Aside from the really touching moment at the end of the skype call in which Riz assured us that the place we are meant to be is where we are most uncomfortable, I think the most memorable and striking insight that he gave was when he said that all artistic expression is a political statement. To paraphrase, he added that politics is merely your perspective on the world. I think this is an interesting viewpoint in which we can begin to analyze the question of politics of representation, particularly in film/media. A question that was posed in both the skype session and in class was whether all portrayals of Muslims (and by extension, portrayals of all underrepresented people) must be positive. One argument that was made was that the mean hadn’t been established yet. I understood this to mean yes, an influx of positive portrayals were needed in order to establish the mean, and we could concern ourselves with nuanced and multi-dimensional portrayals once it has been established. While this is certainly an interesting argument to make (and with noble intention), I don’t know that I necessarily agree. For starters, who knows if that mean will ever be established. Certainly that it might be accomplished in this generation’s (particularly Muslim in this context) filmmakers’ lifetimes is unlikely. So then, what happens to those perspectives, those artistic expressions, those political statements that exist in the world today, a world where the mean doesn’t exist? Do they stay muffled or silent, for the sake of establishing that mean? I think that if we allowed this, we would lose a great deal of art that would attempt to challenge the negative portrayals in nuanced ways, as I believe Four Lions does.

Because I am a Muslim, I deeply understand the desire to be done with such negative, stereotypical, and damaging portrayals. However, I don’t believe that strictly positive portrayals are the solution. As Riz alluded to, these portrayals would not be entirely genuine anyway, as man is not perfect. I think there is room and space for films that do something new and interesting, that take these preconceived notions, stereotypes, exhausted narratives, and turn them into something more real. Not in the sense of giving them validity, but rather by adding dimensions of nuance, realism, and most importantly empathy.

In thinking about this, I do think the politics of interpretation certainly play a role in the discussion. I am reminded of the film Gone Girl and the massive controversy surrounding it. Interpretation played a huge role in the way the film was received, particularly how women were represented through the protagonist(antagonist?). Here we had a woman (Gillian Flynn, the female author of the novel upon which the film was based) being accused of misogny, similar to how I imagine some would criticize Riz, a Muslim, for his role in an “islamaphobic” film. I am not saying neither are possible, but I don’t believe that in either instance this is the case simply because the portrayal of the underrepresented/misrepresented (Muslim, women) was not strictly positive. This is deconstructed in this article, in which Gillian Flynn’s two cents are stated: “For me, it’s also the ability to have women who are bad characters … the one thing that really frustrates me is this idea that women are innately good, innately nurturing. In literature, they can be dismissably bad – trampy, vampy, bitchy types – but there’s still a big push back against the idea that women can be just pragmatically evil, bad and selfish…” Once again, it appears to all boil down to interpretation. Because of the very fact that interpretation plays such a big role though, I think we risk the positive or intended interpretation not existing altogether for fear that it might be misconstrued. I think that preventing an entire generation, and potentially generations to come, from expressing their world views, perspectives, artistic expressions/political statements, in the name of creating a mean, is more detrimental than beneficial in the long run. To challenge culture with a capital C, we must subvert it, not pretend it does not exist.