I finally got around today to watching the first episode of Tyrant - TopicsExpress

I finally got around today to watching the first episode of Tyrant that aired on FX last Tuesday, which was met with heavy criticism on social media. As a part of a Middle Eastern focus group that watched an unedited version of the pilot a couple of months ago, I was curious to watch again this episode that was being called racist, stereotypical, orientalist. I spent two days in Los Angeles in April with a group of other Arabs who were either experts on or had participated in the Arab Spring. I am not by far an expert, but was invited to participate in a discussion with the writers and producers of the show as a Syrian who had participated in protests and been detained in Damascus for peaceful activism. We were told from the start that simply criticizing the show wouldn’t change it, and to focus instead on giving (personal) narratives and storylines that would help the writers and producers of the show avoid stereotypes. We were also told that the show was a drama inspired by the Arab Spring, not a documentary. With that in mind, I found the pilot I watched two months ago to be ok. My main concern walking in had been that the show would humanize the dictator and his family. After watching the pilot however, that did not seem to be an issue. The way the dictator’s family was portrayed gave me chills. The billboards of the dictator on the streets of Tyrant’s fictional Middle Eastern country reminded me of the billboards of Hafez al Assad I would see every morning on my way to school in Damascus. The heavily criticized rape scenes (of which there was only one when I initially viewed the pilot) were not foreign or outrageous either. As a Syrian, I’d grown up with stories of Hafez al Assad’s son (presumably Maher) and relatives who used to kidnap and rape women. An Iraqi woman in the discussion group noted that Saddam’s sons were also known for the same crime. The main issues I had with the pilot back in April are the same problems I have with it now. The first being the nature of the uprising. Although the journalist character, Fawzi, briefly mentions there were protests that were then followed with tanks and repression from the regime, there is no semblance of civil society or activism, in the pilot at least. The uprisings in the Arab Spring were not based on tribal, regional or sectarian rivalries, nor were they militarized at first. They were groups of disenfranchised people, largely youth, fed up with the oppression and lack of opportunities in their countries, demanding greater political, economic and social freedoms, and the end of dictatorial rule. They staged protests, sit-ins, sent out letters and declarations to their communities and the international community. They were from different religious, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. We spent a good time in the discussion group stressing this idea, and providing the writers with experiences of peaceful activism and civil society and narratives. The second problem I had and still have with the show is the poor representation of women. As we pointed out in the discussion group back in April, the pilot fails the Bechdel test. There are a few women in the pilot, and they are all named, but they fail to converse together about anything but men. The Arab Spring was largely carried and continues on the shoulders of women, from well-known ones like Nobel Peace Laureate Tawakkol Karman, to the hundreds of thousands anonymous women throughout the Middle East. If the show wants to highlight how women are objectified in dictatorial Middle Eastern societies, then it should also highlight how women have been leaders and key components in the uprisings. Yes, women and their bodies have been taken advantage of directly by dictators for decades and even more so by their militias now in the aftermath of uprisings. But women are more prominently political leaders, journalists, human rights lawyers, community organizers, field doctors and nurses and aid workers. This was a point we emphasized repeatedly in the discussion group, especially since the pilot already had a couple of female characters that could easily be developed into leader characters, especially Fawzi’s daughter, Samira. We gave examples and stories of different female uprising activists, from different countries, with the hopes it would adjust the narrative to become more accurate. I viewed the pilot through the lens of a Syrian who had been present for the first two years of the uprising. My main concerns were the depictions of the uprisings which have been slighted and simplified by mainstream news, and the depiction of the dictators and that the show does not humanize war criminals. I realize there are three different lens through which to watch the show: that of an Arab, an Arab American, and a non-Arab American. A non-Arab American might miss the context of the show being focused on dictators, and take the violent portrayals to represent Arabs in general. For Arab Americans who have endured constant misrepresentation in the media, it seems this show poses as a threat to reinforce stereotypes of Arab aggression/savagery, something I hadnt considered earlier. I was hoping the show would help a non-Arab American audience finally understand what it is like to live under the repression of dictatorial rule that lead to the uprisings of the Arab Spring, although it seems it may fall short of accomplishing that. This has been a learning experience on how difficult it is to be a part of a media conversation when you are constantly misrepresented, and cast – or not cast – into certain roles. Ive also learned why people are upset when shows like this come out, and generally mistrust Hollywood and much of the film industry.