Muslims are very rarely depicted in movies, and when they are, it’s usually as a stereotypical terrorist, what Oscar nominated actor Riz Ahmed calls a “dangerous trope.” Having spoken out about this issue for several years, he’s been looking for hard data.
USC’s researchers combed through 200 popular films from the U.S., the U.K., Australia and New Zealand from 2017 to 2019.
Being confronted with the hard stats themselves was in a way shocking to see how bad it was.
“Not everyone gets to be what they want to be all the time,” he says to the superhero.
The group’s cofounder and president, Kashif Shaikh says that while the Muslim community is racially and ethnically diverse, it’s rarely shown that way in movies.
Shaikh says his group is not necessarily calling for only positive portrayals, but he advocates for more Muslim roles with nuance.
“I recoiled when that MI5 agent said ‘did you become an actor to further the Muslim struggle?,'” he recalls, saying he’d much rather be acting than be a poster boy for this issue.
Ahmed is also teaming with Mahershala Ali, Ramy Youssef, Sana Amanat, Karim Amer, Rosa Attab, Nida Manzoor and Jehane Noujaim.