Riz Ahmed slams Hollywood for ‘poisonous’ portrayal of Muslims and ‘frankly racist’ films

By PTI
LONDON: Oscar-nominated actor Riz Ahmed has referred to as out Hollywood for the stereotypical and “toxic” portrayal of Muslim neighborhood in its movies.

Ahmed, who grew to become the primary Muslim to get a finest actor Oscar nomination, not too long ago launched the initiative, the Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion, to extend the neighborhood’s illustration in cinema.

The initiative was launched in partnership with the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, the Ford Foundation and Pillars Fund.

In a video posted on his social media handles, Ahmed stated, “The problem with Muslim misrepresentation is one that can’t be ignored any more.”

The 38-year-old British-Pakistani actor stated it was a “bittersweet” second for him when he was nominated on the 2021 Oscars for his efficiency in “Sound of Metal”.

“I simultaneously wore that slightly dubious accolade with a sense of gratitude personally. I also felt tremendous sadness. How was it that out of 1.6 billion people – a quarter of the world’s population – none of us had ever been in this position until now? “I requested myself, if I’m the exception to the rule, what should the rule be about individuals like me? What should the unwritten rule be about Muslims – 1 / 4 of the world’s inhabitants – and their place in our tales, our tradition and their place in our society, if any?” Ahmed stated.

The actor asserted that the problematic portrayal of Muslims in cinema is one thing that can not be fastened by a “handful of prominent Muslims in the business”.

“The progress that’s being made by a few of us doesn’t paint an overall picture of progress if most of the portrayals of Muslims on screen are either nonexistent or entrenched in those stereotypical, toxic, two-dimensional portrayals,” he added.

Ahmed singled out Oscar-winning films — “American Sniper”, “The Hurt Locker” and “Argo” — as “frankly racist”.

“(These) films dehumanise and demonise Muslim characters, insofar as they are the perpetrators or victims of violence, unworthy of empathy or incapable of empathy,” the actor stated.

Similarly, he criticised Amazon’s smash hit sequence “The Boys”.

“(It is) a show that I loved and binged. A very self-aware, modern kip show. One with a gigantic cast, multi-racial multi-species. (But) I can’t tell you how gutted I was when halfway through that show Muslim’s turn up, the first and only time, to hijack a plane.”

“Oh actually, they turn up another time in the first series, to play super-villains whose superpower is to suicide bomb people,” Ahmed stated.

Such a factor wouldn’t occur to every other minority group, the actor stated, citing the instance of “Black Panther”.

“Even a film like ‘Black Panther’, one of the most woke progressive mainstream moments in our culture in recent years. And Muslims turn up in the start of that film as terrorists to kidnap school girls and then disappear,” he added.

Alongside the discharge of The Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion, a research by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, titled “Missing and Maligned”, discovered that Muslims hardly ever seem on display, or are proven in a adverse gentle in the event that they do.

It examined a complete of 8,965 talking characters throughout 200 top-grossing films between 2017 and 2019 from the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

The research discovered that simply 1.6 % of characters had been Muslim.

They had been principally proven as outsiders, threatening or subservient, and about one-third had been perpetrators of violence.

More than half had been targets of violence.