Comments on: A “Community” of Misrepresentation

By: 竹板凳

竹板凳 — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 07:13:24 +0000

let me put this in another way, just because Firefly featured horrendous Chinese accents, with no Asian speaking roles to actually speak Chinese, and while its established that all people speaks some Mandarin in that distant future, Serenity's alarm is in Cantonese, doesn't take anything away from that show. It is an awesome show with an awesome premise, and even though when they speak Mandarin I can't understand more than a word, it doesn't stop me from seeing that it is a tribute to the culture and they are trying to tell awesome stories with it.

Kind of like Community, they told a very thoughtful and endearing story with Abed and his father. The two characters are written wonderfully, not at all a typical 2D Arab character. So, I hope you can get past the language thing, and see what they accomplished.

By the way, Siddig El Fadil plays some complex Arabbic characters, even if some of them are terrorists.

By: 竹板凳

竹板凳 — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 07:05:03 +0000

Consider that Chinese Americans makes up almost 4% of LA's population, TV shows still make supposedly Mandarin speaking characters speaking Cantonese, it's hardly surprising that nuances of Arabic languages gets by the producers.

Otherwise you probably should get equally up in arms about the misrepresentation of Chinese/Hong Kongese/Japanese/Korean/Singaporean/Taiwanese on TV all the time. Sometimes they don't even bother to get the naming system right. Say, Wu Fat in Hawaii Five-0, or that Wu-Mei Hong-Long character in Community. I mean they obviously had some sources to get it kind of right, but they don't bother to stick to what is actually right, and go for the approximation as long as it serves the plot.

anyway, scenes with Abed and his father in that episode is awesome, even if the language is off.

By: I am an Arab. | ethertwist

I am an Arab. | ethertwist — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 18:59:54 +0000

[...] Here is an excellent article on this same thing. [...]

By: duh

duh — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:22:47 +0000

Maybe that's why it's called "acting". Hello? You don't have to be exactly what you are portraying.

And it's produced for entertainment, that is the ultimate goal – so if you don't like it, don't watch!

By: maytha

maytha — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:03:26 +0000

Jillian-who said I disputed that? I'm riding this whole post-9/11 James Dean-renegade rebel ethos wave as far as it goes. because by the end, we'll go back to being doctors and engineers with butchered american aphorisms and really bad jokes.

By: JillianKF

JillianKF — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:18:57 +0000

But May, Arabs ARE the new cool!

By: Kamilia

Kamilia — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:02:16 +0000

LOL!! That era of film making was a bad time for Arabic accents. That Swiss or German actress playing the Palestinian terrorist in Black Sunday had a pretty thick gargle, too. To the creator's credit, though, they actually tried to explain the Le Pew by saying she had gone to a Swiss boarding school or something.

I guess it's not limited to Israeli actors, but I think they deserve the most credit.

By: maytha

maytha — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:41:08 +0000

so on point Kamilia-all you have to do is watch the whole Delta Force series to see the Arab Pepe Le Pew-ness in action!

By: Kamilia

Kamilia — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:59:42 +0000

I agree there is a long way to go for Arab representation in entertainment. However, I think the industry is on the right track (linguistically) if the father was speaking *almost* the right language. What did that sound like? "2nta 7maroun kabiroun!" I don't think we'll get dialect specific for a while. It only works with movies we make in Morocco, most likely because of their filming resources.

I don't think using actors from other ethnicities is so egregious, but it gets obvious when it affects the project linguistically. That reminds me: can someone tell the Israeli actors that play Arabs to stop gargling their r's ? It's annoying that they insist on portraying Arabs as Pepé Le Pew.

By: Femme

Femme — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:26:51 +0000

I agree. I don't care that the actor is not Arab so much as the fact that I honestly didn't even know it was supposed to be an Arab character. If you're going to make only a halfhearted attempt at representing a culture, why bother at all?