Monday, December 31, 2007

Make Me A Muslim

Wow.

Very interesting. And so reminiscent of the LDS limitations my friends tell me about in the areas of modesty, homosexuality (hilarious misconceptions about that, by the way), alcohol, etc.

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2 comments:

  1. ameliaDecember 31, 2007 at 2:12 PM

    i've only watched the first two parts, so i'm only responding to those. but a couple of things. first, i love carla's suggestion that all men be blindfolded in order to prevent rape. :) it's just a fabulous send-up of the argument that women should dress modestly so as to prevent men from raping them.

    the other reaction is a bit more serious. so far a lot of the presentation has been about what these people give up--or perhaps more accurately what is taken away from them--in order for them to live as muslims for three weeks. i understand why that's a focus. it's a big deal to make those kinds of lifestyle changes. but this experiment seems so incomplete. when someone actually converts to a religion because of spiritual conviction, the giving up alcohol or certain clothes, etc., is not so much about deprivation. it's about a spiritual rebirth. to represent islam--or mormonism or any other religion that asks its members to not participate in practices others may find perfectly acceptable--as only about what the people have to give up is a little disingenuous. and could simply reconfirms what i think are often inherently prejudicial understandings of another belief system.

    i'll be interested to see if the rest of the show illustrates not simply what these people have to give up, but what they gain by practicing islam. i don't know that it can be done in this kind of three week experiment, which seems on the face of it to be only about lifestyle and not about belief.

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  2. John WhiteJanuary 3, 2008 at 5:43 PM

    I think the third episode addresses what you're talking about. But not as much as I'd hoped.

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