Muslim issues are removed the show entirely, although the White people continue to be portrayed as stupid racist hicks.
An American adaptation that had the courage to deal with real Muslim issues, for example, like Muslim terrorists, and the Ground Zero Victory Mosque, has the potential to be one of the best shows ever.
Realistically of course, chances are no networks would have the courage to do anything like that, and if an American adaptation was made, it would also 100% remove Muslim issues from the show just like the Canadian version does.
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jasongibbonsxxx
13 years ago
I agree with the majority here, that this show is useless and not at all funny. Good premise behind the show but terrible the way they have presented it, and I can not believe it is still on the air, and not happy that our tax dollars pay these people to make this garbage week after week.
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