Mo carries a bottle of Palestinian olive oil with him everywhere. Hummus and olive oil function as the major symbols of Palestinian identity in the mosaic of American multiculturalism. Within the neoliberal “salad bowl” ideology of the show, Palestinian particularity is elevated through the three traditional F’s of multicultural America: food, fabrics, and festivities. Mo seamlessly crosses borders of languages and cultures, has a black Nigerian friend, and is dating the Mexican Maria. They point out that the series features “an unapologetically Palestinian character,” someone who “unashamedly embraces his roots.” Indeed, Mo prefers to describe himself as a “salad bowl,” even though his co-creator Rami Yousef opts for the more antiquated trope of the “melting pot” to refer to his partner. Some commentators found this celebration of Palestinian and Muslim identity refreshing. ![]() Obviously, this unequivocal assertion of Palestinian identity could be a function of the Najjar’s sense of loss and experiences of dislocation. The series betrays this message in its take on Palestinian cultural identity, Islam, and the Palestinian struggle for freedom.Ĭontrary to egalitarian comedy, Mo essentializes cultural identity and locks itself in the prison of identity politics that grounds different modes of being, the way Palestinians or Muslims enact their identities, in coherent notions of wholeness, roots and cultural traditions. A true egalitarian comedy, as scholars of comedy show, reveals that our common notions of social reality and identity are neither coherent nor whole, but are rent apart by deeper antagonisms and contradictions that cannot be easily resolved.Īlthough Mo Amer creates the character Mo Najjar as an alter-ego that allows him to make fun of himself and his naiveté, Mo does not go all the way in actualizing this egalitarian message. However, the series packages its presumably radical message in an exclusively politically correct liberal discourse, in a way that cancels out the egalitarian power of laughter and comedy. While ideological comedy works to sustain and justify the social order, egalitarian comedy criticizes the dominant social order and utters the unsayable and impermissible within the consensual parameters of public discourse. Indeed, Mo Najjar, Mo Amer’s alter-ego, is a relatable character, because his experience is grounded in his childhood trauma and guilt at the death of his father and his overwhelming feeling of castration and lack that makes him fail to provide for his family.īy fighting anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia, Mo can be associated with the tradition of egalitarian comedy. In the context of the rise of authoritarian capitalism, and what pundits call fascism or semi-fascism that is sweeping the United States, Mo humanizes the Palestinian and Muslim Other, making it possible for viewers to sympathize and identify with the characters. On their part, leftist analysts fawn over Mo, because it subverts mainstream Western Islamophobic representations of the Arab terrorist and Muslim fanatic. ![]() It thus conveys a universal message about precarity and statelessness and reflects a sense of solidarity between different underrepresented communities. Moreover, liberal pundits find Mo enchanting, because the asylee protagonist’s struggles with a broken asylum system, unemployment, or unemployability, addiction, health insurance, crime, etc., speak to the experiences of different American communities. In the atmospherics of anti-Palestinian racism that is sweeping the Western world and the Ongoing Nakba in Palestine, the mere existence of Palestinians, even the two-state solution, is now considered an expression of their anti-Semitism. Mo not only defies the taboos on uttering the P-word (Palestine), but it also alludes to the Zionist settler-colonial occupation of Palestine and its ethnic cleansing project that culminated in the 1948 Nakba. Palestinian commentators love it for putting Palestine back at the center of mainstream American popular culture. ![]() Everybody loves Mo, Netflix’s tragi-comic series created by Mo(hammed) Amer and Ramy Yousef.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |