Homeland, now in its fifth season on Showtime, attracted global headlines this weekend for an entirely unintentional reason — it wasn’t plot twists and characterisation the public wanted to talk about, but the surprise embedded in Arabic graffiti used as set dressing. ‘Homeland,’ the artists advised viewers, ‘is racist.’ It was one among several slogans criticising the show and cultural attitudes (‘#BlackLivesMatter’ also made a guest appearance) that slipped past unnoticed simply because the creative team doesn’t read or understand Arabic, viewing the language itself as a set dressing for the drama.
Airing to critical acclaim, Homeland is one among many US shows in what could be considered a post-terrorism landscape, preying upon the fears of audiences to generate tension around a nebulous terrorist threat. Curiously, despite the fact that with one glaring exception, all terrorist attacks on US soil have originated from within the US and have involved white perpetrators — often racist separatists or extreme anti-choicers — Homeland focuses on the bogeyman of Middle Eastern terrorism. The show tickles the senses of viewers who like to imagine that the next 11 September is looming around the corner, as such beliefs justify the racism and bizarre security culture that have come to socially dominate the United States. After all, there’s no excuse for racial profiling if the nation admits that, statistically speaking, people of colour are actually less likely to commit terrorist acts in the United States.
US culture has a very specific image of a terrorist in mind: A wild-eyed Jihadi in turban and fatigues, bearing a machine gun or the makings of a bomb, straggly beard jutting proudly from his face. Jihadi Jim speaks Arabic, of course, with shouts of ‘Allahu akhbar’ ringing from doorways and hideouts, creating a triangle that ties terrorism-Islam-Arabic together in a bundle. This is the figure who appears over and over again in caricatures and political cartoons, a shorthand for ‘terrorism’ that even children the United States understand, though a white man with shorn head and cadaverous features would probably be a better stand-in.
Shows like Homeland underscore this stereotype, as do countless others that engage in themes surrounding terrorism in the United States. When Heba Amin, Stone, and Caram Kapp were asked to add realism to a the show’s refugee camp set, the artists were initially conflicted, not wanting to add to Homeland’s problematic legacy. That changed when they realised that they could use the commission as an act of subversive protest by capitalising on the fact that while the set designers wanted some ‘authentic’ graffiti, they probably couldn’t actually read Arabic.
The results aired live on television, and sharp-eyed readers with a better understanding of Arabic than the show’s own creative team spotted it and started commenting on it. From there, the protest went viral, and sparked another round of discussion about Homeland’s pernicious racism as it depicts brown people as the enemy, reduces the Middle East to tired stereotypes, and sets viewers up with comforting white saviors present to protect them from the nefarious evils of unknown and poorly defined ‘national security threats.’
Their commentary was a sharp critique of the show on multiple levels — as the artists noted, ‘In their eyes, Arabic script is merely a supplementary visual that completes the horror-fantasy of the Middle East, a poster image dehumanizing an entire region to human-less figures in black burkas and moreover, this season, to refugees. The show has thus created a chain of causality with Arabs at its beginning and as its outcome — their own victims and executioners at the same time.’
The notion of Arabic — a hugely diverse language with numerous dialects and scripts — as simple ornamentation and background was deeply disturbing, and the idea that a few daubed slogans would cinch the authenticity of the set of a programme rooted in propagating racist notions about terrorism and the origins of radicalism was troubling, suggesting that Arabic itself is a politicised tool, rather than simply a language spoken by human beings around the world. Nearly five percent of the world’s population speaks some form of Arabic as a native language, and Homeland would have us believe that they are all refugees and terrorists.
Of course, the fact that the targeted graffiti slipped past producers was also a wry comment on the state of relations in the Middle East. Many of those working in the Middle East don’t read, write, or speak any form of Arabic, with even State Department officials relying on translators rather than speaking with people directly. The game of telephone played in regions like Iraq and Afghanistan has huge consequences in the real world, and the sly graffitied commentary on the show made a direct dig at the issue. If the producers of Hollywood television can’t bother with their fact checking, what’s going on in the field, where the stakes are much higher, and it costs actual lives, not just face for a network that has to cobble together a hasty response to amused viewers?
Homeland and shows like it also present a twisted, disturbing version of Islam that ties in with the graffiti incident in the sense that both rely on common social attitudes to skip ahead in the plot and add perceived verisimilitude. Islam in the United States is already a highly marginalised and stereotyped religion — as we know, from repeat attacks on mosques and Muslims, including dogged attempts to exclude Muslim cemeteries from regional communities, suggesting that Muslims aren’t even welcome to bury their dead in the United States. This kind of programming doesn’t make the situation any better.
The situation for Muslims has become so bad that those practicing entirely unrelated religions have been swept up in it, with Sikhs in particular becoming a popular target thanks to the turbans Sikh men wear as part of their religious practice. Sadly, the Sikh community’s pushback to stereotyping, racism, and attacks has often been to distinguish itself as ‘truly American,’ with a disturbing undertone that Muslims aren’t — a more powerful campaign might include education about the differences between the two religions paired with solidarity. Sikh communities that opt for a pro-solidarity and friendship stance are making a bold statement, and one that potentially endangers them in a political climate where Islam=enemy.
In the landscape of Homeland, all Arabic speakers are Muslim, all Muslims are terrorists, and the government is here to save us. It’s a dangerous message to be sending to a public that grows increasingly complacent in the face of oppressive practices.