Saturday 8 April 2017

Joe's shorts 2: Whose homeland?

What I’m thinking about Homeland in 200 words

Image resultWhen the Showtime series was pranked in 2015 by artists who, asked to decorate the set with Arabic graffiti, sprayed satirical slogans about its racism, the show was busted on three levels. (1) It had all been about decent white Americans hunting nasty backward Muslims, the cost of freedom being Carrie’s manic vigilance. (2) Scary images of Arab backstreets and refugee camps were regularly served up as desolation porn to be enjoyed from the comfort of our Western couches. And (3) no one on the payroll spoke a word of Arabic.

Writers of series 6 seem to have been shamed into a re-think. Carrie, now no longer associated with the CIA, is reborn as a passionate advocate for Muslims wrongly suspected of terrorism. Her new pal, the President Elect, is like Clinton in being a trouser-suited female, but unlike Clinton in being so critical of America’s anti-Muslim wars abroad and police state tactics at home that the CIA are willing to commit homeland murders to destroy her. Meanwhile, with Carrie back on her meds, it’s up to the disabled CIA veteran Peter Quinn, now a prime CIA target, to keep us guessing whether his obsessive wild-eyed behaviour is paranoia or prescience.  


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