Post date: Oct 27, 2016 3:52:44 PM
The television show Homeland, which is in its sixth season, has captivated American and European audiences and won some of the most prestigious awards in television. The show depicts the United States’ post-9/11 imaginary of the Middle East where Palestinians, Syrians, Saudi Arabians, and Iraqis all share a religiously motivated political agenda. Last spring the three street artists, Heba Amin, Caram Kapp, and Don Karl (known as “The Arabian Street Artists”) were hired to make the set of Homeland look more authentic. The episode was being shot in Berlin but was supposed to depict a Syrian urban area in relative ruins. The street artists instead “hacked” the set: their graffiti stood as a protest to the show's orientalist and racist depiction of both Islam and Middle Easterners (not including Israel). In coordination with filmmaker Laura Poitras, the Arabian Street Artists captured their protest in a short film titled “Homeland is not a Series.” One quote from the video stood out to me in particular because it reminded me of John R. Bowen’s “On Scriptural Essentialism and Ritual Variation” and our discussion on synecdoche. In the short film, a voice speaks over the images of the Homeland set and says (in Arabic with English subtitles), “This place is strange. It resembles only the ugly parts of Syria. But sometimes I think it might be a slum in Egypt or Yemen.”