{"id":5926,"date":"2010-03-30T00:00:21","date_gmt":"2010-03-30T07:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/muslimahmediawatch.org\/?p=5926"},"modified":"2010-03-30T00:00:21","modified_gmt":"2010-03-30T07:00:21","slug":"5926","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2010\/03\/5926\/","title":{"rendered":"Abra-Cadabra: NBC’s Community Makes Burqa Jokes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I don\u2019t know how you spend your Thursday nights, but mine are usually spent in front of the television for NBC\u2019s Thursday night comedy line up. And usually, Community<\/a><\/em> is one of my favorite shows. It\u2019s a comedy about a misfit group of community college students.<\/p>\n

This weekend, I saw the \u201cBasic Geneaology\u201d episode while I was catching up on all the episodes I missed from the past few weeks. This episode showcased \u201cFamily Day\u201d at Greendale Community College. Everyone\u2019s family was coming, and Abed (who is my favorite character despite all the racial issues with casting a South Asian actor<\/a> as an Arab student) was bringing his father and his cousin from Gaza, Abra.<\/p>\n

\"Abra
Abra (left) and Abed on NBC's Community. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Abed\u2019s father (who is also played by a South Asian actor<\/a>) shows up with a woman in a niqab\u2014Abra (shown left). I admit, the niqab (referred to as a \u201cburqa\u201d by Abed\u2014cringe!) irritated me. A niqab, really? <\/em>They couldn\u2019t possibly have portrayed a young Gazan woman in a headscarf? Or no scarf?<\/p>\n

The rest of the story line revolved around how Abra wanted to play in a bouncy castle at Family Day, but Abed\u2019s father wouldn\u2019t let her. The same basic Muslim-woman-under-a-male-family-member\u2019s-thumb routine.\u00a0 But, considering all the Homeland Security jokes that the show uses, I guess I shouldn\u2019t have been surprised.<\/p>\n

A somewhat positive scene was when Shirley\u2019s young sons bait-and-switched Abed\u2019s father, dressing themselves up in Abra\u2019s niqab so that she could slip away and finally jump happily in the bouncy castle. It was a cute twist, but didn\u2019t cleanse the icky taste of burqa jokes from my palate.<\/p>\n

\"Shirley's
Shirley's sons in Abra's niqab. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anyone else have thoughts on the episode?<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re in the U.S., you can see the episode on the NBC website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t know how you spend your Thursday nights, but mine are usually spent in front of the television for NBC\u2019s Thursday night comedy line up. And usually, Community is one of my favorite shows. It\u2019s a comedy about a misfit group of community college students. This weekend, I saw the \u201cBasic Geneaology\u201d episode while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":154,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[245,304,964,989,1301],"class_list":["post-5926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television","tag-burqa","tag-community","tag-nbc","tag-niqab","tag-stereotypes"],"yoast_head":"\nAbra-Cadabra: NBC's Community Makes Burqa Jokes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I don\u2019t know how you spend your Thursday nights, but mine are usually spent in front of the television for NBC\u2019s Thursday night comedy line up. 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