Monday, January 21, 2008

Show About Nothing Attacked for Failing to Address Geopolitical Issues   [Mark Steyn]

I see the creator of the taxpayer-funded Canadian sitcom "Little Mosque On The Prairie" has criticized "Seinfeld" for "failing to deal with the contentious issue of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory".

As it happens, my review of "Little Mosque On The Prairie" is one of the subjects of the Islamic Congress' "human rights" complaint against me. Very odd to live in a world where a sitcom critique is a "hate crime". Nevertheless, the plaintiffs allege (page 44) that I hurl some very serious accusations:

9. Moderate Muslims are a rarity; Moderate Muslims who are actually funny are an even greater rarity.

14. The actors playing the moderate Muslims on the show are not really Muslims. This fact indicates there are no moderate Muslims.

15. Actual Muslim comics talk about drinking blood and killing non-Muslims, but are not prepared to play moderate Muslims on CBC.

The first part of charge #14 is correct. The fluffy cuddly moderate Muslims on the sitcom are all played by Protestants, Catholics and Hindus, because, for whatever reasons, Muslim members of Equity declined to be associated with the show. As for #15, that was a reference to a boffo appearance by the British Muslim comic Omar Brooks:

In a debate at Trinity College, Dublin, recently, the aforementioned Omar Brooks said that Muhammad's message to non-believers was: "I come to slaughter all of you." He meant it, but come on, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to weep with laughter. Warming to his theme, he said, "We are the Muslims. We drink the blood of the enemy..." So today, Muslim funnymen are happy to stand up in public and threaten to drink your blood but won't risk doing anodyne CBC sitcoms. Which is also pretty hilarious when you think about it.

Happily, once the new speech codes are in force, we won't have to worry about jokes anymore, and every sitcom will be a show about nothing funny.

01/21 09:30 AMShare