
Graffiti on ‘Homeland,’ Unnoticed by Producers, Calls Show Racist - yk
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/16/world/europe/homeland-arabic-graffiti.html
======
unknownzero
This is the best hack I've seen on Hacker News in months and it doesn't even
involve a computer. Great job to everyone involved in pulling it off, even if
the casual viewers didn't notice.

~~~
vijayr
I am conflicted - on one hand it is a great hack, no doubt. But they also
screwed over the producers, who trusted them and paid them for their work.

~~~
frenchman_in_ny
The producers also admire the hack.

From the show's creator & executive producer: "We wish we’d caught these
images before they made it to air. However, as Homeland always strives to be
subversive in its own right and a stimulus for conversation, we can’t help but
admire this act of artistic sabotage.” [0]

[0] [http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-
radio/2015/oct/15/homeland...](http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-
radio/2015/oct/15/homeland-is-racist-artists-subversive-graffiti-tv-show)

(edited for clarity)

~~~
rsync
... and there's the hack. It's us.

If you ever needed proof of the adage that capitalism will co-opt even the
most accurate and stinging criticism of it, here it is.

The show was criticized as being racist and so the show appropriated that
message (by hiring the "street artists" and instructing them to "go rogue") in
order to sell more of the show.

~~~
proveanegative
This seems like a feature that would be generally selected for in types of
social organization.

------
gotchange
A native Arabic speaker here, I must say that I admire the courage and
innovation of the graffiti artists and activists who chose this medium to
protest and convey their message, which needless to say, that I don't
necessarily endorse or share the creators' point of view.

I have to admit that I haven't seen the show yet not even a single shot and I
could say too that I have a very thick skin when it comes to "cultural
insensitivities" in TV drama or real life.

So, I don't have any problem with media, cinema or drama depicting characters
from our region, the Middle East, or ones that share the same cultural
background even in very negative and unflattering light.

However, I must say that it's really alarming that not even a single person of
the whole crew of the show has a 3rd grade proficiency level of the Arabic
language to be able to read and grasp a two word phrase, esp. when the show
prides itself on offering their audience deep insight into the characters,
their mindsets, their psychological profile that they portray on screen, or
that is what I at least was able to collect from the scattered and random
reviews that I came across online recently.

EDIT: For clarification and more input.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Hi 'gotchange! Since you speak (and read) Arabic, could you tell what's in the
top left corner of that picture[0]? Seems like hashtag-something, but it
wasn't mentioned in the article.

[0] -
[http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/10/16/world/middleeast/1...](http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/10/16/world/middleeast/16Homeland2-web/16Homeland2-web-
superJumbo.jpg)

~~~
gotchange
This is most likely "جاسوس" which translates primarily to "spy" or "agent"
depending on context.

~~~
TeMPOraL
So it's most definitely a part of the joke. Thanks! :).

------
draw_down
I thought this was funny, and striking:
[https://twitter.com/sandman_leb/status/579021886845243392](https://twitter.com/sandman_leb/status/579021886845243392)

~~~
PopeOfNope
It's funny, but not very striking. Ask an LA native how LA gets depicted in tv
shows and movies. Or NYC. Or Belfast.

~~~
draw_down
Well, the point isn't exactly that they film in a different location than the
setting. Never seen LA with dirt roads.

------
nahiluhmot
Pretty telling that nobody on the set can read Arabic.

~~~
Archio
Pretty telling that what? The show is racist? I think there might be more
nuance involved.

~~~
pessimizer
As racist as it would be if there were a US show based on how the French are
scary, and no one involved with the show spoke French. It means that they are
likely exclusively trading in stereotypes and Western orientialist imagery and
tropes. I've never seen the show.

~~~
stonogo
France is not a race. That would be xenophobia, which is a different brand of
bigotry.

Not speaking Arabic is a grey area -- not all Muslims are Arabic, despite the
fact that the Quran is written in Arabic and only canonical in that language.
There are millions and millions of Muslims who do not speak Arabic, and rely
on their clergy to teach them the Quran.

While it's apparently not the case here, the absence of an arabic-speaking
component on the production team does not _necessarily_ preclude a Muslim
component on a production team.

~~~
stefantalpalaru
> France is not a race.

There are no races in the human species. Claiming otherwise without providing
strong scientific proof is what racism actually is.

~~~
dragonwriter
No, racism is discriminating based on (perceived) race, not merely the belief
that race exists. (Which it manifestly does, _as a cultural construct_.)

Nationality and ethnicity likewise exist as related, but usually distinct,
cultural constructs to race, and we have different names for bigotry based on
them. Though, obviously, the distinction between these forms of bigotry is
somewhat nitpicky, and often not meaningful, and a lot of time "racism" is
used broadly to refer to bigotry based on race, ethnicity, or nationality.

~~~
stefantalpalaru
> [...] the belief that race exists. (Which it manifestly does, as a cultural
> construct.)

That's like saying that aliens exist as a cultural construct. Let's not mix
reality and widely shared fantasies.

How would you call the unscientific belief that races exist in the human
species, if not "racism"?

> a lot of time "racism" is used broadly to refer to bigotry based on race,
> ethnicity, or nationality

True, just like "vagina" is used to refer to the vulva. Errors need to be
pointed out, not accepted in silence, even if the hoi polloi will make you pay
for it.

~~~
dragonwriter
> That's like saying that aliens exist as a cultural construct.

No, its not. Its more like saying color exists as a product of perception.
Races are a categorization, categorizations do not inherently exist at all,
they exist as products of mind only.

> How would you call the unscientific belief that races exist in the human
> species, if not "racism"?

If by that you mean the unscientific belief that the cultural perception of
race has a direct correspondence to inherent biological feature of humans, I'd
call it something like "the erroneous belief in biological race".

Its pretty much logically orthogonal to racism; racists are probably more
likely to believe that biological race is a thing than non-racists, but its
quite possible to be a racist without believing in biological race (if it
weren't, bigotry against, e.g., nationality -- which doesn't have the problem
of people mistaking for an inherent biological trait -- wouldn't be a thing.
Heck, bigotry based on sexual orientation seems to be _inversely_ correlated
with the belief that it is an inherent biological feature.)

> Errors need to be pointed out, not accepted in silence, even if the hoi
> polloi will make you pay for it.

Well, yes, that's why I am pointing out the error of your mistaken confusion
of the erroneous perception that race is an inherent biological feature with
"racism", a term which has always referred to belief in the _superiority_ or
_inferiority_ of particular races, not belief in the biological inherency of
race.

~~~
drdeca
I'm not sure that categories don't exist outside of the mind of a person.

I think sets (for example) probably have a real existence, in a sense.

some of the categories we choose might not have anything special about them to
mark them as any more real than other categories that we would see as
arbitrary, but that wouldn't mean that they aren't real, just that they aren't
more real.

But maybe the ontology of abstract objects isn't very relevant here.

Also, I don't mean to say that the categories we use are all arbitrary, just
that even the ones which are arbitrary (if any) I think still exist.

Also, I don't right now present any argument for why I believe what I do about
abstract objects. I'm just stating beliefs that I have, and which your post
seemed(?) to assume something that contradicts.

------
ianphughes
Funny but also a great non-violent form of protest. However, the article could
have also been titled 'Unnoticed by Vast Majority of Viewers'.

------
Archio
I haven't seen Homeland past the first season - but can someone who has seen
more shed light on the alleged "racism" of the show? Is the show actually
racist in its depiction of Arab-speaking characters, or is this simply a
manifestation of Hanlon's Razor - "never attribute to malice that which is
adequately explained by stupidity"?

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Well, the show depicts largely terrorists and criminals. Activists apparently
want long diatribes about how wonderful Arab and Muslim families are to
"balance" it out.

Homeland isn't a documentary. Its a dramatic show about national security and
as such it will probably not paint a realistic picture of the average Muslim,
because average Muslims aren't really what its supposed to portray. The same
way professional wresting doesn't portray the average man's body or reality tv
about wealthy people doesn't portray the average person's lifestyle.

~~~
zhemao
Well, it apparently can't even depict terrorists correctly, because suggesting
that Al Qaeda and Hezbollah would ever work together is just ludicrous.

And I can totally see why Lebanese would be pissed off at seeing Hamra street
completely misrepresented in that way.

And even if the show isn't supposed to depict "average Muslims", do you really
think all the viewers of the show will get that nuance? If all of the
Arab/Iranian/Pakistani characters in the show (and the show doesn't seem to
make much a distinction) are painted with a broad brush, that sends a certain
kind of message to viewers.

~~~
briandear
Might we also criticize the portrayal of Jews in Palestinian kids cartoons? I
am not certain there are many Muslims complaining about those portrayals.

~~~
pessimizer
Or the portrayal of Minnesotans in Fargo. I'm not sure that you're required to
talk about every portrayal everywhere before complaining about any specific
portrayal, though, so it's probably irrelevant.

------
Apocryphon
Meta: Does this act count as culture jamming? And if so, does culture jamming
count as hacking? Because if so, I foresee the possibility of more links on HN
about Banksy, or whomever is the Banksy of the moment, and others who find
ways to disrupt establishment norms.

~~~
johnchristopher
« culture jamming » ? « reality hacking » ?

This is plain and simple activism (or sabotage, it depends whose side you are
on). No need for fancy words and one-item-categories.

------
kelvin0
Curiously though I always thought the show portrayed the US protagonists in a
less than flattering light. I can't speak of the biggottery the 'hackers'
mention ... but clearly (to me at least) the decisions made by the agents are
very nuanced and show some disturbing disregard for the impact of their
actions and the short-sightedness of their attacks.

~~~
smt88
I think "nuanced" is the key there.

Also, when you're portraying a minority, the effect of your work will be
different. If you live in the US, chances are excellent that you know a
variety of white people well. Some are good, some are bad.

Chances are much worse that you know Muslims or Middle Eastern immigrants
well. Muslims are one of the most discriminated against minorities in the US,
and there's some shocking witch-hunt-esque rhetoric coming from the
conservative right that makes it even more problematic.

I'm not saying that a TV show is responsible for righting society's wrongs (or
even contradicting stereotypes), but they can certainly make small narrative
tweaks to portray people as people, rather than flat stereotypes. It makes the
show better, too.

~~~
briandear
Interesting because Christians are among the most discriminated against groups
in the Middle East. Pot, meet kettle.

~~~
smt88
1) That was completely non-sequitur. I didn't say Christians are primarily
responsible for discriminating against Muslims.

2) The people persecuting Christians in (some of) the Middle East aren't the
same people facing persecution here. It's unfair to assume they're guilty of
bigotry just because someone else who shares their religion is. Should we
assume all Catholics molest children because some do? Are all Protestants
members of the Klan?

3) I'm from the US, and I'm not bigoted toward Muslims or Christians (nor do I
belong to either group). I'm neither pot nor kettle, so your nonsensical
comment means even less to me.

------
pvaldes
... And fake controversy to create interest strikes again.

------
sanid
One of the artists (Heba Amin) was interviewed on live tv by sky News [0]

[0] [http://news.sky.com/video/1570367/homeland-hacked-by-arab-
ar...](http://news.sky.com/video/1570367/homeland-hacked-by-arab-artists)

------
TeMPOraL
What's that in the upper left corner of the other image[0]? Is that a hashtag-
something? I don't see any mention of it neither in the article nor here. Can
anyone who reads Arabic chime in?

[0] -
[http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/10/16/world/middleeast/1...](http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/10/16/world/middleeast/16Homeland2-web/16Homeland2-web-
superJumbo.jpg)

------
skywhopper
I wouldn't take fake background graffiti in a TV show as seriously as an
Internet Essay. The graffiti that don't claim racism are mostly just silly,
and "X is racist" could be read as being in line with the same type of silly
humor as much as a "silent protest" or whatever. For all we know, the
producers asked the artists to paint that text.

------
bdcravens
I imagine doing the same thing on a show where they show "computer code" where
it could actually compile to a message without being blatantly obvious (say,
concatenated characters expressed in unicode)

~~~
dlbucci
I think this actually happened in Ex Machina. There's a coding scene, and if
you run the program the character writes, it points you to the ISBN for a book
on AI.

------
monatron
clever. I'm curious if the group cashed the check from the producers for their
"services" or if that's also just part of the statement they're making.

~~~
unknownzero
I would imagine they did: "Ms. Amin said she and her colleagues had been hired
by the show’s producers to add authenticity to the camp depicted in the
episode". From my perspective this definitely adds authenticity, seems like
the service was provided, if in a snarky manner. However I doubt they receive
future work from the show :P

------
NoMoreNicksLeft
Fixed in post-production for the dvd release.

------
dba7dba
Homeland is a TV show, for entertainment. No one is happy with a lot of
documentaries, the TV shows that are meant to get at facts and not just
entertain.

So while I don't want to give Homeland a free ride, it'd be too much to expect
more from the show.

~~~
qzxvwt
I believe entertainment media to be more powerful than people give credit for.
But yeah, people should have the freedom to take creative liberties in this
context, so we should at least be having an ongoing discourse about it as it
fills more of our living experience every day.

------
usaphp
I thought "Saul" can speak Arabic and has Arabic wife, it's funny how they are
portraiting a whole culture without having a single person on a show who has a
relation to that culture or at least speak their language...Hollywood

------
gopowerranger
So a fictional TV show about fictional characters has everyone going on today?

~~~
geetee
The amusing part to me is that Homeland actually draws the line down the
middle pretty much. It shows the human side of "terrorists" and also demonizes
the CIA.

------
ingsoc79
Never knew you could be "racist" against a religion.

I get it though, take a powerful word with negative connotations and use it to
put your target on the defensive, no matter how tangential the connection.
Kind of like being called a "commie" in the 20th century.

~~~
Apocryphon
Racism is just shorthand for prejudices such as ethnocentrism, Orientalism,
Othering.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
I have never, _never_ seen anti-Christianity been referred to as "racism" by
anyone, not even evangelicals and fundamentalists. It would make large swaths
of criticism of Christianity (not to mention many extreme metal bands) post-
facto racist.

"Othering" is far more general than racism, and relates to identity as a
whole, not a specific racial identity.

~~~
Apocryphon
Granted, there are many types of anti-Islamic thought, everything from
actually studying the tenets of the religion and arguing against it from
different angles, all of the way to having ignorant, inaccurate cultural
stereotypes- Islamophobia. My conflating of racism with anti-Islam is with the
latter. Because people in the West are usually less familiar with Islam, it's
not difficult for people to assume Muslims are "those brown people over there
in the Middle East", not unlike how a medieval European might have the social
construct of a "Saracen." The point is, when a show depicts Islam in an
inaccurate way that lumps a bunch of different peoples and cultures together
as one Middle Eastern hodgepodge, it can be considered false to life, and
thus, "racist."

Anti-Christianity doesn't work the same way in the West, because people here
are generally less ignorant of that religion, and less likely to lump in all
white people together as Christians. Maybe it's different in the East (though
probably not the Middle East, where there are substantial Christian
populations), and there they lump in all Christians as "those white people in
America and Europe." In which case they would also be having a racist
assumption.

------
mtgx
I hope next they protest how much of a propaganda tool for the U.S. government
this show is - a cake for drone striking someone? Really?

~~~
veeti
In the same episode, a drone strike kills tens of innocent people. If you
think that is "propaganda", you obviously weren't paying any attention.

~~~
elif
I won't attempt to address this show which I haven't seen, but in general,
propaganda can function to normalize or justify the obscene.

Through presenting two sides of an issue, it gives the illusion of honesty or
fairness. Even if that strike was represented as a complete mistake with no
justification, it has normalized drone strikes simply by exposing them as a
thing you witness in sympathy from the comfort of your sofa.

~~~
merpnderp
There was nothing normalizing about their depiction. Most of the aftermath is
showing a father's response to his dead young child. If anything it reinforces
how horrific drone strikes on civilians are.

~~~
Udik
But it also reinforces the idea that this, tragedy included, is the new
normal.

Showing the desperation of the victims, might also reassure you of the fact
that you _care_ about them (while in reality things like these happen every
day without you even reading it in the news).

Finally, when you register that the ugly sides are taken in consideration, as
you just did:

> In the same episode, a drone strike kills tens of innocent people. If you
> think that is "propaganda", you obviously weren't paying any attention.

your trust in the rest of the details of the episode and the series is
enhanced. While they could be totally random, you have no clue about that.

------
balls187
Meanwhile, a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad resulted the deaths of 12
people.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo#Muhammad_cartoon...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo#Muhammad_cartoons_and_aftermath)

~~~
chris_wot
Meanwhile, a Texas church burned the holy book of millions of Muslims.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dove_World_Outreach_Center_Q...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dove_World_Outreach_Center_Quran-
burning_controversy)

What's your point?

~~~
balls187
> Meanwhile, a Texas church burned the holy book of millions of Muslims.

And Muslim (extremists?), killed 30 people in response, and resulted in a
fatwa against Terry Jones.

> What's your point?

Artistic demonstration against the west, is (nearly) a right.

Artistic expression against Muslims, is (nearly) a death sentence.

\---

It's a false equivalency to compare our (White Christian) nutjobs to their
(Islam) nutjobs.

~~~
chris_wot
And yet you made your argument with a false equivalence. The street in Lebanon
(Hamra Street) that was depicted as a hotbed of terrorist activity is a
cosmopolitan, liberal road.

In case you can't see the issue: the series treats all Arabs and Muslims as
dangerous terrorists willing to kill any "infidel" at the drop of a hat. And
yet that is because of extremists, which exist everywhere - like, for example,
Terry Jones.

It's false to say that EVERY Muslim will kill someone who criticises their
religion.

~~~
balls187
I see the issue, and I understand what the artists gripes are. They're valid.

I'm simply pointing out that subversive demonstration is a basic right under
many standard western doctrines.

It certainly is not under many interpretations of Islam.

This is all generalized of course, as there are people in the US who believe
US Flag Burning should be illegal, and Muslims artists that are against strict
interpretations of Sharia law.

