Dear All
The BBC has a new comedy called Citizen Khan.
How it ever got passed is a mystery as it guilty of using stereotypes about Asians in the most outlandish fashion.
I happened to catch a few minutes and thought was I watching a repeat of something made in the 1970’s of the Love thy Neighbour vintage.
So far the public has sent in 200 complaints and people say the programme takes the mickey out of Islam.
In one scene a Muslim girl is seen ready a gossip mag wearing make up only to pull on a hijab and start reading the Koran when she hears her father coming down the hall.
The father plays a Muslim community leader who said to his daughter that the reason he married her mother was because she looked cheap.
And to add further insult, earlier on the father produced his ‘master class’ on how to use toilet paper after buying a bumper load saying you can’t have too much.
The public were quick to respond with one viewer writing on a BBC’s messageboard:
“This is terrible stereotyping, ignorant and just dreadful.”
Another said:
“HIGHLY disappointed especially when her father walks in and she dis-respectfully opens the Koran!!”
However some people defended the show.
One said:
“People are reading too much in to Citizen Khan, especially the hijab thing, it happens!”
A BBC spokesman said:
“Citizen Khan has made a very positive start, launching successfully with 3.6million viewers and a 21.5 per cent share in a late-night slot”.
Presumably because it is a shock jock!
BBC spokesman added:
“New comedy always provokes differing reactions from the audience. The characters are comic creations and not meant to be representative of the community as a whole.
In a recent interview with BBC Breakfast, Mr Ray said the show was allowing the Muslim community to laugh at itself. I think it is a great opportunity, with Mr Khan as a Pakistani Muslim and the character, to take that kind of really rich content and laugh at ourselves and I am a firm believer in that.”
This programme will either bomb or become a cult programme, it has caused quite a stir and I am sure the writers will be keen to heighten their outrageous antics, after you have upset people, you crank it up seems to be the model.
Some people I know have said they would like to see a comedy about vote rigging in a political party by grubby little individuals set in Scotland.
The comedy would revolve around the leaders of a political party who use communities to get campaign contributions and in return ensure the community ‘leaders’ get candidacies in their party at election time.
The joke would be working class people who work as activists effectively being barred as candidates and used as lackeys to make way for people who don’t work. Each week little deals are done behind closed doors with the leaders who laugh behind the backs of those activists who work for them.
My friends said they would call it ‘Yours for Scotland’.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
1 comment:
George; anything about a religious comedy would and will always cause complaints, be it clad in bowler hats or hijabs.
Shouldn't we laugh with people when they make fun of themselves like the Muslim writer of this series has?
Or would you rather stone him?
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