Type keyword(s) to search

TV TATTLE

Wajahat Ali: Ramy is refreshing -- I wish it was on when I was a kid

  • The Muslim-American CNN contributor, journalist and playwright says of Ramy Youssef's Hulu series: "Last time I checked, I was a human: Maybe there’s a place for media that convinces the general public of that. But when it comes to what I watch, I want much more. That’s why I wish that teenage Wajahat — who fasted during Ramadan, but also pined for Jennifer Lopez and Winona Ryder — had been able to watch Hulu’s Ramy.” Ali recalls being a 20-year-old college student at UC Berkeley on 9/11 when "overnight my worth, along with the worth of America’s millions of other Muslims, became linked to security....for my generation of Muslim writers at that time, that battle was often an exhausting, creatively bankrupt endeavor. It felt as if our fictional stories had to be potent talismans. They couldn’t afford to simply exist and breathe like our white colleagues’ narratives. They had to entertain, correct stereotypes, represent the community, educate Americans and fight Islamophobia. Mr. Youssef’s generation still suffers from the consequences of the Sept. 11 attacks, but he plays by new rules and refuses to be the perfect ambassador of Islam...In Ramy, the 'people living it' are messy, sinful, complicated, hypocritical — and hilarious. They are both good and bad. Mr. Youssef also wants audiences to do their own homework."

    ALSO:

    TOPICS: Ramy, Hulu, Brad Pitt, Ramy Youssef, Wajahat Ali, Music and TV, Muslim Americans and TV