The Muslims are comming!

The Muslims are coming!

The documentary “Muslims are coming” which shows us the stereotypes of Islam in a comedic fashion, therefore reaching the audience in a unique manner. Quite obviously, this is controversial in America as well as for Muslims. Negin Farsad and Dean Obeidulla are Muslims who have a mission; they want to make a better place for the next generation of Muslim- Americans and immigrants in order for them to stop being looked down upon by the society. 

They are Muslim comedians who went on a journey to many different cities and states which are conservative to show them that Muslims aren’t all that bad. Statistics show that Muslims are the most hated group in America and ironically most of the "hate" comes from places where there are lack of Muslims.

The main goal for these Muslim comedians go around conservative states and cities in America where they have not met Muslims but rather based their opinions from the media. They wanted to show them what Muslims are really like. These comedians had free shows wherever they went and their content was not typically what a conservative Muslim would do. Negin and Dean used other stereotypes such as racism against black people and hatred against immigrants to make people laugh. They would also make Muslim jokes and use stereotypes as well to show that Muslims can be fun-loving people. As the movie began, Negin was going to the shooting ring to shoot a practice gun for the first time. She messed it all up. The message behind this scene was to show us that all Muslims are not terrorist, better yet most of them don't even know how to hold a gun!

In many different scenes of the documentary, we saw different clips of politicians, talk shows, TV channels etc. of how they use Islam as the main source of all their problems. If anything went wrong such as a murder or a theft, the Muslims were always to blame.  Negin and Dean used these stereotypes in their stand-ups as well to prove that it's not true. Another significant issue that happened was during one of Negins stand up performances, she was saying jokes about her Islamic family and her sexuality. She noticed that woman in the room who wore Hijabs (clothes covering their head) left the room. This was upsetting since the main purpose was to help the people and empower Muslims but there was a lack of Muslim support in this plan.

Negin and Dean both mentioned that they are not fully practicing Muslims. There main idea was not just to empower the religion of Islam but rather the culture and the people from the same roots. They wanted to stop the stereotypes and help the cultural Muslim immigrants who are suffering in USA.

The “Muslim’s are coming!” is a great documentary film. It shows how comedy can be used to revolutionize the mentality of ignorant people and cause major social changes. Comedy just doesn’t make people laugh but it also helps people understand things they wouldn’t otherwise. We saw that their plan was coming in action when people from these conservative states visited the comedy shows and actually had a great time. From the 20th century, Bertold Brecht used Theatre to cause social change. Comedy is a part of theatre and I would say that it is a catalyst for new ideas, mindsets and the perfect way to stir our minds in a light hearted manner. This documentary is a perfect example of comedy used for social change.

Work cited:

"Plot Summary." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2014. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2224509/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl>.