Showtime’s Homeland has been criticized in the past for its depictions of Muslims and the Muslim world, but the latest criticism came from an unexpected source - the graffiti on walls behind the characters.
During the second episode of the show’s fifth season, which aired this past Sunday night, there was Arabic graffiti covering a fictional Syrian refugee camp. While most may have ignored it as just extra details, anyone who can read Arabic would have noticed that they were messages critical of the show. “Homeland is racist,” one message read. Another read, “Homeland is not a show.”
According to the New York Times, a group of artists - Heba Y. Amin, Caram Kapp and Stone - have taken credit for the graffiti, which went unnoticed by the show’s producers. The trio said they were hired to add authenticity to the show and they seized the chance to have their voices heard.
“Given the series’ reputation we were not easily convinced, until we considered what a moment of intervention could relay about our own and many others’ political discontent with the series,” Amin wrote on her website. “It was our moment to make our point by subverting the message using the show itself.”
Earlier on in her post, Amin noted that the show has “garnered the reputation of being the most bigoted show on television for its inaccurate, undifferentiated and highly biased depiction of Arabs, Pakistanis, and Afghans, as well as its gross misrepresentations of the cities of Beirut, Islamabad- and the so-called Muslim world in general.”
Alex Gansa, who co-created the show, told the Times that the producers wish they caught it. “However, as Homeland always strives to be subversive in its own right and a stimulus for conversation, we can’t help but admire this act of artistic sabotage,” he said.
Homeland has earned Claire Danes two Emmys and two Golden Globes and the show won Outstanding Drama Series for its first season.