Tag: media
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Muslim Characters in Media: A Response to Inclusion Initiative Report
Ultimately, industries operating in this framework herald change and representation whilst establishing no ideal to evolve towards. This means religious values—or any sort of system of ethic—are bent to ‘to modernity’s will’. It is negotiated in the public space, an issue I discussed previously here. That means far from showing hijab or praying five times…
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The Islamic Case for Unapologetic Propaganda
During the Global War on Terror, post-9/11, it was not a priority for Muslim adult generations that experienced it (now comprised of older millennials, all of Generation X and the Boomers) to fight back against the extreme hate they were receiving with organized, well-funded propaganda campaigns through the various media platforms available. Why would it…
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The Perplexing Status Quo for Muslim Fiction
In the category of young adult (YA) fiction, one can find a relatively solid number of Muslim-oriented novels, some of which are consistently championed in the Muslim novel-reading community for their positive representation of Muslims. Through mass marketing, these portrayals are lauded and viewed as authentic. Though I do not personally read young adult fiction,…
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Representation Culture: Negotiating the TV Muslim
The narrative journeys of Muslims in fiction are shoehorned into a pendulum of tradition versus modernity, Western versus strange. Stories illustrating the journey to reconcile the two necessarily entails subsuming Islam under discount Netflix theology with the sirens of self-as-god.
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Selective Sympathy and the Clear Racism of the West
Russian aggression in Ukraine has rightly been met with international condemnation. Putin’s aggressive attack on an independent nation is unacceptable and puts the lives of millions in grave danger. However, the response by different governments and the dangerously contradictory narrative has exposed an embarrassing level of hypocrisy. For most, this is not unexpected, but for…
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Israel-Palestine: The End of Media Deception?
The last few days have seen the continuation of widespread violence by Israeli occupiers against Palestinians in the West Bank. Numerous videos have been posted of illegal Israeli settlers evicting Palestinian residents in Sheikh Jarrah and of Israeli forces attacking peaceful Muslim worshippers in al-Aqsa Mosque.
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Redeemable Representation of the Modern Muslimah
When it comes to exploring the Muslim identity in the realm of fiction, one is hard-pressed to find a story that provides a realistic narrative for the lay Muslim…Novels that debunk popular stereotypes and endeavor to reconcile the Muslim identity with the twenty-first century are finally on the rise.
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The Devil You Know, Or Thought You Knew
“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” -The Usual Suspects
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Papicha: The Muslim Damsel in Distress
The film Papicha is based on a binary vision of the Civil War in Algeria, the Black Decade, which followed a military coup rejecting the 1991 Islamist electoral victory.