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No Comedy Please, We’re Muslims

Last Updated on Thursday, 23 October 2008 17:44

The Independent newspaper recently reported (11 October) that the comedian Harry Enfield had been prevented, by editorial qualms, from playing a ‘sex-crazed Muslim hoodie’ in his sketch show, Harry and Paul on BBC One. Enfield specialises in humour based on stereotypes, as indicated in this latest series by his portrayal of, among other characters, a Jewish rap DJ from Golders Green, one of the regular features of the show, and it is likely that the Muslim hoodie would have been another of the comic’s trademark grotesques.

However, the story of why the idea never made it beyond the drawing board – at least as reported – throws up a number of questions. The Independent’s columnist, David Lister suggests that the notion was vetoed by the production team who feared a violent backlash. He expresses concern that the decision suggests ‘a climate of fear in the arts and the media about causing offence to one specific ethnic minority’. Lister here succinctly identifies the way in which the media and culture have created a circuit of fear around the portrayal of Muslims in any form, based on the extreme examples of the cartoon controversy, Theo van Gogh’s film ‘Submission’ and other controversialist efforts. In resulting instances of self-censorship there is always the question of whether such decisions are about cultural sensitivity, or whether they really indicate a kind of cowardice: a spokesman for Tiger Aspect, the production company behind Enfield’s show would only say, ‘Obviously, it is a sensitive area.’ But that begs the question, sensitive to whom?

The media elite do themselves no favours when they treat Muslims with kid gloves – as David Lister concludes, ‘they are really insulting … the hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Britain who are perfectly capable of laughing at themselves’. As it is, another kind of ‘framing’ of Muslims – as intolerant, humourless fanatics – is allowed to stifle a comedic framing. So we will never know how Enfield’s character’s Muslimness was to have been signified, and how his sexual obsessions were to have been played out. Knowing Enfield’s line in crude stereotypes it was unlikely to have been a subtle or flattering portrayal. However, are there times when no representation at all is worse than ‘bad’ representations?