by ALEX COHEN
It’s Saturday morning, and several dozen Muslims are gathered in a college classroom in Los Angeles. There are men and women, young and old, U.S.-born and immigrants, but they all have a common dream: to break into show business.
In television and films, however, Muslims are often portrayed as the bad guys, like the terrorists seen in FOX’s 24 or in the Bruce Willis film The Siege. A group called the Muslim Public Affairs Council has been working with Hollywood studios for years to foster more accurate portrayals.
And recently it has adopted a new tactic: The group is teaching Muslim-Americans how to become Hollywood screenwriters.
Marium Mohiuddin, communications coordinator for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, says in the past the group had some success consulting non-Muslim writers and producers at Hollywood studios. But realistic depictions of Muslims, both positive and negative, are still rare, she says.
“The Muslim-American community is kind of at that point, ‘We’re like OK, we want these stories to be told. You’re not telling it, so we have to do it,'” she says.
Bringing In Hollywood Insiders
So they’ve enlisted insiders like Oscar-nominated Tom Cook to teach courses specifically tailored to Muslims.
“I’ve always thought of writers as outsiders, and who is more of an outsider in modern day America than Muslims?” Cook says.
Among those taking notes from the veteran writer is Pakistani-born Avais Chughtai.
“One of the things Tom Cook said [is], ‘What the Hollywood industry likes is experiences, you know, the personal experiences,'” Chughtai says. “But it’s up to us to actually go and write those experiences and share them.”
NPR for more
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