Liberal multicultural TV can legitimate the security state as much as overtly racist shows
Evidence
Simplified complex representations are strategies used by television producers, writers, and directors to give the impression that the representations they are producing are complex. While I focus on television, film uses these strategies as well. Below I lay out what I have found to be the most common ways that writers and producers of television dramas have depicted Arab and Muslim characters after 9/11. While some of these were used more frequently (and to greater narrative success) than others, they all help to shape the many layers of simplified complexity. I argue that simplified complex representations are the representational mode of the so-called post-race era, signifying a new era of racial representation. These representations appear to challenge or complicate former stereotypes and contribute to a multicultural or post-race illusion. Yet at the same time, most of the programs that employ simplified complex representational strategies promote logics that legitimize racist policies and practices, such as torturing Arabs and Muslims. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 134 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Sympathetic multicultural portrayals can still legitimate racist policies — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 374; Sympathetic multicultural TV portrayals can still legitimate racist counterterrorism policies.; Multicultural TV representation serves as cover for legitimizing racist state policies (+10 more)
Broader Connections
- Multicultural TV representation serves as cover for legitimizing racist state policies
#corroborates(1.00) - Seemingly progressive TV diversity can legitimize racist policies and torture
#corroborates(0.95) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 134 - Seemingly anti-stereotypical TV portrayals legitimize racist policies
#corroborates(0.90) - TV dramas can avoid stereotyping yet still legitimize real-world torture policies
#exemplifies(0.90) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 291 - Sympathetic TV portrayals can still legitimize suspicion of all Arabs as threats
#corroborates(0.90) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 495 - TV dramas normalized acceptance of real torture of Arabs and Muslims
#exemplifies(0.90) - Sympathetic media portrayals can mask ongoing racist policy
#corroborates(0.85) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 92 - Stereotype-avoiding TV strategies still fail when plots center Arabs on terrorism
#corroborates(0.85) - Anti-racist TV narratives can still endorse the suspicion they supposedly rebut
#expands(0.80) - Ordinary viewers praised the show for teaching threat rather than diversity
#exemplifies(0.80) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 213 - Positive media portrayals of the enemy sustain racist policies by projecting benevolence
#corroborates(0.80)